This course addresses the relationship between spatial heritage and environmental and social crises of our times as a point of departure. We will start by assessing a real-life pressing challenge and discuss how we can approach it with heritage, landscape, and architectural history research methodologies. In this course, we will thus simultaneously get acquainted with socioenvironmental challenges, critical theoretical perspectives, and research methodologies, with the aim of preparing students for their thesis. We bring these together in presentations on location as well as individual research papers. Critically assessing historical maps, authoring landscape biographies, and evaluating other historical sources will be part of this research project.

After following this course, the aim is that you as a student, will be able to:

• Understands the roles of heritage research in landscape, architecture, and the city and its overlappings with neighboring fields of knowledge and action.

• Make the link between past and future transformations of the landscape, and to relate them to the overarching, global condition of climate change and other socioenvironmental challenges.

• Understand what a research methodology in the study of architecture, cities, and landscapes, is as well as the differences and limitations of various methods.

• Carry out a small piece of research about landscapes or built environments, by posing a research question, designing a methodology, applying some methods, and writing an essay.

• Function, collaborate, and produce knowledge within a team of researchers with various disciplinary and cultural backgrounds