In her new role at ETH Zurich, Aisling O’Carroll brings a historical lens to one of landscape architecture’s most urgent questions: how do we design for a changing climate by learning from the past? In this interview, she reflects on the value of historical research, the potential of design-based methods in teaching, and the Swiss Alps as a uniquely rich site for understanding landscape change, resilience, and future transformation.
How does the historical approach shape your vision for the future of landscape architecture, especially in the context of climate change?
Climate change today is, to a large extent, the result of centuries of changing human use – and misuse – land and natural resources. A historical perspective is therefore an important part of understanding the processes, actions, and decisions that have led to our current environmental conditions. For landscape architects, it is particularly important to understand how past practices have shaped landscapes, communities, and the vulnerabilities and transformations we see today.
Looking to the past also allows students and practitioners to learn from both successes and failures, helping us develop more informed and effective design responses for present and future challenges. This historical perspective should encompass not only the evolution of landscapes themselves, but also the development of our profession and the tools we use. By reflecting critically on how landscape architecture has evolved, we can continually reassess how we practice, design, and communicate in ways that respond to contemporary needs and future uncertainties.
In current research with my group, for example, we are studying protection forests in the Alps and investigating how these forest systems are adapting environmentally and functionally to climate change. We are examining how risks are shifting across the landscape, as well as the diverse ecological and societal functions these forests provide. A critical part of understanding their performance today is understanding how the surrounding landscapes have been managed over time and how historical land use and landscape transformation have influenced both risk patterns and forest structure.
By examining these forests within their broader landscape and socio-cultural contexts, we can better understand their present and future roles while also drawing practical lessons from past management practices. In this way, a critical historical perspective is not separate from design; it is a key part of developing appropriate and resilient responses to the challenges of today and tomorrow.
How might your integration of rigorous historical research with digital tools and design challenges influence landscape architecture teaching methods at ETH Zürich?
In landscape architecture – and often in architecture more broadly – history and theory are frequently taught separately from design studio work. I see this as a missed opportunity. Bringing these components closer together can enrich the way students learn to read sites, interpret landscapes, and engage critically with history. This is something I intend to develop in my teaching at ETH Zürich, where I will contribute to both history and theory courses and design studios within the MSc Landscape Architecture programme.
In my recent research, I have explored how design tools such as drawing, mapping, model-making, and mock-ups can also serve as methods of historical investigation. For example, carefully redrawing historical representations or design projects can reveal aspects that might otherwise remain unnoticed, offering new perspectives on how ideas of landscape were conceived and constructed. These methods allow us to engage with historical material at a different level of detail and understanding.
Design-based approaches generate forms of knowledge that differ from those produced through conventional historical research and writing alone. As landscape architects, we are uniquely positioned to develop and apply these methods through our design skills, and this creates opportunities for innovative and critical ways of engaging with history that are particularly relevant to designers.
At ETH Zürich, I plan to incorporate design research methods into the teaching of history and theory while bringing historical inquiry directly into design studio work. Teaching will also become a space for testing and refining new methods for landscape architecture, helping students engage critically with both the past and the future of the discipline.
You have a very international professional background – both in academia and practice – and completed your studies abroad. What do you find so fascinating about the Swiss Alps for your research? Are there other regions or types of natural or urban landscapes that interest you as sites for reconstructing and imagining possible futures?
Yes, it is true that my studies and professional experience have taken me to many different places. In a sense, I have gradually moved closer and closer to the landscapes I have been studying over the past several years, finally arriving here, in close proximity to the foothills of the Alps!
My interest in understanding the political, social, economic, and historical forces that shape landscape conservation and management began through early research on sites within the U.S. National Park Service and was further developed through professional practice focused on ecological restoration and landscape transformation. For several years, I worked with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates in the United States, contributing to large-scale projects that integrated ecological, infrastructural, and public-realm objectives. Among these was the renaturalisation of the mouth of the Don River in Toronto’s Port Lands – a 715-acre post-industrial waterfront transformed through a landscape-led approach that restored riparian habitats, remediated contaminated land, expanded public access and recreation, and provided critical flood protection infrastructure. Working on projects of this scale and complexity offered valuable insight into the interconnected urban, industrial, ecological, and social dimensions of contemporary landscapes, as well as the challenges of translating ambitious environmental goals into built reality through design and construction. Although this work was rooted in a North American context, and many of the issues were specific to those places, the broader questions it raised about landscape change, stewardship, resilience, and long-term management remain relevant across geographic and cultural contexts.
Likewise, Switzerland presents its own distinctive context for landscape management, and a particularly unique situation when considering the exceptional combination of publicly accessible information, long-term environmental data, and institutional support for developing and testing new approaches in the field. At the same time, research conducted in the Swiss Alps has the potential to inform knowledge and practice not only across the wider Alpine region but also in mountain landscapes globally.
What fascinates me most about the Swiss Alps is the extraordinary density of landscape histories and interpretations embedded within them. I am especially interested in the relationship between the extensive scientific networks dedicated to environmental, landscape, and climate monitoring and the rich cultural traditions, historical records, and local practices that shape understandings of the landscape – and I look forward to learning more about these dimensions of the landscape from my new position at ETH Zürich.
In the context of climate change, the Swiss Alps offer a particularly compelling setting for exploring the interactions between these scientific and cultural dimensions. As a landscape undergoing rapid transformation and experiencing some of the most visible effects of climate change, the Alps provide a valuable lens through which to examine how societies understand, manage, and adapt to environmental change.
How do you think you can learn from the NSL Network and, conversely, contribute to it through your approach?
The NSL Network offers exciting opportunities to engage with researchers addressing questions of public space, landscape, and the environment from a wide range of complementary perspectives. I am joining an exceptional team within the MSc Landscape Architecture programme, including Professor Teresa Galí-Izard and Professor Martina Voser, whose work I greatly admire. My research both complements and differs from the focus of their respective chairs, creating opportunities for productive exchange and collaboration.
I am also excited by the prospect of collaborating with colleagues across the broader NSL Network, including those working on territorial and urban scales, environmental systems, and construction processes. While we may approach similar questions from different perspectives, these differences often create the most productive conditions for interdisciplinary research and innovation.
In particular, I look forward to contributing to the development of research through the Large-scale Virtualisation and Modelling Lab (LVML), currently led by Professor Adrienne Grêt-Regamey’s chair. The lab offers significant opportunities for collaboration around shared interests in the analysis, management, and design of landscape and environmental systems. I am especially interested in exploring how historical perspectives and design-based research methods can contribute to these ongoing conversations and help expand the ways we understand and model landscape change.
Since July 2025, Aisling O’Carroll has been appointed Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Landscape Architecture at ETH Zürich, Department of Architecture (D-ARCH). She is a designer, researcher, and licensed landscape architect, trained in both architecture and landscape architecture. Her practice and pedagogy integrate design with history and theory methods to address pressing social, ecological, and environmental issues. Her present research examines critical and experimental approaches to reconstruction as design. This work addresses the relations between landscape architecture and interdisciplinary fields including architecture, geology, and climate science, drawing on concepts and practices from a range of fields including science and technology studies, feminist studies, archaeology, and art history. She is co-founder and co-editor in chief of The Site Magazine.
