{"id":6746,"date":"2025-09-26T15:17:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/?p=6746"},"modified":"2025-10-03T08:10:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T08:10:43","slug":"lecture-by-smout-allen-super-mega","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/2025\/09\/26\/lecture-by-smout-allen-super-mega\/","title":{"rendered":"Lecture by Smout\u00a0Allen: SUPER-MEGA 7\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone is welcome to join us for the Going Public lecture by Smout\u00a0Allen (UK)<\/strong><\/p>\n

“SUPER-MEGA”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Date: 07\/10\/ 2025, 6.30 PM
\nLocation: Alexianenplein 1, 9000 Gent (Auditorium A4)
\nLecture in English
\n+\u00a0Open Bar<\/p>\n

Please register here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Professor Mark Smout and Professor Laura Allen (www.smoutallen.com<\/a>) are based at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where they both teach Architectural Design and co-direct its Landscape Architecture Masters programmes. Through their design research practice, Smout Allen, they explore architecture\u2019s relationship with environmental and territorial change. Their teaching supports diverse, speculative agendas that bridge architecture with the humanities, sciences, and arts. Exhibited internationally, including at four Venice Architecture Biennales, their work combines conceptual design with innovative representation and passive systems. Their students (Unit 11) regularly receive major awards, and their collaborations span institutions such as MIT, the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries, the British Council, and Williams F1 to name but a few. Their practice has designed exhibitions for the Wellcome Institute, the V&A and the Tate. They have won the Architecture Award from the Royal Academy and have been presented with Honorary Fellowships\u00a0 from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in recognition of their contribution to teaching and the profession.<\/p>\n

This lecture examines two of their recent projects, \u2018Rescue Lines\u2019(Commissioned for the 2021 Venice Biennale) and \u2018Super-Mega-Ruralistic\u2019, a speculative design project that rethinks industrialized landscapes as adaptive, interdependent systems.<\/p>\n

\u2018Rescue Lines\u2019 proposes a world in which the forests of the United Kingdom, both ancient and modern, can be expanded, restored, and connected once again. The project takes the form of a series of south-to-north ecological bridges\u2014linear super-landscapes\u2014along which displaced or endangered species can safely travel and threatened human economies can thrive.
\nCommissioned for the 2021 Venice Biennale, the project explores the future of green infrastructure through the lives of those who engage with it. Rescue Lines connects ecological zones and economic territories at the same time, suggesting that longitudinal lines of connection, bridging forests across the United Kingdom as a model for sites elsewhere, can help us all prepare\u2014hectare by hectare\u2014for a climate-changed world.<\/p>\n

\u2018Super-Mega-Ruralistic\u2019 is a speculative design project that rethinks industrialized landscapes as adaptive, interdependent systems. Building on the Tennessee Valley Authority\u2019s legacy of engineered landscapes, this project proposes raised platform farms that mitigate flooding while enabling new forms of habitation and ecological restoration. Elevated structures create a dynamic interface between high-tech agriculture and riparian regeneration, addressing climate resilience at multiple scales.
\nAt the project’s core is luxoir, a concept paralleling terroir in winemaking. Through precision UV modulations linked to localized renewable energy fluctuations, luxoir shapes crop characteristics while redefining agriculture as a spectral, energy-responsive system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone is welcome to join us for the Going Public lecture by Smout\u00a0Allen (UK) “SUPER-MEGA” Date: 07\/10\/ 2025, 6.30 PM Location: Alexianenplein 1, 9000 Gent (Auditorium A4) Lecture in English +\u00a0Open Bar Please register here. Professor Mark Smout and Professor Laura Allen (www.smoutallen.com) are based at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where they both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[188,50,1,298],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6746"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6760,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746\/revisions\/6760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-archkuleuven.be\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}