Jose Alfredo Ramirez is an architect co-founder and director of Groundlab (recently placed as a design laboratory within the AA) and Co-Director of the Landscape Urbanism MArch/MSc Graduate Programme at the Architectural Association. He studied Architecture with honours in Mexico City and a Landscape Urbanism MA at the Architectural Association.

Over the course of his AA Landscape Urbanism directorship, the programme has been transformed from a master in arts into two degrees: masters in science and in architecture, adding a number of research areas and degrees of resolution. In terms of research areas, the programme has expanded into contemporary cartographic practices (projective, remote sensing and participatory cartographies), digital and physical simulations of landscape dynamics (numerical models in riverine, arid and coastal landscapes), and European landscape policies and its impact in the built environment (cities, metropolitan, areas and productive landscapes). The master has also delved into the concept of territory to understand the social, legal, economic, and political aspects of Landscape Urbanism as a discipline, proposing unique design thesis that deal with large territorial scales through to architectural and landscape proposals.

At Groundlab, At Groundlab, he leads research design projects on how the built environment impacts climate change, landscape design and urbanisation in the global south and has led the development of projects at the junction of architecture, landscape and urbanism in a variety of contexts such as Argentina, Chile, China, Mexico, Spain, Russia, Chile, UK among others. He has experience working in large-scale urban projects such as the redevelopment of a 12km distance of Santiago de Chile's main avenue, Alameda/Providencia into an integral transport and urban corridor, envisioning how a Green New Deal will impact in Glasgow UK.

Alfredo has published and lectured worldwide on landscape urbanism as well as the work of [...] Alfredo is a dual Mexican and British citizen and has published several articles in English and Spanish, including the book Critical Territories as well as given lectures on the topic of Landscape Urbanism and the work of Groundlab worldwide.

About the Guest-Editor 5

José Alfredo Ramírez

Introduction 6

Designing Landscapes

How Policies Shape the World

José Alfredo Ramírez

Visualising a 12

Transformative Space that Puts People

and Climate First

Miriam Brett

Crises and 20

Contestations

The Promise and Peril of Designing a Green New Deal

Billy Fleming

'Raising the Stakes 28

for Landscape' in the Climate Crisis

Clara Olóriz Sanjuán

Just Transition 36

Rewiring Carbon-Pollutant Landscapes and Labour into a Community Forestry Framework

Elena Luciano Suastegui, Rafael Martinez Caldera and Yasmina Yehia

Dynamic Domains of 44

Antarctica

A Design Model of Global Commons in Sync

with Planetary Metabolism

Daniel Kiss and Swadheet Chaturvedi

Take Back the Land 54

Godofredo Enes Pereira, Christina Leigh Geros and Jon Goodbun

Making Space for 62

Green Work

Julian Siravo

Taking Apart 70

Buildings and Systems

In Converstaion with

Mae Bowley of Re:Purpose Savannah

Jane Mah Hutton and Alison Creba

The Red Deal 78

Decolonising Climate Action

Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió and Danika Cooper

Design Perspectives 86

from the Global South

The Case of Mexico

José Alfredo Ramírez

Country-Led 96

Approaches in Land Management and Design

Liam Mouritz and Alex Breedon

Monsoonal Solidarity 104

A Global Approach to Climate Justice

Lindsay Bremner

Town, Country and Wilderness 112

Planning the Half-Earth

Troy Vettese, Drew Pendergrass and Filip Mesko

Towards the Abolition of the Hinterlands 120

Kai Heron and Alex Heffron

From Another Perspective 128

A Rapturous Delight in the Natural World

Laurie Chetwood

Neil Spiller