Topos curated by West 8: Infrastructures.

This week (14th December) the first-ever curated edition of topos, the international review of landscape architecture and urban design, was published. At West 8, we are delighted to have been the firm to temporarily take editorial charge!

Every edition of topos magazine is dedicated to a different topic and deals with a broad array of projects and planning work in countries all over the world. West 8’s chosen theme for the 117th edition was ‘infrastructures’. We conceived the issue as a mixtape – a series of fresh, and sometimes even opposing case studies to highlight how the multi-layered attitude of systemic thinking takes precedent over scale, boundaries, and timeframes. The resulting collection is a combination of viewpoints and research on contemporary approaches to infrastructures by a range of global authors in diverse fields.

By way of introduction, West 8 also produced a cumulative manifesto – CLOVER21 – for designing the city of the 21st century: a cultivated, landscape-foreward, open, vibrant, ecological, and responsive city.

“CLOVER21 is a layered series of categories for self-reflection and analysis, a moniker for putting overarching goals at the forefront of every intervention. Moreover, it is a mindset for how to read cities and built environments, and a way to design for them. Working with a systemic lens can uncover and present disparate layers of places as pieces of a puzzle, and, with the right connective tissue, enable us to read between the lines and create a holistic picture.”

We would like to thank our collection of collaborators and clients for providing their insights and content, as well as our internal editorial board and peer review committee for their invaluable help. We hope you’ll enjoy reading topos 117!

Guest contributors in order of appearance:

Cover image: Jeroen Musch

For more information, and to purchase your copy, please order directly from Georg-media: Link

Topos curated by West 8: Infrastructures.

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