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About the journal

General Presentation

Founded in 2008, the journal Projets de Paysage focuses on emerging issues in research in and the practice of landscape architecture. Its aim is to build a critical perspective of the disciplines which fall within the scope of and are challenged by the practice of landscape architecture. To this end, the journal highlights the need to disseminate knowledge and know-how in a domain involving the natural, human, social and political sciences. Such a positioning at the crossroads of these different fields guarantees a rich, singular and original scientific output providing many opportunities for reflection on the major environmental, cultural and societal issues of our time.

Supported by the French national schools dedicated to training landscape architects and urban planners, it aims to deconstruct, clarify and theorize landscape policies and practices and their evolutions. The journal's ambition is to provide support for and to report on involved research of a high scientific standard. Projets de Paysage seeks to serve researchers and practitioners by providing them with knowledge about landscapes, their transformations, the ways they are represented and analysed, and the operational aspects involved in interventions on the landscape such as design, management, transformation, awareness-building, and mediation.

Two issues of Projets de Paysage are published per year. Each issue includes two sections focusing on a common topic or theme: one entitled “Thematic Dossier” (in French, "Dossier thématique") and the other “Raw Materials” (in French, "Matières premières"). Another separate section entitled "Varia" provides a forum for a wide variety of authors and points of view. In addition, with the aim of encouraging ongoing research and its dissemination, the journal publishes a selection from contributions submitted for the Doctoral Landscape Conference (in French, Journées doctorales en paysage), an event organized every two years by the national network of schools of landscape architecture in France. The intention behind this special section is to provide doctoral students and young researchers from a wide cross-section of universities and schools with an opportunity to present their approaches. Projets de Paysage is managed by an editorial board made up of teacher-researchers from the French national schools of landscape architecture (Institut Agro Rennes-Angers, ENSAP de Bordeaux, ENSAP de Lille, ENSP de Versailles-Marseille, INSA CVL-ENP de Blois). This editorial board operates on a collegial basis and is assisted by an international scientific committee. A review committee is set up for each issue according to the theme explored and a publication manager oversees editorial coordination.

Projets de Paysage is referenced in various national and international databases. It is also included in the list of scientific journals drawn up by the French High Committee for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (in French, Haut conseil de l'évaluation de la recherche et de l'enseignement supérieur (HCERES).

Editorial Line

In recent decades the notion of the landscape has gained prominence in scientific research and in the defining of public policies for regional development, urban planning and heritage management. This heightened awareness of the landscape has generated new mindsets and practices in recent decades, inspired by new perspectives on the relationships between societies and their environments.

The development of landscape research has been driven, in part, by the widespread need within the scientific community to create a new space for the construction of knowledge acting as an interface between the natural, social, and political sciences. Landscape research has also benefitted from the desire to approach social and environmental issues from the perspective of cultural representations, the construction of different subjective viewpoints and the ability to discern between such viewpoints. At the same time, in practice, it seems that the notions of landscape project and of landscape policy integrate the ecological, cultural and aesthetic dimensions of the living environment and the links established over time between societies and their environments.

At the confluence of these different movements and currents of thought, the journal Projets de Paysage seeks to contribute to the renewal of practices, interpretations and approaches in the field of landscape architecture. To this end, it intends to play a leading role in critical thought in this field where the terms “project” and “landscape” are widely used in public policy making and governance. There is a need to explain the reasons behind the expansion of the spatial dimensions of the landscape project and to compare it with the other types of projects with which it tends to be confused and/or associated, such as projects for regional, urban, agricultural, or social development. This scientific journal is intended as a tool for explaining and theorising about professional landscape practices and their evolutions, irrespective of whether landscape architects are involved. Rather than promote a specific professional practice, it aims to serve researchers and practitioners by generating knowledge about landscapes, their processes and the operational modalities of their transformation.

The ambition of Projets de Paysage is to contribute to the construction of a critical point of view on the boundaries landscape architecture challenges or reinforces, as well as to challenge the professional, scientific, social or artistic practises involved in landscape architecture. What modes of collaboration are being devised in urban planning and development which focus on and encompass the landscape? What are their effects? Which methods and tools are emerging? How do they take into consideration the individual perceptions, social representations and values that the landscape conveys? As for the material representations - graphic, photographic or video – the creativity and the in-situ realizations they inspire raise the question of intervention on and through the landscape. These representations also involve challenging the visual and polysensory culture of which they are a part in theory and in practise. This critical exercise involves both reflection and action, for that reason the journal seeks to attract involved research.

Such is the perspective adopted by Projets de Paysage. Providing a common instrument for French schools of landscape architecture, while being strongly committed to opening up research in landscape architecture beyond the network of these schools, the journal seeks to contribute to the renewal of a landscape culture and to the recognition of the landscape as a field of original research for implementing relevant and often innovative methods.

The Sections

Thematic Dossier

Each issue of Projets de Paysage focuses on a specific topic. The Thematic Dossier section contains articles on a theme related to ongoing landscape research and the journal's editorial line. These articles must comply with the generally accepted rules for the drafting of scientific articles. They must present the research question, the hypotheses, the methodology used in the study, a discussion, and the findings in a clear and structured manner.

The articles in the “Thematic Dossier" section are selected following a call for articles issued at least one year before the scheduled publication of the journal. This call for articles presents a set of arguments drafted by the coordinators of the section defining the theme studied and presenting the objective of the Thematic Dossier and its main orientations. There is also a list of bibliographic references to delimit the field of research explored. It is up to the coordinators to decide on the order in which the selected articles are presented and to write the introduction to the dossier.

Raw Materials

The purpose of the “Raw Materials” section is to collect and publish texts of various forms (notes, stories, commentaries of images, descriptions, interviews) relating to the central theme of the current issue. These contributions may be testimonials, feedback following a personal experience, or any type of contribution from a professional concerning his or her own work that may provide food for thought or a counterpoint to academic contributions on identical subjects. The aim of this section is to offer the possibility of disseminating less conventional and more personal texts, which do not necessarily conform to a scientific approach, and to closely follow research being carried out in the field of landscape architecture and the management of landscape projects.

The articles, selected following a call for papers, must be in a short format (15,000 to 30,000 characters maximum), and must be original and royalty-free. They are published after being read and approved by the editorial board and the coordinators of the issue.

Varia

In the “Varia” section the journal publishes articles which are outside the central topic chosen for the issue and are submitted spontaneously by their authors. However, they must fall within the scope of the review - landscapes, their production processes, and the operational modalities of their transformation - and correspond to the editorial line defined by the editorial board. These articles may be submitted at any time.

Researchers in the Making (in French, Chercheurs en devenir)

The “Researchers in the Making” section contains a varied selection of articles presented at the Doctoral Landscape Conference. The purpose of this event, organised every two years by one of the French schools of landscape architecture under the aegis of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, is to bring together doctoral students and graduates from a wide cross-section of universities and schools whose research work focuses on landscape architecture and landscape projects, thus providing them with an opportunity to debate and exchange on their respective research themes and methods.

Legal Information

The review Projets de Paysage is under the joint management of ENSAP Bordeaux, ENSAP Lille, ENSP Versailles-Marseille, INSA CVL-ENP Blois, Institut Agro Rennes Angers. The journal is a member of the OpenEdition platform and uses the Lodel "open source" electronic publishing software.

It is financed by the Ministry of Ecological Transition.

The texts on this site are the property of their authors who have given permission to Projets de Paysage to publish them. Authors undertake to submit only unpublished manuscripts. The originality of the articles is the sole responsibility of their authors.

Any total or partial reproduction of the manuscripts and/or illustrations contained on this site for other than private use must cite the original published in the journal.

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