In the face of the impending crisis of the biosphere, the debate in the design disciplines has been attracted to the disciplinary precincts of ecology and its dynamics, while the notion of landscape continuum tends to englobe that of territory. The intention to contaminate traditional land transformation approaches with sustainable approaches derived from landscape ecology has been recorded. At the same time, a particular focus on the study of the metabolism of territorial entities has emerged beside the traditional interest in the study of their morphology. This paper tackles the theme of the special issue on ‘Constructed Natures: Shaping Ecologies through Landscape Design’ by adopting the recurrent method of human sciences, via discursive analysis of literature and case-studies. First, the paper characterizes the origins and reasons for the ecological crisis. Secondly, we review the recently growing interest developed in the landscape design disciplines for the ecological/metabolic aspects vis-à-vis the traditional focus on morphological/compositive aspects. Finally, we review three case-studies representative of distinct contemporary approaches to landscape reform responding in distinct manners to the impending ecological crisis. The compared analysis of the case-studies identifies strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches. The paper’s conclusions summarize the profile of a virtuous approach to the reform landscape apparatuses and draw possible lines of further research and experimentation in the field of landscape design and its relationship to ecology.

In December 2022, the COP15 for Biodiversity approved the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a protocol for the protection of planetary ecosystems that complements the Paris Agreement on Climate Change with the aim of preventing the collapse of the biosphere. A global network of areas with different degrees of naturalness and anthropization, capable of halting the loss of biodiversity and reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is projected to extend over 30% of the Earth by 2030 to be further consolidated by 2050. The agreement raises a multiplicity of issues that landscape design engages: the conservation of species and ecosystems of the biosphere; the environmental requalification of degraded terrestrial and marine areas; the equitable management of ancestral lands and the rights of indigenous populations; the protection of cultural landscapes and the support of local communities; the abandonment of both the unsustainable exploitation of territories and the musealizations and vernacularizations at the service of global tourism; the enhancement of the ecological contributions of degraded, exploited or underutilized areas, on the inhabited margins or in the operational hinterlands of planetary urbanization; the stwewardship of contemporary anthro-ecological systems towards new forms of equilibrium, conventionally defined by the terms of sustainability and resilience. In short, the Kunming-Montreal agreement requires us to imagine new forms and structures for the evolution of urban and rural space and, at once, new areas for the resurgence of nature. In the colossal, collective undertaking envisaged, the trans-disciplinary design of the contemporary landscape seems to have the opportunity to conquer vast fields of operation and a key role that goes beyond both the technical action of environmental engineering and the taxidermy of natural and cultural conservation. The design of the landscape is in fact called upon to implant a new meaning on portions of the planet, tiny fragments hidden in forgotten interstices, vast settlement or productive expanses, logistical corridors or segments of natural systems. This issue of Ri-Vista collects reflections, experiences, and cases, from the local to the geographical scale, in which the landscape design is capable to establish new ecologies and new ecosystemic balances, while transcribing in situ new narratives and new topologies, scenarios of re-signification of places and dynamics between society and nature, and, with that, new meanings of our living on Earth.

Different disciplinary fields have contributed to expand the semantic area of the term ‘coevolution’, from classical biology to philosophical reflections, to the most recent debates on the col- lapse of planetary ecology. Today, the discourse on coevolution focuses on the urge to redefine the relationship between human society and nature and to consistently coordinate the spatial trans- formations imposed by the former upon the latter. In this text, two opposite perspectives on how to re-imagine the spatial organization of the Earth are compared: anthropic withdrawal from half the planet vs. construction of a technologically governed natural-anthropic assemblage. These perspectives directly engage the ambit of the practices and the objectives of landscape design. Two cases of reform of large landscape systems, representative of such opposite positions, are analyzed. Concluding remarks hypothesize forms of constructive synergy between such approaches, philosophically evoked, proactively formulated, but still distant from an operative implementation.