The effects of human activity have reached every square metre of the earth and beyond, such as through carbon or nitrogen emissions, which has led Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen to propose a new geological age, the ‘Anthropocene’. In parallel to many contemporary philosophers and scientists, this notion declares that the traditional, dualistic Western understanding of nature as something independent from human influence is obsolete. The ‘Anthropocene’ needs new, unitary concepts of nature and culture. This article discusses two inspiring unitary concepts from Japan; Imanishi's seibutsu no sekei (world of living things) and Watsuji's fudo (milieu). In a reflection on two landscape architecture projects, this article comes to the conclusion that the profession is already capable of designing in a unitary mode, beyond simple dichotomies of nature and culture. This asset should be cultivated, and for this the correct usage of terms is quite important. However, this is difficult due to the fact that the traditional meaning of nature is still very influential in professional communication, and that the terms of the inspiring Japanese concepts are either too complicated or too Inspired by Kandinsky's idea of ‘and’, the unitary concept of ‘andscape’ is proposed to integrate the ideas of both Imanishi and Watsuji. By using the term ‘andscape’, a dualistic, divisive understanding of nature and culture becomes impossible—instead, the focus is on the dynamic relations between humans, animals, plants, stones, water, and all other elements in the world.

Novel strategies in coastal protection are needed to cope with climate change-induced sea level rise. They aim at the sustainable development of coastal areas in light of intensification and land use changes. A promising approach is the design of nature-based solutions (NbS), complementing the safety levels of technical infrastructure. However, NbS lack a widespread and large-scale implementation. To address this deficit, co-design concepts are needed that combine experiences from science and practice. This work presents and discusses the approach of a coast-specific real-world laboratory (RwL) addressing the inclusive design of ecosystem-based coastal protection. Strategies of RwLs are applied for the first time in a coastal context along the North Sea coastline in Germany. We found the concept of RwLs suitable for coastal transdisciplinary research, although adaptions in the spatial reference level or flexibility in location and time of experimentation are necessary. A profound actor analysis is indispensable to specify participatory processes and interaction levels. A criteria-based cooperative selection of RwL sites helps to reveal and solve conflicting interests to achieve trust between science and practice. Addressing site-specific characteristics and practitioners’ needs, our coastal RwL provides a mutual learning space to develop and test NbS to complement technical coastal protection.

‘We are ambitious … JoLA is for those seeking to shape, to change and to expose landscape architectural thinking. A serious task. We seek to explore new intellectual and physical territories but al...