The value of the cultural landscape heritage, its accessibility, preservation, landscape protection zone rating, avoidance of blocking or releasing viewlines (silhouettes, panoramas) etc. – these are the issues which are very little reflected in municipal documents. The documents mainly consist of decisions and support to meet practical or business-friendly needs. Along with the increased attraction of EU investment in agriculture, the mentioned issues become even more aggravated – at which expense the areas and the respective payments are increasing? The answer is one – at the expense of the landscape. In each of Latvian counties, there are territories that cannot lose historical value and we must search for a mutually beneficial algorithm. EU funding projects must contribute to the preservation of the cultural landscape heritage, i.e. to the introduction of Europe's best philosophy and practices. The recovery of the cultural landscape, including maintenance works and its progress in postsocialist areas, is not an easy task, knowing the existing ownership and the economic situation in the country. Will we really get a greater contribution to the state economy from the amount of threshed centners than from the preservation of landscape values in the long term? A task of crucial importance is the research of each region's landscape space, the development of a concept and elaboration of project documentation. As the study shows, Latvian greenfields and cultural heritage calls for the actions to form several areas of the museum reserve.

The research focuses on active leisure areas created in the 21 ^st century, identifying the main planning trends. Based on the obtained data from the literature review, the mutual comparison method was used to survey territories in Latvia and Estonia. The research showed that it is necessary to change the approach in planning to meet today’s requirements by developing uniform planning principles and guidelines and increasing awareness of general quality requirements for all parties involved.

The visual-spatial dimensions of architecture are constantly changing, architects and urban planners are aware and understand the need for a healthy, active, vibrant public outdoor space, creating viable, economically and rationally suitable living spaces in the urban environment [12]. A comprehensive approach to sustainable architecture and design with a green structure combines a high-quality urban environment. In modern architecture, one of the perspective directions in the development of visual-spatial environment and structural forms is related to the active and continuous synthesis of the design and construction process in the urban environment [13; 4]. In recent years, the tendencies of rationalism and commercial nature based on technological progress have entered architecture and create a need for the architects to purposefully cooperate with the urban planners in the elaboration of development plans. The format of mutual cooperation brings together and rationally balances various dimensions of the urban environment in a compact visual-spatial structure. Thus, the aim of the research is to determine the visual-spatial dimensions of modern residential buildings in the context of sustainable urban development.

This article deals with the implementation stages and approaches of the trilateral cooperation “university – student – local government” as well as the benefits and limiting aspects in a real territory planning context. The research summarises the evaluation of the Latvia University of Agriculture (LUA) landscape architecture studies experience in cooperation with 41 municipal and national organisations and 4 unions from Latvia since 2013. Key findings point to the following benefits: the university as a provider of study process obtains a better insight into the topical problems and issues regarding the territorial/territory planning, it has an opportunity to promote the study programmes and the work quality of the future specialists; the greatest benefit for the students is that they can be better prepared for a real work in their chosen profession and they gain experience in real project work which later will be reflected in their CVs; the gain for the local governments is that they have a scientific substantiation for making more appropriate decisions with regard to the further development of the territory, and they have more variants of ideas for a specific territorial development. Restricting factor is time which is determined by the study courses.

Jelgava (Mitau), the former capital of the Duchy of Courland and the Russian province, was a flourishing town until WWII and post-war period when it experienced enormous devastation. Before WWII the town embodied a strong influence of German cultural environment in architecture, art and science, which was wiped out by the Soviet totalitarian regime in 1940. It is possible to conclude that after the turn of the 21st century Jelgava has taken rapid steps towards modernism in urban development. It is due to the prospective development of new multi-storey residential areas and solutions that can be integrated in the city of Jelgava from the experience and practice of the Nordic region. The build-up areas of the city are surrounded by several small rivers. This ecological factor could be used for the formation of large blue-green recreational areas, which is a high-quality indicator for the creation of multi-storey residential areas in the future. The research explores and analyzes the synthesis of nature, cultural heritage and modernism development tendencies in the 21st century.

Multi-storey residential areas in Latvia and their living outdoor space built in the 21st century form inadequate conditions in some of the investigated areas in the relation to the modern development trends in context of Scandinavian countries. The present research analysed the blue-green infrastructure by means of the selected criteria which determine the nature of the living outdoor space and its potential for use. The theoretical assumptions of blue-green infrastructure in the context of the Scandinavian countries were examined, and functional design of residential block of flats, use of greenery, water resource potential, socio-economic aspects, environmental accessibility solutions, transport areas and visual aesthetic quality indicators were analysed. The authors compared and analysed 27 living outdoor spaces in the multi-storey residential areas in Rīga, Mārupe, Baloži, Jūrmala and Ozolnieki. The results are obtained from the analysis of the designed matrix for the research purposes on the basis of the previously examined areas in Copenhagen and Roskilde (Denmark), Oslo and Arendal (Norway), Stockholm and Malmö (Sweden) in the time period from 2011 – 2018 and the investigated residential blocks of flats in Rīga, Mārupe, Baloži, Jūrmala and Ozolnieki. The research results characterize not only the diversity of the current situation regarding the blue-green infrastructure, but also the inadequate conditions of outdoor living space in some areas.