Research Fellowship: Judith Lösing

Judith Lösing joins the Architecture Foundation for the new Research Fellowship.

Judith Lösing joins the Architecture Foundation for the new Research Fellowship.

Image: Judith Lösing

Judith Lösing is an experienced architect, senior lecturer and director at East. After working as a joiner she studied architecture in Cologne and received a two-year DAAD scholarship to study at the UEL, where she graduated with a distinction. She has been working with East since 2000 and became a director in 2005. East has become internationally known for its patient and innovative role in adjusting and improving the urban fabric and its uses.

As part of the Architecture Foundation's Research Fellowship, Lösing will be exploring how trees can be used to give shape and identity to London, rather than just mitigate the negative effects of cities.

"London’s built environment is in a crisis. In the context of a financial and environmental breakdown, the making new architecture has become a dirty luxury; a guilty pleasure so stingy no-one is enjoying it. The public realm is often called to rescue spatial and programmatic arrangements it has no say in, too often invited late to the party. Yet even here a lack of space, funding or commitment to maintenance means that while ambitions are high the outcomes are usually mediocre and generic. Spaces between buildings that are determined by a minimum of modesty with regards to overlooking and overshadowing are interchangeably called squares, pocket parks or home zones. They are filled with permeable concrete paving, forlorn rain gardens, wooden play equipment and random trees. Instead of the public foreground London needs, the green spaces delivered are often too contingent, fragmented and default on nature to make good places.

Trees, if selected and placed with clarity and care, have the potential to become architecturally assertive, culturally, socially and spatially relevant as buildings and squares used to be. They can help us make sense of our neighbourhood and the city; urbanising spaces (in the most socially profound manner) in ways that ground us in place and time."

Throughout the Research Fellowship; a series of talks and walks will be a part of the Architecture Foundation's public programme.