Lærke Sophie Keil

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• CV
• Research outputs

Lærke Sophie Keil is an assistant professor at the Department of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Copenhagen. Focusing on planning and renovation processes, the role of landscape in the life of public housing estates, their past, present and future, her research situates itself between the physical planned landscape and changing ideas of welfare. Her research focuses on the green transition of and in landscape architecture. With a focus on resource scarcity, the role of materials and circularity, Lærke examines how landscape architecture can contribute to a more sustainable agenda. From a design and cultural heritage perspective, Lærke works with concrete barriers and potentials in the materials and elements of the landscape, as well as with the development of new methodological approaches to work more circularly.

She has a PhD in landscape architecture and planning (2022). In the project Practicing Welfare Landscapes, presented in the thesis "Microhistories of Landscape Elements", Lærke has investigated the relationship between the landscapes in the post-war large residential landscapes, their materiality and changing use. The thesis discusses through concrete landscape elements how changing ideas about welfare have shaped the landscapes over time, both through residents' own practices and imaginations, and through political action plans and subsequent transformations. The project was part of the large research project Reconfiguring Welfare Landscapes (Welland) supported by the Free Research Council (2017-2021), and supervised by Svava Riesto, PhD, Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the University of Copenhagen, and Tom Avermaete, Dr. Prof., Chair for the History and Theory of Urban Design, ETH Zurich.

Lærke teaches across bachelor's and master's courses, with a firm focus on design processes and project development.