Call for Submissions
AJLA Issue 0
10
titled
Reframing the African Landscape
is now open for submissions.
As June draws to a close and we step into the second half of the year 2025, we’re reminded—through Anita Urasa’s reflection—that Africa’s urban future is not ahead of us. It’s already here. The challenge now is to read our landscapes with urgency, care, and hope. To design not just beautiful places, but equitable futures.
This month’s newsletter may be brief, but it carries weight. Bernard Oberholzer’s moving tribute to the late Richard Weller, the chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, at his alma mater, reminds us of the deep, expansive calling of landscape architecture—a profession that bridges life, memory, and meaning. In moments like these, we’re reminded of the fragility of life, and the power of landscapes to hold it all.
As we prepare for IFLA Africa/ILASA September 2025 in Pretoria, one thing is clear: African landscapes are not waiting for the future—they are the future.
Here’s to shaping it, together.
Mark your calendars for the upcoming ILASA/IFLA Africa Conference, scheduled for 25–26 September 2025 at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria, South Africa. This event promises two days filled with insightful talks, expert speakers, and valuable networking opportunities.
Attendees can look forward to:
• A dynamic programme featuring industry leaders from across Africa
• A networking cocktail event on 25 September
• A guided tour of two key locations in Pretoria
Registration Fees:
• ILASA Members & IFLA Affiliates: Early Bird ZAR 3,850 / USD 214; After 31 May ZAR 4,300 / USD 239; Virtual Attendance ZAR 3,000 / USD 167
• Non-Members: Early Bird ZAR 4,700 / USD 261; After 31 May ZAR 5,200 / USD 289; Virtual Attendance ZAR 3,500 / USD 195
• Students: Early Bird ZAR 600 / USD 34; After 31 May ZAR 700 / USD 39; Virtual Attendance ZAR 200 / USD 11
For more details and to register, please visit the official conference page: ILASA Conference 2025
Do not miss this opportunity to engage with professionals shaping the future of landscape architecture in Africa!
By Bernard Oberholzer
The May Issue of the IFLA Africa Newsletter carried a news item on the passing of Richard Weller, Australian Landscape Architect. I did not personally know Richard Weller, but he was for many years the Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, my Alma Mater.
The University of Penn’s Weitzman School of Design Newsletter carried a short biography and numerous tributes on Richard Weller, accessible at https://www.design.upenn.edu/post/remembering-richard-weller-1963-2025
The newsletter mentions Weller’s 2023 retrospective exhibition at the Melbourne School of Design entitled The Landscape Architecture of Richard Weller, and his guided tour can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idi4fsar4-Q.
The talk is well worth watching, especially by young landscape architects and students, as it gives an astonishing view of the breadth of landscape architecture as a profession. Some of the memorable takes from Weller’s YouTube talk are the need to test the boundaries of landscape architecture as a discipline, ‘until it breaks’.
Also seeing the site as being ‘elastic’, being part of the larger landscape or city. The need to take risks, to invent your own work, to love what you are doing, and for landscape architecture to scale up, were all part of his philosophy.
Watching the video, re-emphasised for me how important it is to have one foot in practice and another in academia, and furthermore how important it is to write, as this brings a level of discipline to one’s work and rigour to one’s design.
The tributes from some of the most important thinkers of landscape architecture are also worth reading as they give academics an insight into how a landscape curriculum should be organised so that the sequence connecting design studio with lectures, seminars and workshops, makes sense. By helping to found the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, Weller pushed the profession into critical areas of research inquiry that spanned not only continents, but the entire globe.
He took Ian McHarg’s work to another level. I found that reading the tributes to Richard Weller, and watching the video, very re-affirming, even after my own 50 years of practice and teaching in the field of landscape architecture, and therefore important to share with readers. I believe that IFLA Africa, and IFLA World, can take many lessons from this, and a great deal of heart as well.
