Discussion “The City and Ecology”

Public Programme curator Povilas Marozas will speak with researcher Indrė Umbrasaitė and landscape architect and urbanist Daniel Rea about the relationship between the city and ecology from two perspectives — research and practice.

Indrė Umbrasaitė will discuss how our lives are being transformed simultaneously by the environmental crisis, pervasive digitalisation and artificial intelligence. These challenges are creating a new, multilayered paradigm of living that operates across different scales and increasingly blurs familiar distinctions between the personal and the collective, the private and the public, the human and the non-human, and the inside and the outside.

Technological and ecological proximity, despite geographical and political distances, is changing the way we understand our relationship to place and environment and requires new strategies for sustainable ways of living together. Within this expanded reality, the city becomes a kind of planetary testing ground. Indrė will explore this idea through two research and design projects developed in different academic contexts, both examining forms of social and ecological coexistence in the Alpine city of Bolzano.

Daniel Rea will approach the relationship between the city and ecology from the perspective of landscape and urban practice. Daniel Rea is a landscape architect, urbanist and founder of “Periscope”. In the practice’s work, urban and landscape design is understood as an engagement with constantly changing ecological, social and spatial relationships.

From this perspective, the city is not a system separate from natural processes, and ecology is not an additional requirement to be taken into account during the design process. Ecological processes, landscape, local character and people’s lives instead become equal participants in the design process.

The discussion will be held in English at the City Change Pavilion. Participation in the event is free.

Indrė Umbrasaitė is an architect working across professional practice and academia. In her projects, she develops architecture in dialogue with art, design and curatorial practice, while drawing on landscape thinking to develop the concept of “naturescultures” within spatial practice.

She studied architecture in Vilnius and Vienna, where she completed a master’s programme led by Zaha Hadid. She has also studied cultural history and anthropology, as well as interior design. She has worked in architectural practices in Vilnius, Salzburg and Vienna, where she led a range of private and public-sector projects.

Indrė Umbrasaitė worked as an assistant professor in Kazuyo Sejima’s studio at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (“Angewandte”) and at the Institute of Architecture and Landscape at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). She has also taught at Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) within the ATTP programme as part of “Studio SOL”. She is currently an associate professor at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and a doctoral researcher at the Doctoral School of Architecture at Graz University of Technology.

Indrė Umbrasaitė is the editor of several publications on architecture and education and regularly collaborates with and contributes to the interdisciplinary initiative “MIT Climate Visions”. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012 (“Syn-Anti-Clastic”), 2018 (“The Swamp School”) and 2025 (“Wetland Games”), as well as in the exhibition “Critical Zones” at ZKM Karlsruhe in 2020–2021.

Daniel Rea is a landscape architect, spatial planner, co-founder and director of “Periscope”. He has more than twenty years of experience leading complex landscape architecture, urban design and spatial planning projects in the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.

For the past fifteen years, Daniel Rea has worked in London, where he has designed and delivered some of the capital’s most complex projects. Working with private developers and local authorities, he has developed extensive experience in the design, planning and delivery of complex landscape architecture and public-space projects involving multiple stakeholders.

Daniel Rea leads the strategic direction of projects at “Periscope”. He has been a visiting critic at The Bartlett School of Architecture and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He currently serves on several Design Review panels in London and is a Chartered Member of the UK Landscape Institute.

Urban Change Pavilion Public Programme

Over the past decade, Panevėžys has undergone significant changes in its architecture, public spaces and cultural infrastructure. The Urban Change Pavilion talk series invites a critical reflection on these transformations and asks how urban change can involve local initiatives, respond to social and cultural challenges, and address a rapidly changing ecological environment.

Pavilion Architecture
IXL Studio (authors: Petras Išora, Ona Lozuraitytė; architects: Gabrielius Dovydėnas, Dovydas Alčauskis)

Graphic Work
Nerijus Rimkus

Public Programme Curator
Povilas Marozas

Project Manager
Vilius Vaitiekūnas

Communication Coordinator:
Šeila Žilinskaitė

Public Programme Coordinator
Urtė Pirugytė

Image used in the promotion of the Public Programme:
sesupe.com

Project financed by
Lithuanian Council for Culture, Panevėžys City Municipality