This post is brought to you by The Land Art Generator Initiative

We live in a time of crisis. And yet the future is full of promise. The future is full of promise because of you. Because architects, landscape architects, artists, and designers have the power to create positive change. 

This is most certainly true when it comes to action on climate change. Over the past decade of Land Art Generator Initiative design competitions, we’ve seen it happen. Throughout this article you’ll find example entries to previous LAGI design competitions. We hope they will inspire you to take part in LAGI 2022 Mannheim, open now through September 4, 2022. Participation is free and open to anyone anywhere in the world.

Through LAGI 2022 Mannheim, you can take climate action, get your great design published in a gorgeous hard-bound book by Hirmer Publishers, have your idea seen by millions of visitors to the BUGA 23 German Federal Horticultural Show, and potentially win $30,000 USD!

Design to accelerate climate action

The gloom and doom of climate science projections can leave us with feelings of climate despair, hopelessness, and a lack of imagination for a better future. The German word for this is Zukunftslosigkeit, which loosely translated means “futurelessness.” The consequence of this mass social condition is a political deficit that threatens to stall the pace of change.

The good news is that you have the antidote to Zukunftslosigkeit! Through your creativity you can give people a beautiful vision of a post-carbon future to run towards rather than just a climate apocalypse to run away from. 

A thriving world powered by abundant solar, wind, and water energy is already technically possible. It is a world of energy democracy, of innovation and creativity, where circular modes of production and regenerative technologies rid the world of scarcity. We can have this world if we want it. The key is to make us want it.

Germany and the energy transition

As Europe faces the most serious energy challenge of our lifetime, Germany is center stage. The Bundestag recently passed revisions to the Renewable Energy Act (Erneuebare Energien Gesetz), which will expand renewable energy to 80% by 2030. The changes include provisions that give solar and wind installations priority over some land preservation concerns. 

This means it has never been more important to bring renewable energy into the heart of the city. Generating electricity near to where it is consumed is the most resilient and cost-effective solution. It eases the burden on rural landscapes and natural habitats, and eliminates the need for new high voltage transmission lines.

If we're going to bring more energy into the city, we need to be conscious of how it relates to people and culture, what co-benefits and public amenities it provides, and how it can help to advance broader goals of sustainable development.

The LAGI 2022 Mannheim design competition—Beautiful Forms of Energy—is an opportunity to weave renewable energy into the city in ways that improve human thriving.

The future of energy looks good

In our quest to discover what cultural co-benefits climate solutions can provide, we can learn from the inherent beauty in natural systems that reflects their steady-state—established over eons of coevolution—where the life cycles of living things are set in harmony with the energy and the material resources that naturally flow through them. Nothing is wasted, and all that is required to thrive, to defy entropy, comes from the sun, the wind, and the flow of water.

Could it be that when humans are capable of designing such systems, we will discover inherent beauty emerging from them as well?

Enter LAGI 2022, upload your design by September 4, 2022, and help to influence the future of Spinelli Park in the City of Mannheim. Your design may just be the spark the world so desperately needs to open the door to a better future.

For more about the Land Art Generator Initiative and details on how to participate, click here. To learn more about BUGA 23, click here.