Inventing Greenland Book Launch

Through the lens of urbanization, Inventing Greenland provides a broad understanding of a unique island undergoing intense transformation while drawing attention to its historical and current challenges and emerging opportunities. Geared towards architects, landscape architects, and urban planners, this book examines the local cultural, social, and environmental realities with a distinct spatial sensitivity, recognizing the diverse array of relationships that the built environment both supports and produces. By exploring Greenland as a complex and interconnected cultural and geographical space, Inventing Greenland reveals and anticipates transitional moments in the region’s highly intertwined urbanized, militarized, and touristic landscapes.

Bert De Jonghe is a Belgian landscape architect, the founder of Transpolar Studio, and a Doctor of Design candidate at Harvard University. He earned his Master in Design Studies degree at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design after completing a Master of Landscape Architecture at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Previously, he worked as a research assistant at Harvard GSD’s Office for Urbanization and with landscape architecture offices in Belgium, South Africa, and Norway. Bert's recent publications include "Inventing Greenland - Designing an Arctic Nation" (Actar Publishers, 2022) and "The Opening of the Transpolar Sea Route: Logistical, Geopolitical, Environmental, and Socioeconomic Impacts" (Marine Policy Journal, 2020).

Mia Bennett is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington. As a political geographer with geospatial skills, she researches cultures and practices of frontier-making in the Arctic from the local to regional scales. Her current area of focus is the Nordic littoral, where she is examining the impacts of the construction of commercial spaceports on northern communities. Bennett's methods combine fieldwork and critical remote sensing, a subfield whose development she is helping to lead. Since 2009, she has run a blog on the Arctic, Cryopolitics. Bennett received a PhD in Geography from UCLA and an MPhil in Polar Studies from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Scholar.

We are delighted to welcome Bert and Mia to the Architectural Association Bookshop to celebrate the launch of this great new publication over refreshments.

Launch Price £25 RRP £29