Earth Scientist (National Autonomous University of Mexico)
Elena teaches Histories and Theories and Policy Design seminars at the Landscape Urbanism MSc and MArch programme at the Architectural Association. She is a research fellow at the Groundlab Research Residency at the Architectural Association, where she has been conducting semi quantitative and qualitative studies of site-specific projects in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the UK in collaboration with the British Geological Survey, the University College of London, and the British Council. She has taught in the Mexico Visiting School at the AA, at the Royal College of Art, and at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her work focuses on the verticality of territories, its imaginaries, epistemologies, and disciplinarian tensions in relationship to contemporary design praxis. She also conducts workshops situated in the interstices between soil sciences, collaborative ethnography, its imaginaries and materialities in site specific practices in collaboration with UK Landscape Design institutions.
Her work is also situated alongside community approaches through soil and land management. These collaborations take place within London, South East Wales, and the periphery of Mexico City. The collaborations unfold as cartographies, archives, and other forms of media.
Research & Design
Soil Health Clinic London
Patlachique common lands and ecologies
Architectural Association Landscape Urbanism tutor
Royal College of Art Environmental Architecture studio tutor
Decentralised Water Solutions for Mexico City and its Metropolitan Area
Field Office Workshop 1
Infográficos de campamentos en riesgo en Chile
Just Transition: the (Un)intended consequences of Greening
Writings
Just Transition: Rewiring Carbon-Pollutant Landscapes and Labour into a Community Forestry Framework.
Landscape architecture Insights | The next generation | Part 3 – Our Future Woodlands
Just Transition: The (Un) Intended Consequences of Greening
AA Landscape Urbanism with Rafael Martinez Caldera and Yasmina Yehia
In the South Wales Valleys, draining coal in the past gave rise to an extractive system that fuelled Britain for decades. Their closure in the 1980s transitioned the towns to the current highest deprivation levels in the country. The project looks at how the energy transition apparatus of the UK impacts through various scales: from its global multinationals, to their greenwashed policies, and local woodlands. The framework of Just Transition is interrogated and rethought through a community forestry model for the Valleys, where challenging environmental forestry conservation empowers local voices, redesigning a new co-relationship with their landscape.