London

MSc Landscape Urbanist (Architectural Association)
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.

_elenaluciano

Research & Design

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

Patlachique common lands and ecologies

January 2024 - Ongoing
Sierra de Patlachique
Estado de México, México

for Abrahán Rodríguez Buendía and CONABIO

The common lands in the Patlachique mountain have undergone a series of afforetation projects based on short term initiatives from government initiatives that have imposed foreign trends on vegetation structures. The current project consists on a collective design of an ecological succession for Texcoco watershed in Mexico City metropolitan area, articulating small crom rotation, terrain stability, and water and soil retention. The project unfolds into a 25 year plan for the reintroduction of native vegetation and terracing in collaboration with the local communities administering these lands and the National Comission for Biodiversity in Mexico (CONABIO).