Landscape Architecture and the Quality of Life : The Story of Relativity within the Transitional Settlements

The quality of life and human well-being is often perceived differently, dependable on individuals and groups, as well as within contrasting socio-political circumstances, varying from the many concepts such as respecting the living standard based primarily on income to the benefits that society receives from ecosystems. From the early beginnings as a professional discipline, landscape architecture has been respecting the quality of life and human well-being to a great extent, as a subject of professional interest and accordingly, through approaches used to address it. While those goals are mostly the same, the engagement in the scope and complexity of the discipline is significantly increasing over the years, but still targeting the traditional paradigm - to contribute to the improvement of the living conditions and quality of life. However, the majority of the projects are predominantly dealing with urban areas and the life of the urban population related to the upper- and middle-class social groups. Contrary to the above considerations, there is a layer of social groups of those who are forced to leave their homes in the times of crises, either caused by natural disasters, but even more of those seeking sanctuary due to the political turbulences and wars. The consequences of those tragic events can be found within different communities, including refugee camps or transitional settlements. Those places bring poor living conditions, lack of space, and numerous environmental problems, where even just the provisioning and supporting categories of ecosystem services are dependable on the input of external factors while regulating and cultural categories seems to be almost out of question. This paper describes the results of the “e-scape. Transitional settlement” Project, organized by the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management at American University in Beirut, in collaboration with the International Federation of Landscape Architecture. The goal of the project was to contribute to the improvement of the living conditions in the transitional settlements including the provision of even elementary ecosystem services in, at least, a bit greater extent. The additional intention was to broaden a methodology and guidelines of landscape architectural interventions within settlements resulting from conflict and natural disasters.