Open spaces are under increasing pressure from many sides. Studio Vulkan seeks to gain a deeper understanding of these diverse demands as well as the contradictions that arise from countervailing expectations. Designing landscapes for us means to accept and moderate these contradictions, using the productive tension they bring about as a driver for developing new solutions. We devise strategic and experimental design languages that interpret the conditions of the site and its users in innovative and lucid terms. Our goal is to sound out designs that are at once conceptually convincing and eminently pragmatic, this approach allowing us to explore the potential of a given landscape in a direct, dynamic, and playful manner. We question the landscape, at large and small scale, in its physical as well as social context, and as atmospheric and experiential space. Apart from the confrontation with the everyday professional tasks, through our wide palette of projects, we simultaneously explore possible questions and responses that we believe are central to further developing the contemporary discourse and creating a landscape architecture able to increase human sensitivity, meaning and responsibility towards our natural and built environment.
Our approach reflects the international and interdisciplinary expertise of our four partners, whose backgrounds trace a line from landscape architecture to urban design, city planning and art, merging traditions from Switzerland, Germany and the USA. The team of Studio Vulkan Landscape Architecture, with headquarters in Zurich and Munich, comprises around 40 professionals. Founded in 2014, Studio Vulkan was formed through the merger of Schweingruber Zulauf Landscape Architects and Robin Winogrond Landscape Architects. The firm’s principals are Dominik Bueckers, Lukas Schweingruber, Jochen Soukup and Robin Winogrond.
