DOI: 10.11118/978-80-7701-087-0-0411

URBAN VOIDS AS LIVING LABORATORIES: AN EDUCATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR RESEARCH-BASED REGENERATION

Miroslav Čibik¹

¹ Institute of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Horticulture and Landscape Engineering, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, 949 76 Nitra, Slovakia

Urban voids—often perceived as neglected or residual spaces—can serve as valuable platforms for experimental learning and applied urban research. This paper presents an educational framework that utilizes urban voids as living laboratories for research-through-design approaches in landscape architecture education. The study focuses on a vacant lot located on Jesenského Street in Nitra, Slovakia, where spontaneous successional vegetation has gradually occupied an unused gap within the compact urban structure. The site served as a model territory for an intensive one-week educational workshop involving landscape architecture students. The workshop followed a structured research-based design process that included on-site observation, spatial documentation, and a questionnaire survey capturing perceptions of the site and its potential uses. Based on the collected data, students conducted basic spatial analyses and developed experimental design proposals exploring different transformation scenarios. Rather than producing a single solution, the workshop generated a set of conceptual strategies representing diverse spatial approaches—from minimal interventions preserving spontaneous vegetation to more structured systems and gradual transformation scenarios redefining the relationship between wilderness and designed public space. The synthesis of these proposals resulted in a series of design principles and recommendations applicable to the regeneration of small urban voids.

Klíčová slova: research through design, participatory workshop, urban gaps, successional vegetation, urban greenery

stránky: 411-414, Publikováno: 2026, online: 2026