Lilith Unverzagt: Draußen!

You can draw a perfect line between two points on a screen.
You can draw an almost perfect line on sketch paper with a rollerball pen and a ruler.
You can stretch a straight line between two nails in a room with a piece of garden string. 
And you can draw a fleeting line in the landscape with your stride, which disappears again the moment it is created. 

We seek the way outside, where wind, light and water move the substance we work with and the body is the tool with which we design. In dialogue with what is already there, we cut, dig, water, sow and plant, adapting ourselves to the dynamic processes of change in the garden by remaining in motion ourselves. Outside – walking, seeing, understanding, being – is an essential part of the work of atelier le balto and a constant plea for the path to the outdoors. 

The landscape architecture firm atelier le balto works with an ecologically sustainable and artistic approach. Since its founding in Berlin in 2001 as ‘Inventeurs de jardins’, the German-French office has realized projects from Sweden to Italy and Canada, as well as in numerous locations in Berlin. Among other, atelier le balto has designed garden installations for renowned cultural institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Montreal Insectarium in Quebec, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and in Berlin: KW - Institute for Contemporary Art, the Jewish Museum and the Kulturforum. In 2022, atelier le balto received the Art Prize of the City of Berlin. Projects on an urban scale are being developed in Gothenburg and Hamburg. The BOB Campus in Wuppertal was awarded the German Urban Development Prize in 2025.  

Lilith Unverzagt has been part of the landscape architecture firm atelier le balto since graduating in architecture from the Berlin University of the Arts. She plans and researches at the interface of architecture and landscape and has been teaching as a research assistant at the Chair of Architectural History and Theory at the UdK since 2023.

Part of the IKA Lecture Series Winter 25: Hands on — Urban Landscape Practices in Europe
Curated by Thilo Folkerts and Christina Condak

As practitioners, the ways we act in and with urban space is undergoing critical revision. While our cities are in multiple crisis, the parameters of what forms the city are dynamic, the urban landscape is essentially fluid, as is nature itself. In recent decades standards in planning and building have had to be challenged. Learning while doing, using tools of participation and collaboration, working with experts of other fields, as well as hands-on engagement with the site and the future project are gaining importance as ways of finding agency. The lecture series focuses on European landscape architecture and urbanistic practices, adjoining critical and theoretical voices for contextualization and speculation on future acting.

Upcoming lectures:

Sarah Cowles, Ruderal (GRG / Tbilissi) 01.12. 2025 
Françoise Fromonot (F / Paris) 12.01.2026