Andrew Butler

My interests lie in discourses on landscape; who creates them and by what means. This takes me into issues of landscape identity, participation in landscape issues and landscape assessment as a means for forwarding these discourses. 

My empirical interest has increasingly focused on forest fires and their impact on connections to landscape.

I am engaged with lecturing and supervision through out the Landscape Architecture programme. My lectures focus on landscape theory, landscape change and landscape assessment as a tool for understanding a landscape, arguing for the values of a landscape and communicating landscape values.

I am responsible for the Master course LK0330: Landscape Architects methods and roles in comprehensive planning.

Current and recent projects:

ReaD-Fire  Researching and decolonising: Forest fires and indigenous landscape relations. Project leader, Annette Löf, Stockholm Environment Insitute (Formas, 2020).

A Balancing Act between Swift and Slow Planning: Reimagining deliberative planning in view of the urgency of sustainability challenge. Project leader, Camilo Calderon, Dept Urban and Rural Development (Formas, 2020).

Landscape management in the WUI to reduce wildfire vulnerability. Project leader, Frida Vermina Plathner, RISE (Formas 2021)

After a decade of building gardens and dry-stone walls across the United Kingdom, I undertook a program in Landscape Architecture at Leeds Metropolitan University (Now Beckett University) in the UK.

Upon graduating I began a career as a landscape planner – landscape architect, working in both the UK and Sweden.  The main focus of my work was with landscape (character) assessment.

In 2008 I began a Ph.d education at SLU, Ultuna, and 6 years later after periods of parental leave was awarded a doctoral degree for my thesis titled ‘Developing Theory of Public Involvement in Landscape Planning: Democratising Landscape’. My thesis subsequently won a Landscape Research Groups prize for best planning thesis in 2015.

I have since undertaken a two year post-doctoral position at SLU Ultuna. This was followed by an employment at NMBU (Norwegian University of Life Science) as an associate professor (førsteamanuensis), before returning to SLU as a researcher in landscape planning

I am at present main supervisor for the following PhD. candidates:

Daniel Valentini: Governance for Cycling Futures (ongoing)

Maglan Charles Sangenoi: Land use Dynamics in Small Towns: Analysis of Factors Shaping the Spatial Growth of Handeni Town, Tanzania (ongoing)

Co-supervisor the completed Phd's:

Paola Ledo: Planning in the context of weak planning institutions and lack of resources for implementation – the case of Sacaba, Bolivia (completed 2021)

Peer reviewed academic articles:

Butler, A. Eriksson, M. & Berglund. U. (2018). Can simple tools for mapping landscape values convey insider perspectives? Nordic Journal of Architectural Research.3 (2018), 57-80.

Knez, I., Butler, A., Sarlöv-Herlin, I., Sang, Å. Ångman, E., & Åkerskog, A. (2018). Before and After a Natural Disaster: Disruptions in Place-identity and Wellbeing. Journal of Environmental Psychology 55, 11-17.

Butler, A., Knez, I., Sarlöv-Herlin, I., Åkerskog, A., Sang, Å. & Ångman, E., (accepted Dec 2017) Relationships between landscape activities and landscape identity, in the case of catastrophic landscape change. Landscape Research, 44(3)

Butler, A., Sarlöv-Herlin, I., Knez, I., Ångman, E., Sang, Å. & Åkerskog, A. (2017) Landscape identity, before and after a forest fire. Landscape Research. 43 (6), 878-889.

Chmielewski, T., Butler, A., Kułak, A., & Chmielewski, S. (2017) Landscape’s physiognomic structure: conceptual development and practical applications. Landscape Research, 43 (3), 410-427.

Butler, A. (2016). Dynamics of Integrating Landscape Values in Landscape Character Assessment; the Hidden Dominance of the Objective Outsider. Landscape Research, in press.

Butler, A. & Berglund, U. (2014). Landscape Character Assessment as an approach to understanding public interests within the European Landscape Convention. Landscape Research, 39(3), 219-236.

Butler, A. & Åkerskog, A. (2014). Awareness-raising of landscape in practice: an analysis of Landscape Character Assessments in England. Land Use Policy, 36(0), 441-449.

Publications in Swedish

Berglund, U., Eriksson, M., Nord, J., Butler, A., Antonson, H., Hammarlund, K., Hedfors, P. & Åkerskog, A. (2011) Om landskap och landskapsanalys för väg och järnväg: ett kunskapsunderlag med fokus på begrepp och exempel. Uppsala: Rapporter Institutionen för stad och land.

Berglund, U., Nord, J., Eriksson, M., Antonson, H., Butler, A., Haaland, C., Hammarlund, K., Hedfors, P., Thiirmann, R. & Åkerskog, A. (2013) Landskapsanalys för transportinfrastruktur - en kunskaps- och metodredovisning för utveckling av väg- och järnvägsprojekt i enlighet med den Europeiska landskapskonventionen. Ultuna: institutionen för stad och land.

Ph.D thesis:

Butler, A. (2014) Developing theory of public involvement in landcape planning: democratising landscape. Ph.D, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences: Uppsala.

Book Chapters:

Butler, A. (2018). Landscape assessment as conflict or consensus. In eds. Egoz, S., Ruggeri, D. & Jørgensen, K.  Defining Landscape Democracy. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Butler, A. (fothcoming) A critical approach to teaching landscape Assessment. In eds. Jørgensen, K., Karadeniz, N., Mertens, E. & Stiles, R. The Routledge Handbook for Teaching Landscape.

Book reviews:

Butler, A. (2017). Landscape analysis: investigating the potentials of space and place. Landscape Research, 42 (7), 806-807.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew_Butler15