The course focuses on issues of reading, understanding and designing the environment and landscape, with particular emphasis on issues related to the management of the environment and landscape through the contemporary application of intelligent management systems, through a variety of aspects that can be identified in urban and peri-urban space. In particular, it examines the relationship between the natural landscape and urban development, exploring possibilities for the protection and conservation of natural elements within the urban fabric, methods of analysis and understanding of the environment and landscape and the multiparametric relationships that govern them, new technology tools and methodologies for their management, urban and peri-urban planning processes in the light of wider socio-economic, functional and morphological correlations, as well as interesting applications from the Greek In this context, the course turns a particular interest towards the concept of the urban ‘landscape’ as this is a key issue for a number of scientists and a wide range of disciplines: ‘ landscape architects, who reasonably believe that the design and shaping of the “landscape” in urban space is their main concern, ‘ the architects, since their buildings are always integrated into a pre-existing “landscape”, urban or extra-urban, transforming it and proposing new structures and uses. But mainly because this compositional process contributes to the formation of an “architecture” of the landscape. Besides, contemporary architecture displays a particular “landscape-friendly” mood, giving its buildings a form similar to that of the natural landscape, covering their surfaces with planting elements and calling them “landscape configurations” instead of “buildings”. ‘ urban planners, researchers and designers of urban space. Not only because cities have always been the predominant ‘landscape’ of culture, but because, today, modern sustainability requirements promote the active positive association of the city with the natural elements, the ‘local’, in other words, urbanism. Even more intensively, using parametric design, urban planning and urban design attempt to attribute to urban structures forms related to those of the natural landscape. ‘ environmental sciences, since it is now obvious that we cannot talk about environmental relations limited to physical elements only, but there is a need to deal with much broader and complex urban/social ecosystems, i.e. “cultural landscapes”. ‘ the applications of new technologies that change social relations and affect the management of the public space of the city with significant implications for environmental issues, ‘ philosophy, since it recognizes the importance of local references for the formation of modern Western thought, for the representation of the relations of societies with their contrasting and complementary natural background, for the projection of their political views. In other words, for the construction of an “environmental ethics” and even more broadly of a local “ethics”. ‘ the fine arts, in all their versions, with perhaps the most pronounced version of that more specific landscape art we call “Land Art”. Therefore, the history of art that proves that today, as in the past, the interpretation and representation of the landscape is one of the most central themes of expression in Western culture. The interest in ‘landscape’ therefore describes a region central to contemporary culture and, more typically, an ‘epistemically’ central region. Not only ‘epistemologically’ central, important for the constituted sciences, but ‘epistemically’ central, that is, important for the whole range of scientific approaches and pre-scientific dispositions, ideologies or visions, the wider ‘spirit of the age’ which allows knowledge to emerge. The course covers, among others, the following topics/cognitive units: ‘ Conceptual background of the environment and landscape. ‘ Dominant environmental problems and environmental and landscape management problems in urban areas. Categories, questions, criteria. Impact on the natural and man-made environment. ‘ Planning approaches for the protection and management of the environment and landscape. Objectives, methodologies and design tools. Applications of new technologies and innovations. ‘ European Union and other international policies and directives on the urban environment and landscape. ‘ Greek European and international experience. The course has a seminar character and is organized around two main axes. The first is a series of presentations by the teachers, which aim to approach and analyse, through examples, specific concepts, institutions, procedures, problems, policies, etc. for each of the above-mentioned sections of the course, but also to offer triggers to the participating students for reflection, research and discussion. The second axis focuses on the students themselves, who, drawing on the above presentations, but also based on their personal concerns, opinions and positions, will have the opportunity to explore theoretical and/or practical issues / aspects of the environment and landscape, starting from central Athens, which will be used as a case study for the needs of the course. These explorations will be presented and discussed during the course and will gradually feed into a short written and/or design/composition project, which is the final deliverable for the successful completion of the course.