What is the future of peripheral landscapes and radically depopulating mountainous regions and how do we, as architects and urban researchers, address the challenges of those regions?

Extending the focus of urban research beyond the traditional city boundaries, this lecture will discuss processes of urbanisation that occur at peripheral landscapes, seemingly intact areas of nature and uninhabited land. In particular, it will revisit the mythicised landscapes of Arcadia in Greece, framing a contemporary, radically depopulating mountainous region at the southern outpost of the Balkan peninsula.

How can one critically investigate the formation of a peripheral landscape in relation to a broader historical, political, and geographic context? What social and ecological pressures emerge and which agencies are at stake?