Industrial landscapes are territories modified by people where industry is the most defining cultural process or agent of change. They can be terrestrial or maritime, such as fishing or oil-extraction seascapes. They can also be aerial or orbital if we consider satellites and spacecraft as part of the telecommunications and transportation industries. In terms of types, they are often identified by the most prominent activity developed within them (mining landscapes, railway landscapes, etc.). Industrial landscapes are more difficult to delimit chronologically, as many are diachronic. In this workshop, we broaden our perspective to view industry within its larger physical context and explore how these landscapes can be studied, preserved and revitalised. To do so, our speakers combine landscape and industrial archaeology, industrial heritage protection and sustainable renewal, and landscape architecture and design to examine exemplary cases from Britain, South Korea, China and Brazil.
The East-West workshop series aims to exchange ideas and knowledge between Western and Eastern colleagues to develop a more international and diverse industrial archaeology. The event is jointly organised by the Institute for Cultural Heritage and History of Science & Technology (USTB, China) and the UK Association for Industrial Archaeology.
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PLACE:
Zoom (online meeting).
Register for FREE to get the Zoom link to the event here:
DATE & TIME:
21 November 2026, Saturday.
10.00-12.00 (London time)
SPEAKERS & TALKS:
- Stephen WALKER (Friends of Moor Pond Woods, England): "Spinning Yarns: A Tale of Landscape Archaeology in the Leen Valley of Nottinghamshire, UK"
The cotton spinning mills developed in Nottinghamshire (England) by George Robinson and his sons in the late 18th century were acknowledged by contemporary writers to be pioneering. Faced with a crisis in their water supply, their early use of steam power was groundbreaking. Furthermore, their impact on the landscape was considerable. From the 1960s, researchers identified surviving earthworks and catalogued aspects of the business. Exploration of the mill water system (as an ongoing community archaeology project) since 2000 has revealed more detail about their innovative approach to maintaining production with their water wheels, using a modest stream and a combination of surface water storage and groundwater sources. This presentation introduces the site and some of the findings.
- Hyun-Jin CHUN (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China): "Line Forest Park Design in Seoul, South Korea"
This lecture presents Seoul’s landmark Gyeonguiseon Linear Park, a transformative railway-to-green corridor regeneration project constructed from 2010 to 2016 on a disused 6.19 km rail stretch spanning Yongsan Community Centre to Gajoa Station, with a total area of 140,170 m². The core design framework adopts the triple “Green Conveyor” concept to establish integrated sustainable urban infrastructure covering ecology, socio-economy, and local history and culture. The site is segmented into four distinctive thematic zones: a History Zone showcasing railway industrial heritage, a Culture & Art Zone tied to surrounding university art communities, a Community Relaxation Zone featuring ecological waterways and multi-use leisure lawns, and a Nature Ecology Zone merged with Hongjecheon Stream. The design preserves original rail tracks, recycles subway groundwater for artificial streams, and builds interconnected pedestrian and cycling routes linking major Seoul waterfront and urban parks. Resident-led park steward councils drive community engagement via art galleries, outdoor libraries and local markets. This case demonstrates how obsolete rail infrastructure can revitalise marginal urban zones, enhance biodiversity, lift regional vitality, and create inclusive public green space balancing ecological value, cultural memory and everyday community life.
- Fang WEI (Beijing Forestry University, China): “Re-imagining Machine and Garden: Public Perception of Post-Industrial Landscapes from a Human Factors Perspective”
Post-industrial landscapes represent a complex intersection of industrial heritage, spontaneous nature and contemporary urban life. Their regeneration requires not only the preservation of physical remains, but also an understanding of how people perceive and experience these transformed environments. This presentation introduces a human factors perspective on post-industrial landscape research, focusing on the interactions among industrial remains, natural elements and new design interventions. Through empirical studies combining questionnaire surveys, image semantic segmentation, eye-tracking experiments and physiological measurements, the research examines how different landscape configurations influence public perception, preference, visual attention and emotional response. Findings show that industrial elements are important carriers of identity and visual attention, while natural succession can enhance ecological and experiential qualities when appropriately balanced. By linking measurable human responses with physical landscape attributes, the study demonstrates how perception-based evidence can inform more sensitive, adaptive and publicly responsive approaches to the regeneration of post-industrial landscapes.
- David Lugli Turtera PEREIRA (São Paulo State University, Brazil): “Archaeometric Characterisation of Bricks from the Paulista Co Workshops (São Paulo State, Brazil): Raw Materials, Technology and the Production of São Paulo’s Railway Landscape”
This talk explores how bricks from the Paulista Co’s workshops in Campinas and Jundiaí (São Paulo, Brazil) evidence the formation of the railway industrial landscape from the late 19th to the early 20th century. Drawing on the chaîne opératoire approach, it relates environmental setting, raw-material procurement, technology, production and the circulation of building materials. Eight samples were collected and characterised using physicochemical analyses. The results revealed ferruginous aluminosilicate matrices with quartz-rich inclusions and geochemical affinity with local or regional clay sources. Variations in raw-material selection, paste homogenisation and fabric orientation indicate a shared yet flexible technological tradition, shaped by resource availability, forming practices and firing conditions. Estimated firing temperatures ranged from 750 to 900 °C and produced partial sintering. The samples enable reconstruction of a chaîne opératoire extending from the geoenvironmental availability of resources to their material embodiment in railway buildings, fundamental to the making of a distinctive industrial landscape.
