Carla Cruz

I am interested in mobilities and its intersections with place, landscape and everyday life. Accordingly, I look into how such mobilities-oriented perspectives inform planning processes, particularly in the ways in which we make sense of and construct knowledge of place.

Connected to the MSCA-ITN project TOD-IS-RUR, I am exploring ways to develop methods for landscape analysis, part of the planning process that is relevant for capturing place-specific qualities. I specifically explore how this can be informed by everyday recreational mobilities and its relations to everyday place-making. Through qualitative fieldwork (inspired by, for instance, ethnography, praxiography and mobile methods) and thematic analysis, my work so far has dealt with examining (Swedish) landscape architectural practice, everyday mobile practices, and documents pertaining to landscape analysis as is enacted in the Swedish context.

My background is in architecture. I hold a bachelor's degree in Architecture from the University of the Philippines Diliman in the Philippines. After graduating, I worked professionally in an architectural firm in Singapore for six years. I worked as part of a consultant team tasked to coordinate and realise various projects and formed part of the design team for some design competitions. 

In 2018 I pursued a master's degree in Critical Urbanisms at Universität Basel in Switzerland, a multi-disciplinary programme which delved into urban discourses much orientated around the global South, combining perspectives from architecture, history, urban studies, geography and other social sciences. It was within this programme, following a study semester at the University of Cape Town's African Centre for Cities, that I was introduced to the field of mobility studies. I then pursued a master's thesis centred around commuting experiences and the calibrative rhythms enabled by a then-novel bus system in Metro Manila. I completed my studies in 2021. 

Currently I am undertaking my doctoral studies in landscape architecture, specifically in landscape planning at SLU Ultuna.