Founded by Professor Kathryn Moore, Critical Artistic Thinking in Design (CATiD) brings together a broad variety of academics with various expertise to develop a new attitude towards landscape.
CATiD's multidisciplinary network of academics and practitioners work together to create an integrated and cohesive approach to landscape and infrastructure. CATiD aims to explore and advance the possibility that a new idea of landscape can change the identity and reputation of an entire region.
The Centre's research aims to place quality of life and sustainability-oriented transformation of the region at the top of the political agenda. We are doing this by investigating and proposing a new innovative and territorial approach to spatial planning and delivery, one that is based on an in depth understanding of the physical materiality of the region; its identity; and social, cultural, environmental and economic drivers.
CATiD is currently focusing on two research projects - Project SATURN and the National Park for the West Midlands.
A new idea of landscape
Professor Kathryn Moore's research has focused on developing 'a new idea of landscape'. Principally, landscape is not only concerned with the countryside or matters of heritage, it is not just a physical entity. It is our values and memories, the experience we have of place, our culture and identity.
This is altogether a more powerful, evocative idea. Landscape, what we see and experience around us, from the towns and cities to the most remote corners of the world, reflects our principals and ambitions and the expression of these aspirations in form, shape the quality of this experience. This compelling new idea of landscape is what is opening up debate, encouraging different ways to articulate the social, cultural and physical context of our lives.