National Association:
Društvo krajinskih arhitektov Slovenije (DKAS)
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Delegate: Suzana Simic
The Slovenian Association of Landscape Architects (SALA) is a professional association of landscape architects and other professionals who deal with spatial management in its widest sense and with protection of the environment. This includes spatial planning, landscape planning and landscape design. Basic principles that guide our work are a holistic approach when dealing with an issue, interdisciplinarity, the taking into account of environmental, social and economic points of view of development and protection, transparency and searching for spatial solutions in co-operation with various public entities.
The Association was established in 1992 and has remained rather small, counting slightly over 100 members. The organisational structure of the Association comprises a president, a Management Board, an Assembly, a Steering Committee and a Professional Court of Arbitration. Members approve work done and adopt any future work programme. The election of representatives to the Association bodies takes place once every two years. Members shall respect the Code of Conduct.
In the short history of the Association, members, and especially hard working ones of the Management Board, have organised a plethora of national and international conferences, always completed by thematic reports. In spite of being a small social group, their reactions to spatial and social changes affecting landscapes are significant and creative, critical and sometimes polemical. In so doing, the Association collaborates with similar organisations in the search of effective ways of intervention in the practice of planning and in everyday life.
The Association has played a significant role in the processes of adoption of spatial, building, environmental and other sectoral legislation, and has actively co-operated with similar associations and with the Chamber for Architecture and Spatial Planning of Slovenia. Through their successful participation in many competitions, publishing activities and popularisation of the profession, members have helped promote landscape architecture in Slovenia. They are active outside Slovenia too, and their works were awarded many prominent prizes.