On 26 August 2026, Maximilian Schob successfully defended his doctoral thesis, The Model View – Models for Remote Sensing in Landscape Architecture, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
The thesis examines how remote sensing increasingly shapes the knowledge, methods, and landscapes addressed within landscape architecture. Although remote-sensing technologies and spatial data are now widely used across the discipline, their underlying processes often remain opaque and are largely organized outside the field. This can limit how landscape architects understand, evaluate, and work critically with remotely sensed landscapes and data.
In response, Schob develops an epistemological and methodological framework for remote sensing in landscape architecture structured around five interconnected elements: target, signal, sensor, data, and interface. The thesis positions models as active epistemic and operative entities that mediate between sensing infrastructures and the landscapes being studied. It argues that sensing and modelling should be understood as mutually dependent processes, enabling landscape architects to engage more critically and creatively with remote-sensing technologies.
The theoretical framework is explored through four case studies addressing different landscapes, technologies, and geographic scales. These include the identification of forest clearings using lidar point-cloud data around Oslo; the analysis of supranational infrared imagery collections across Finland, Latvia, and Germany; radiance-field models documenting post-flood landscapes in Germany’s Ahr River Valley; and the use of spatial data as an interface for marine spatial planning in northern Europe.
Through this work, the thesis advocates for a more informed and process-oriented engagement with remote sensing. Such an approach can help landscape architects reclaim agency within increasingly complex sensing and modelling systems while developing new ways of understanding, representing, and designing continuous landscapes across multiple scales.
The doctoral research was supervised at NMBU’s Faculty of Landscape and Society by Ramzi Hassan, main supervisor, and Jörg Rekittke, second supervisor.
The NMBU VR-Lab warmly congratulates Maximilian Schob on this significant academic achievement and wishes him every success in his future research, teaching, and professional work.
Read NMBU feature about Maximilian Schob research work: Who decides what becomes visible in a landscape?