Knowledge in motion: Botanical tour of the university park with Filip Ihrsen

Date: 07/07/2025

Posted by Elina Gobeti

Knowledge in motion: Botanical tour of the university park with Filip Ihrsen

ÅS, July 2025 – With umbrellas in hand and rain in the air, a group of participants followed Filip Ihrsen through the NMBU park on Campus Ås. The tour, arranged by Vitenparken , gave the audience a rare insight into how landscape, history and plant knowledge are woven together at one of Europe's most renowned professional environments within landscape architecture and green space management.

Ihrsen, who works in the parks department at NMBU, took the participants on a walk through the campus's botanical diversity. Here, there is a large selection of plants and flowering plants, chosen and composed with both academic and functional purposes. The tour emphasized how the park is not just a green lung, but the result of over a hundred years of conscious landscaping, closely linked to NMBU's history and role as a leading educational institution.

A living place of learning

The University Park functions as a so-called living lab – a learning arena where students and researchers encounter landscapes in practice. For decades, the area has been used in teaching, developing sustainable solutions, and as an example of how green spaces can be managed with both scientific precision and aesthetic consideration.

The Science Park's dissemination role

Vitenparken , which is a science center and experience arena in the middle of Campus Ås, is behind a number of open and tailored tours throughout the summer and autumn. These tours convey NMBU's historical and academic significance for both education and social development – and end with a lunch buffet at the Science Park's restaurant, Andedammen.

The offer is popular among both the local population, professional communities and visitors – and constitutes an important part of the Science Park's contribution to tourism and knowledge dissemination in the region.