Anna is a star who continues to rise. She is a landscape architect and most known for being a board member of KultúrAktív Egyesület, an NGO that fosters built environment education for children. KultúrAktív is dedicated to organizing activities that inspire youth to discover, observe, and understand their immediate and extended environment, and to participate in shaping it. Her activities in this NGO also strengthen local identity and encourage the participants to take responsibility for the built environment.
Anna is focused on activities that provides a framework for learning and active participation in the urban landscape so that the learning process becomes a catalyst for the transformation of both the built environment and society. Theory and practice are equally important in her work; research, reflection, and working on location with children are parallel activities.
She coordinates the educational game Urbanity and the international action based project #playhellocity in order to boost participation in urban decision making and support active citizenship among youth.
We are grateful that she took time out of her busy schedule to share more about her work and life goals with Oliversity.
1. How did you become interested in working in landscape design and cities?
My father loved gardening and we spent a lot of time there, but it was actually, my mother who explained to me that there is a profession called landscape architecture. She said it includes everything I love, so I started it. And it turned out to be true. By the end of my master degree program in Germany, I found out that I am interested in the human scale, and how people want to live in cities.
2. What inspires you the most in your work?
People. Bringing people together to build a joint vision for their environments is the best that can happen. I love those moments of collaborative wisdom when different people come together and come up with the most exciting development ideas. I believe this is the way cities should be developed. But my true inspiration are kids. Beside working in the urban planning department of my town, I lead an NGO called KultúrAktív in Hungary. We do built environment education for children and youth, and develop creative and playful programs to help them to become active shapers of their environment. They are so creative, fresh and energetic when it comes to shaping their neighborhoods.
3. How do you personally define success for yourself?
My personal success would be to achieve the right balance between my work, passion, PhD research, family, friends and personal life. I am so passionate about what I do that it is very easy to go with the flow. I love built environment education, participatory planning, travelling for conferences to share knowledge about how to create better spaces. But I am also looking for moments when I can be with my loved ones or just to have a moment for a relaxing bath.
4. What is your typical daily skincare and beauty routine and how has it evolved over the years?
I don’t really use any make up but I am quite conscious about my skin. I only use high quality soap, shower gale, shampoo products that are mostly organic. As I grew older I started to use body cream and hand cream but I prefer simple solutions. Sometimes, I pure some virgin olive oil into the hot tub. This is my special treatment after a long day. The Olivella liquid soap is the best example how to create an organic product. My skin was immediately softer after using it.
5. What do you love the most about living in Hungary?
Hungary is cool. I live in Budapest and I like the special activist atmosphere there. You should definitely come during the summer for the Budapes100 festival that celebrates the buildings that are 100 years old in the city or for the Szabi híd weekends when the freedom bridge is transformed into a pedestrian only space with picnics, performances and concerts. The rest of the country is more like a countryside with a lovely natural heritage. My favorites are the vineyards around the lake Balaton.
