Public space and civil yards in Dutch rural landscapes of the future
Qualitative Research as a Perspective for Urban Open Space Planning
Theory and Critique in Landscape Architecture: Making Connections
The Narrative Approach in the Design Studio
Aranjuez, a Cultural Landscape in a Process of Revitalisation: The Recovery of the Raso de la Estrella Miguel A. Aníbarro, Joaquín Ibáñez and Darío I. Gazapo Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Madrid
Abstract The article presents a case study of Aranjuez, a small town near Madrid that has been a royal summer residence for three hundred and fifty years and was declared a Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2001, the first in Spain. After describing its historical evolution – its establishment in the 16th century, the culmination of its development in the 18th century, the period of decline that started with the construction of the railway and continued into the late 20th century, and the process of revitalization undertaken in recent years – the analysis focuses on one
of its most interesting areas, the Raso de la Estrella, which is currently the object of the development of a specific recovery plan. The article illumi nates the existing problems in the site, the initiatives adopted, the landscape study and the main proposals for the future.
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Under the Sky: Sandstone and Rust: Designing the Qualities of Sydney Harbour Julian Raxworthy
Abstract Landscape architecture is built from place. What place is depends how one reads a site, which then determines what qualities are engaged with, and how they are engaged with, by design. Sydney Har-bour is one of the most celebrated and distinctive harbours in the world. The qualities of the indige-nous, pre-European landscape have been referred to regularly in the history of Australian landscape architecture as a source of inspiration for a truly Australian language of landscape design. A range of different models of such an Australian language have been proposed and tested on landscape design sites on Sydney Harbour, models that are in a discourse both with the specific landscape and with lo-cal landscape architecture theory and practice, particularly in relation to ideas of ‘appropriateness’ in Australian landscape architecture.
This essay examines arguments from the 1970s that proposed a ‘palette’ approach to appropriateness, along with a key project from that period, Long Nose Point Park, that demonstrates this approach. The essay will then discuss three recent projects on the Harbour and demonstrate that these projects trans-cend the ‘palette’ approach by engaging with specific relationships on their sites (a ‘relationships’ approach) that are tied to the cultural occupation of Sydney Harbour. Along the way, the reader will be introduced to the key figures and history of landscape architecture in Australia, and to the geography of Sydney Harbour with its various ecologies and milieus.
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Beijing’s New Urban Countryside – Designing with Complexity and Strategic Landscape Planning Antje Stokman, Sabine Rabe, Stefanie Ruff Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences, Leibniz University Hanover
Abstract One of the key challenges facing sustainable urban and landscape design is the land-use management of the rural-urban fringe, a dynamic area where a range of urban and rural uses collide. By examining the present situation of one of the world’s most dynamic fringes, the planned second green belt of Beijing, it becomes clear that rapid land-use change processes are closely connected to the adaptive and inventive connections between people and the land. Thus a new management system leading to sustainable development and design of the green belt can only be achieved by designing new ways of interaction between the different actors and the land. During a Sino-German workshop seeking deeper understanding of land-use patterns and processes, different scenarios for the future development of Beijing’s urban countryside were developed and discussed.
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Planning by Design – Landscape Architectural Scenarios for a Rapidly Growing City Richard Weller, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, University of Western Australia
Abstract The Australian government predicts that Perth’s population will increase from 1.5 million people to 3 million by 2050. Demand from China for Western Australia’s massive mineral resources has caused the local economy to boom and over 700 newcomers are entering the state each week. This paper re-ports on the method, the theory and the outcomes of a landscape architectural research project conduc-ted at the University of Western Australia to consider how Perth can accommodate this rapid growth in population. Rather than producing one masterplan, the methodology leads to the production of se-ven scenarios: four of them spread the city further into its landscape (horizontal scenarios) and three present infill development (vertical scenarios) within the existing city boundary.
Thus the study even–handedly addresses both sides of the international sprawl debate. These deve-lopment scenarios are related to the existing city from a regional landscape perspective. The horizontal scenarios are placed in situ according to guidelines derived from a McHargian sieve mapping analysis of existing landscape conditions. The vertical scenarios are placed in situ according to where the landscape of the existing city offers signifcant amenity value to offset the reduced personal living space that would otherwise lead people to prefer freestanding homes in the conventional suburban sprawl.
The paper also briefly compares Ian McHarg’s planning method to the contemporary work of the Dutch design practice MVRDV, for it is these two practices that inform the horizontal and vertical scenarios respectively. By occupying a space between these two practices it is suggested that this re-search represents an appropriate method for large-scale urban planning. This means that urban plan-ning now involves a synthesis of what is traditionally meant by landscape planning on the one hand and urban design on the other. Where relevant, each scenario is related to classic models such as Ebe-nezer Howard’s Garden City, Le Corbusier’s Radiant City and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City. Although focused specifically on the metropolitan region of Perth, the research methodology could be adapted to any city undergoing rapid growth. The research aims to reposition landscape architecture as a discipline capable of holistically directing the future of the city.
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Living with Water: Flood Adaptive Landscapes in the Yellow River Basin of China Kongjian Yu, Zhang Lei, Li Dihua The Graduate School of Landscape Architecture, Peking University
Abstract This paper is a report on a research project. It shows how the past experience of adaptive strategies that have evolved in the long history of surival under hazardous conditions is inspiring for us in facing future uncertainty. Based on a study of several ancient cities in the Yellow River floodplain, this paper discusses the disastrous experience of floods and waterlogging and finds three major adaptive lands-cape strategies: siting on high ground, constructing walls and protective dikes, and reserving or dig-ging ponds within cities. These adaptive strategies create three types of water city: water-within-city, city-in-water, and ying-yang-city. It is argued that all these traditional experiences and landscape heri-tages help us to understand the vernacular cultural landscape of cities in the Yellow River floodplain, and that they have important value for landscape architecture and urban planning as universally appli-cable strategies in facing global warming and regional climate change as well as practical landscape strategies for better urban design in this region. It is further argued that the water-adaptive landscapes are valuable features of the cultural heritage, and should be integrated into landscape and urban plan-ning for urban development today.
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Sustaining beauty. The performance of appearance - A manifesto in three parts Elizabeth K. Meyer, University of Virginia School of Architecture
Abstract Sustainable landscape design is generally understood in relation to three principles - ecological health, social justice and economic prosperity. Rarely do aesthetics factor into
sustainability discourse, except in negative asides conflating the visible with the aesthetic and rendering both superfluous.
This article examines the role of beauty and aesthetics in a sustainability agenda. It argues that it will take more than ecologically regenerative designs for culture to be sustainable, that what is needed
are designed landscapes that provoke those who experience them to become more aware of how their actions affect the environment, and to care enough to make changes. This involves considering the role of aesthetic
envi-ronmental experiences, such as beauty, in re-centering human consciousness from an egocentric to a more bio-centric perspective. This argument in the form of a manifesto is inspired by American landscape
archi-tects whose work is not usually understood as contributing to sustainable design.
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A city is not a building – architectural concepts for public square design in Dutch urban climate contexts Sanda Lenzholzer, Chairgroup Landscape Architecture, Wageningen University
Abstract This article elaborates on an architectural approach to urban design – to the idea of ‘city as a building’ in relation to user’s perceptions and urban microclimate based on Dutch examples.
A brief analysis of urban square design approaches in The Netherlands since WW II reveals a prominent tendency to use the meta-phor ‘city as a building’. The architectural, often minimalist design of plazas
frequently features a ‘void’ spatial layout, hard materialization, cool, bright colours and furniture that has its origin in interior design. The problems arising from this approach with respect to human
bioclimatic needs and perceptions as well as urban microclimate will be elucidated and practical solutions proposed. As a general conclusion, a dif-ferent approach to urban design that conceives
the ‘city as landscape’ is suggested.
Under the Sky: The urban as infrastructural landscape - Open space and infrastructure networks in the Val de Bièvre met-ropolitan area (Paris) Georges Farhat
Abstract Based on the Bievre River Valley case study, this paper questions the evolution of the concept of land-scape in urban planning. For the last twenty years, extensive development of
hydraulic and transport net-works within the Paris metropolitan area has been contributing to reconstructing public urban space on the inter-municipal scale. This effective renewal of the geographically and
technically linked ‘urban’ brought out socialization and urbanity infrastructures. The latter are made up of a broad range of facilities as well as alternative links. Starting with the theme of landscape, and
following the progressive conversion of the Bièvre valley hydrographic network into a wastewater system, the paper finally leads to an obser-vation concerning living standard improvements and identity
reconstruction within a heterogeneous terri-tory. Furthermore, the analysis suggested here follows the line of a quite complex description reflecting diverse stages and shapes of the Bièvre valley under
continuous recon struction. This descriptive method is applied to prove that some new unprecedented landscape concepts may arise as a result of specific ur-ban planning practice.
Indigenous landscape urbanism: Sri Lanka’s reservoir & tank system Kelly Shannon, Samitha Manawadu
Abstract In Sri Lanka, the relation of urbanization to landscape has a long-standing tradition. The earliest Singhalese settlements –
in the so-called Dry Zone of the flat coastal lowlands surrounding the central highlands – were structured in conjunction with an ingenious tank
(man-made reservoir) and irrigation system, linking habitation to cultivation and sacred spaces to topography. The productive (agricultural), reflective
(religious) and engineering (flood/drought control) aspects of the tank system were interdependent and worked hand-in-hand with urbanization. Over the years,
these systems have fallen into disrepair. The article will develop an argument that the term ‘landscape urbanism’ has actually been standard practice for
several millennia in various parts of the world. In this regard, Sri Lanka and other South (and Southeast) Asian contexts can undoubtedly benefit from the
landscape urbanism discourse while their traditional organization of agricultural agglomerations can imbue the discussion with a perspective which is less
formal and aesthetic and more grounded in necessity and survival tactics.
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Private use of public open space in Tokyo – A study of the hybrid landscape of Tokyo's informal gardens Marieluise C. Jonas
Abstract Informal flowerpot gardens are an unregarded yet ubiquitous sight in Japanese cities, and contribute vibrantly to the richness and
diversity of residential neighbourhoods. By examining the flowerpot gardens in Tsukishima, a traditional neighbourhood in Tokyo’s bay district, which is
directly impinged upon by modern city development, the structure and background of this particular extension of private territory is set in context with
the concept of hybrid landscape. The term hybrid landscape is used here to describe the space created by two place-making strategies: the traditional planning
of open space and the small scale appropriation of planned space creating unique and rich living environments.
The main aim of this paper is to illuminate the background and present conditions of Japanese flowerpot gardens and their surroundings and deepen understanding
of this surprisingly apt illustration of hybrid landscape.
The 21st-Century Garden City? The metaphor of the garden in contemporary Singaporean urbanism Steven Velegrinis, Richard Weller
Abstract From 1963 onwards, Singapore officially thought of and broadcast itself as a ‘Garden City’. Recently this title has been amended to
‘City in a Garden’. Singapore’s landscape is thus perceived as the nation’s garden. This paper exposes the incongruity of this branding in the light of
Singapore’s ecology and culture, and then explores the range of ways in which the idea of the garden continues to operate as a primary metaphor in Singaporean
design culture. The paper surveys a range of high profile public projects by planners, architects and landscape architects which all overtly manipulate the
idea of the garden to achieve formal outcomes. We focus on and critizise the ways in which the idea of the garden is being variously used decorate or structure
Singaporean urbanism. Our analysis highlights Singapore as a fertile test site for increasingly sophisticated landscape design experiments. Until now,
Singaporean urbanism has not been addressed from a landscape architectural perspective and, as an introduction to this vein of research and practice, this
paper is deliberately wide-ranging and lightfooted. The paper concludes that, although the theoretical discourse of landscape urbanism has not yet arrived in
Singapore, the design experiments being conducted there indicate that an Asiatic practice of landscape urbanism is now emerging.
The New Dutch Parks: relation between form and use Alexandra and Margit Jókövi
Abstract In recent decades, both the design of urban parks and their recreational uses have changed. This paper considers these developments
and reports on an explorative study into the relationship between form and the poptential for recreational use in contemporary park designs in the Netherlands.
In so doing, we also try to explain how park designers can influence the use of their product.
Landscape Architects of the World, Unite! Professional organizations, practice, and politics, 1935-1948 Dorothée Imbert, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Abstract This article describes the shaping of the modern landscape architecture profession in Western Europe through the lens of international
congresses and associations that took place and were created during the period 1935-1948. The tangible legacy of these years remains the International
Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), founded in 1948 through the efforts of landscape architects from 15 national professional organizations.
Although the birth of IFLA appeared essentially tied to postwar Europe, it also addressed more general questions regarding the profession, namely its future,
its visibility within the design world, and its educational standards. These were all issues that had dominated prewar international meetings. The congresses
of Brussels (1935), Paris (1937), Berlin (1938), and Zurich (1939) offered a means to broaden the forum for discussion and strengthen a nascent profession.
In addition, the Association Internationale des Architectes de Jardins Modernistes (AIAJM), which followed the 1937 Paris meeting, looked toward the
Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) as a model for a modernist alliance between landscape architects and architects and urbanists. Therefore,
one can consider the international congresses and organizations as a register of a changing landscape architecture profession, in its practice, and its
relation to other design disciplines and political currents.
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Landscoping – Teaching experiments in and around Geneva Sandra Parvu and Eunate Torres, Institute of Architecture, University of Geneva
Abstract This article is an account of teaching experiments realized in the context of a design studio and a visual studies seminar part
of the Architecture and Landscape postgraduate programme at the University of Geneva. Its purpose is to develop a new set of representation tools
and working processes interacting with particular sites through an approach that goes beyond the boundaries of the discipline of landscape architecture,
and maybe even beyond the notion of discipline as such. The text does not claim to build a complete and theoretical picture, but attempts to convey the
knowledge of making hat emerges from this work in progress. As such, it accompanies the handmade material resulting from these experiments. Discussions
include the work of video and land artists, documentary and experimental filmmakers, choreographers and dancers such as Gerry Schum, Agnès Varda,
Alexander Medvedkin, Andreï Tarkovski, Anna Halprin and Maya Deren.
Under the SkyComplex concepts and controlling designs – Charles Jencks’ Landform at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Catharine Ward Thompson
Barcelona’s Fossar de les Moreres: Disinterring the Heterotopic Anne Marie Hallal / History of Architecture and Urbanism, Cornell University
Abstract The architectural discourse has eagerly embraced, frequently misinterpreted, and reluctantly abandoned
Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia since he formulated it in the late 1960s. As a response, this article recuperates
heterotopia by underscoring its subversive roots, its potential for revealing the built environment’s political relevance,
and its usefulness in interpreting urban landscapes as unique elements of everyday life. By reformulating the idea in terms of
Fossar de les Moreres, a Barcelonan memorial built in 1988 to commemorate Catalan independence, this essay serves a dual purpose:
clarifying the complex meaning of one specific urban landscape while emphasizing the contemporary relevance of heterotopia,
particularly in relation to landscape architecture. As it is most often landscapes which the concept, in its formalistic guise,
is employed to categorize, colonize and, effectively, control, the assertion of a more accurate definition of heterotopic spaces
that is based on engagement, autonomy, multivalency and change is essential to promoting a landscape architecture discourse
founded on similar terms. Ultimately, this article is a model for one way to more successfully insert landscape architecture into
ongoing theoretical debates addressing space, urbanism and design.
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Reclaiming the Obsolete in Transitional Landscapes: Perception, Motion, Engagement Krystallia Kamvasinou / Kent School of Architecture, UK
Abstract Transitional landscapes are spaces/interfaces between city and countryside commonly experienced on the move;
although highly present in the commuting life of metropolitan areas, they are perceived as obsolete by the people who mostly use
them – the everyday passengers. However, these landscapes suggest a new type, a product of mobility as a condition of modernity.
Here, the notion of the terrain vague is employed to delineate the transitional landscape as a territory with hidden poetics and
as a new type of public space. Fundamental to this is a redefinition of engagement that takes the moving user into account.
This engagement is demonstrated in a series of digitally conducted design experiments for two hypothetical projects in real
locations (Athens, Greece; London, Britain) which explored the momentary perception of motion as part of a wider design method.
The study concludes that transitional landscapes can be rendered desirable both aesthetically and financially through the
mediation of motion perception.
Landscape Urbanism in Europe: From Brownfields to Sustainable Urban Development Pierre Donadieu / École nationale supérieure du paysage de Versailles
Abstract The article explores the notion of landscape urbanism in the European – and especially the French – context.
It develops the idea that this very recent notion of American origin, which is at the intersection of many theories and practices
in landscape architecture, urban planning and design, ecology and architecture, may be used to partly describe a set of
professional practices in landscape architecture which emerged in France and Europe from the 1970s. The role of the State in
France in this change is highlighted, as well as the recent acknowledgment of the notion of urban sustainable development.
Intentions for the Unintentional: Spontaneous Vegetation as the Basis for Innovative Planting Design in Urban Areas
Norbert Kühn / Technische Universität Berlin
Abstract Spontaneous vegetation is a characteristic component of the urban environment. It occurs at no financial
cost, is authentic and is always appropriate to the site conditions. Until now, the use of spontaneous vegetation for ornamental
purposes in public or private areas has been largely misunderstood. If it is possible to make spontaneous vegetation more
attractive, it may also be possible to introduce it as an alternative to ornamental plantings in the city. To intervene in
spontaneous vegetation may seem contradictory: ‘spontaneous’ means that which occurs by chance, without conscious design intent.
We are dealing here with design using spontaneously occurring species. The starting point of this idea is to use plants that can
clearly build stable communities under the given conditions of a site and to try to transform the plant communities according to
a design perspective.
The investigations show that ‘improving’ spontaneous stands by adding new plants is possible. However, a proper assessment of
competition conditions is needed to get a permanent establishment of these new plant communities. Theories that originally
derive from vegetation ecology (i.e. plant strategies and equilibrium models) can help us to understand the underlying processes
and to make these interventions more successful.
Rural Landscape Anatomy: Public space and civil yards in Dutch rural landscapes of the future Paul A. Roncken, Wageningen University, Netherlands
Abstract Landscape Architecture is still maturing in the Netherlands. It fills gaps left by urban designers and provides
integrated design examples that reflect current cultural conditions, yet at the same time this does not necessarily lead to specific and
adaptive design strategies. When dealing with the future of rural landscapes and countryside, a shift should take place regarding current
landscape architects’ competencies because, as Dutch landscape architects are gradually becoming urbanists (they may not call themselves
‘stedenbouwers’ since that is a protected title), the long-term growth and maintenance of trees, perennials and biotopes is losing their attention.
Many dominant designers perceive the future of rural landscapes as being only loosely related to agrarian activities. They regard the rural landscape
as bourgeois countryside with rural backdrops. Mixed with a fashionable historic perception and this results in an awkward brew of “purified spaces”
that only solve non-rural issues. Worse, the same urbanist ‘best practices’ are repeated over and over again and thus gain authority amongst the
relatively small community of landscape-related professions, without much review.
In this paper I will comment on this status quo and also explore some projects by young landscape architects who show glimpses of a shift in design motives.
These projects focus on the mechanisms that have produced current rural patterns and aesthetics. The counterurbanisation that will gradually introduce
non-agrarian inhabitants into the future rural landscape will also have to work creatively with mechanisms such as establishing right-of-way routes,
and initiating causal relationships between the ownership and care of yard, garden and landscape – mechanisms that will produce future living landscapes
instead of fashionable images that reflect (sub)urban demands.
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Qualitative Research as a Perspective for Urban Open Space Planning Soeren Schoebel, Munich University of Technology, Germany
Abstract In the twentieth century, German open space planning was based mainly on quantitative arguments.
The recent change of attitudes and ideas in society and space has led to a discussion of ‘quality instead of quantity’ in politics and landscape architecture.
However, this alteration has until now remained focused on concrete objects without grasping the changed nature of the general purposes and concepts of open
space in an urban landscape.
These fundamentally changed relationships are the topics of research in the social, cultural and economic sciences with the help of specific – so called
qualitative – methods. In the largest possible spectrum of perspective considerations, that which is under investigation is not submitted to inductive
measurement or deductive derivation, but to ‘abductive’ interpretation. In this approach, with the help of certain technologies, unknowns are searched for and
a new structure of relationships is being developed. In doing this, qualitative science not only affects the understanding of the cultural context, but also,
because of its methodological requirements, the ideas behind landscape architecture.
Using Berlin as an example, a process of qualitative open space planning is introduced, with which contemporary, structural qualities and purposes of open
space are defined and categorized. Although the categories stemming from these qualitative methods have a narrow regional context, the methods of this
investigation and their perspectives are applicable for other cities as well.
Theory and Critique in Landscape Architecture: Making Connections Simon R. Swaffield, Lincoln University, New Zealand
Abstract The relationship between theory and critique in landscape architecture varies according to the way the theory is constructed.
This can be demonstrated using an heuristic analytical framework focused upon the ‘pre-suppositional’ hierarchy of assumptions that underlie theory and
critique. Categories of epistemology, theoretical perspective, methodology, methods, and modes of representation can be used to explore the relationship
between design critique and alternative theoretical positions. The analysis suggests that the ability to articulate from critique to theory, and from theory
to critique, will determine the future shape of the theoretical foundation for the discipline, and is a key factor in determining the validity and efficacy
of particular examples of critique. An argument is made for greater attention being paid towards a ‘social constructionist’ framework for theory and critique
within landscape architecture.
From “Reading” the Landscape to “Writing” a Garden: The Narrative Approach in the Design Studio Dr. Tal Alon-Mozes, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Abstract Reading landscapes as text or narrative became a valuable mode of interpretation of natural and man-made environments, by A. Spirn (1998)
and M. Potteiger & J. Purinton (1998), who based their work on the theoretical framework proposed by Barthes, Geertz, Duncan and others. But are these critical
tools applicable to the design studio?
This paper examines the use of the narrative approach and its literary framework as a source of inspiration, as well as an approach in design. It applies
concepts such as text/narrative, story-world, context, figure of speech and others to a second-year landscape architecture studio. The studio consisted of
three phases, which included the design of a small site on the basis of a given text (a poem or prose), the examination of the theoretical framework of the
concept and relevant precedents and, finally, the writing/design of a story/garden.
Each of the phases raised different questions and problems concerning the transformation of an interpretive approach into a design approach. In writing their
own stories, ‘telling-stories’ students developed an interesting dialogue with the existing layers of an already ‘written’ site. While some erased these layers,
others used them as the basis for their design: te-interpreting, re-questioning, re-writing the site.
The European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools ECLAS
ECLAS exists to foster and develope scholarship in landscape architecture throughout Europe by
strengthening contacts and enriching the dialogue between members of Europe's landscape academic community.
Le:Notre
The LE:NOTRE Thematic Network in Landscape Architecture aims to improve the quality and effectiveness of landscape architecture
education in Europe by identifying, analysing and building on current best practice to defi ne new standards and identify future needs for
professional education at undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education levels, as well as for research methods teaching.
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