SLiving with Water: Flood Adaptive Landscapes in the Yellow River Basin of China
Planning by Design – Landscape Architectural Scenarios for a Rapidly Growing City
Beijing’s New Urban Countryside – Designing with Complexity and Strategic Landscape Planning
Under the Sky: Sandstone and Rust: Designing the Qualities of Sydney Harbour
Aranjuez, a Cultural Landscape in a Process of Revitalisation: The Recovery of the Raso de la Estrella
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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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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