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| JoLA Volume 1/2008 - Abstracts
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Sustaining beauty. The performance of appearance - A manifesto in three parts
A city is not a building – architectural concepts for public square design in Dutch urban climate contexts
Under the Sky
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Sustaining beauty. The performance of appearance - A manifesto in three parts
Elizabeth K. Meyer, University of Virginia School of Architecture
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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
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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.
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Under the Sky: The urban as infrastructural landscape - Open space and infrastructure networks in the Val de Bièvre met-ropolitan area (Paris)
Georges Farhat
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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.
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