Reading the Landscape: Terra Fluxus

This essay, Terra Fluxus by James Corner, from the Landscape Urbanism Reader is considered one of the seminal texts in formulating landscape urbanism theory.  Obviously it has had an impact on me personally, as I used it for the name of my firm, with a respectful tip of the hat to Mr. Corner.  The concept and imagery associated just with the term 'terra fluxus' is powerful, and encapsulates what I consider a new methodological paradigm for landscape architecture (which is the lens in which i tend to read and incorporate LU theory) that gives prominence to process while retaining the role of design. 

While formulating the conceptual basis of landscape urbanism, Corner mentions the dual binaries of landscape and urbanism - with the assumption that there are different states of 'being', mentioning "the total dissolution of the two terms into one word, one phenomenon, one practice.  And yet at the same time each term remains distinct, suggesting their necessary, perhaps inevitable, separateness." (24)  This sort of hedging is pretty common - leading to some of the gray area within discourse - is it landscape, urbanism, or both? (often leading people to throw up their hands and say - well what the hell is it!).  I think of it as indicative of the inherent urbanistic challenges which landscape urbanism seeks to address whereas the complexity of the urban condition cannot be oversimplified, at least in analysis. 

:: Fresh Kills Landfill - image via PSFK

In the true sense of urbanism, this is about analysis and development of theoretical positions in which to operate - many of which are not fully realized but are nonetheless, thought provoking.  As Corner mentions: "the union of landscape with urbanism promises new relational and systematic workings across territories of vast scale and scope, situating the parts in relation to the whole, but at the same time the separateness of landscape and urbanism acknowledges a level of material physicality, of intimacy and difference, that is always nested deep within the larger matrix or field." (33)

Corner's main argument includes development of  four provisional themes, which include processes over time, the staging of surfaces, the operational or working method, and the imaginary.  In brief, these include the following summaries:

• Processes over time:  derived from ecology, the temporal aspects of landscape urbanism eschews the deterministic modes of modernist planning and new urbanism, addressing "how things work in space and time" leading to a "more organic, fluid urbanism" (29)  The movement away from fixed, linear, mechanistic models complicates the development of solutions (including both design and representation, much less construction), but is captured in the title of the essay as oppositional to 'terra firma', and opens the new view of terra fluxus, which values "shifting processes coursing across the urban field." (30)
• The Staging of Surfaces:  gives proimance to the horizontal surface as a "field of action," and able to operate at a wide range of scales, from the sidewalk to the "entire infrastructural matrix of urban surfaces." (30)  This derives from Koolhaas in his 1995 essay "Whatever Happened to Urbanism" where he prioritizes urban infrastructure by the, "irrigating of territories with potential... staging the ground for both uncertainty and promise." (31)   Mechanisms to achieve this include the grid (an overlay of flexibility and legibility) that is operated by users through choreography (aka diverse groups of people interacting with space in time, creating "an ecology of various systems and elements that set in motion a diverse network of interaction." (31)
• The Operational or Working Method:  the complexity inherent in the first two themes means development of a new mode of representation that require new techniques "to address the sheer scope of issues here are desperately lacking."  While in the tradition of urbanism, the solutions are unresolved, Corner does imply the importance, stating that "this area alone, it would seem to me, is deserving of our utmost attention and research."  This implies a direction for future study in the contemporary metropolis to test and vet these techniques.
• The Imaginary:  Corner provides distance from his predecessor, McHarg, but invoking the need for creativity, not just rationality in coming up with solutions within this framework.  The implementation of design within public space engages the spirit of the urban population, acting as "containers of collective memory and desire" and furthermore "places for geographic and social imagination to extend new relationships and sets of possibilities." (32)

These four themes connect the temporal aspects of ecology with the intellectual history of design - something that at least for landscape architecture goes hand in hand, as we deal with the organic materials that never rest in a state of completion but are always active and evolving.  The distinction here is not purely literal, but captures landscapes' conceptual scope, in Corner's terms "its capacity to theorize sites, territories, ecosystems, networks, and infrastructures, and to organize large urban fields." (23)  This has parallels not just in manipulation of open space, but as a way to tackle the ongoing complex nature of cities, this yields a "looser, emergent urbanism, more akin to the real complexity of cities and offering an alternative to the rigid mechanisms of centralist planning." (23) 

 :: Master Plan Diagram - image via Shelby Farms Park

Therefore rather than a method to expand landscape architectural discourse, it addresses the much larger dichotomy of nature versus culture, repositioning landscape not as the city's 'other' but as coterminous in overlapping with the purview of contemporary urbanism.  This moves us away from the purely rational, oversimplification of the city process, and the blind faith in market forces to shape our urban areas and at the same time exploring new methods, such as Kahn's diagramming of Philadelphia vehicular circulation, aimed at "representing the fluid, process-driven characteristics of the city." (30) and derived from central place theory modelling of Christaller and Hilberseimer showing "flows and forces in relation to urban form." (28)

:: Diagram of Christaller's Central Place Theory

In the context of this nature/culture divide, there are two elements of importance in relation to built work.  First, although acknowledging the early integration of landscape in urban settings (epitomized by Olmsted's Central Park and the work of Jens Jensen) - there is the need to move beyond the idea of landscape as pure scenery or as a palliative (which is encompassed in the hollow, Radiant City concept of the 'green complex' championed by Le Corbusier, which is both formless and anti-contextual).  The towers in the park lacks purpose in its rationality, but there is also a need to expand the environmental rationality of McHargian analysis into a realm of philosophical grounding that is not anti-urban, but allows for creativity and imagination in combining the ecological to the urban.  The extension of the natural combined with the infrastructural is mentioned selected precedents, such as Olmsted's Back Back Fens projects in Boston, which is an oft-citied example of ecological urbanism, and a precursor to landscape urbanism, despite its cultural leanings towards the natural, as well as the configuration of the city of Stuttgart, Germany in funnelling mountain air through the city to both cool and cleanse the environment.

:: Back Bay Fens (Olmsted) - image via Landscape Modeling

An interesting modern precursor to the landscape (and) urbanism worth noting is reference to Victor Gruen's idea of 'Cityscapes' from the 1964 publication 'The Heart of the Cities: The Urban Crisis, Diagnosis, and Cure', which are part of a variety of different 'scapes' that define the city.  This distancing from landscape as urban 'other' is vital in forming a new view of urban nature and landscape as including "the built environment of buildings, paved surfaces and infrastructures... not the 'natural environment' per se, as in untouched wilderness, but to those regions where human occupation has shaped the land and its natural processes in an intimate and reciprocal way." (26) 

:: Plan for the Perfect City - Gruen - image via If I was an Imagineer

While mapping a potential conceptual approach to landscape urbanism, the essay also provides some of the fuel to current fires of competing urbansim, the viewpoint of desire for a new, more flexible planning alternative is clear.  Referencing Harvey's 1990s 'The Condition of Post-Modernity' in clarifying this line of thinking the aforementioned theme related to processes over time and yields the terminology of indeterminacy, as Corner mentions:

"In comparing the formal determinism of modernist urban planning and the more recent rise of neo-traditional 'New Urbanism,' the cultural geographer David Harvey has written that both projects fail becasue of the presumption that spatial order can control history and process.  Harvey argues that 'the struggle' for designers and planners lies not with spatial form and aesthetic appearances alone but with the advancement of 'more socially just, politically emancipatory, and ecologically sane mix(es) of spatio-temporal production processes,' rather than the capitulation to those processes 'imposed by uncontrolled capital accumulation, backed by class privilege and gross inequalities of political-economic power." (28-29)

To return to the distinction between terra firma and terra fluxus, from the fixed to the fluid - the power of the ideological shift is immense, whether you agree with the tenets of landscape urbanism or not.  The power of this essay, removed from the context of the debate over 'urbanisms' is that we need to develop a different, more expanded set of values in design and planning that will are response to a true accounting of the complexity of cities, whatever your ideological leanings.  I fall into the camp that gives us the ability to focus on multiple 'urbanisms' to exist to address these complex urban phenomena.  In this view, the role of 'urbanism' is understood as the study of urban systems and not the development of solutions - providing an understanding and not a blueprint.  If one can take anything from this essay, it provides some possible tools to address complex systems in planning and design, to understand a wider contextual viewpoint, and develop new methods for understanding and representing these systems.   

:: Stommel Diagram - image via resilience science

In the ensuing application of disciplinary practice, we can then use this information and employ the imaginary in crafting solutions armed with our best information, not a predetermined idea of what should happen.  The sum total of this approach and these solutions are grounded in the view, from Corner, that "the projection of new possibilities for future urbanisms must derive less from an understanding of form and more from an understanding of process - how things work in space and time." (29)  

Kunstler on Landscape Urbanism

James Howard Kunstler joins the LU/NU 'debate' with a completely Kunstlerian commentary with some rhertorical tidbids like LU displaying "a complete lack of interest in the basic components of urban design"... "incorporates lots of high tech 'magic' infrastructure for directing water flows and requires massive, costly, complex site interventions" and is "...against density and vehemently pro-automobile'" and much much more.  This is going toward the realm of satire in it's silliness... enjoy!  (via CNU - quoting Orion Magazine, date unknown)

"The mandarin headquarters of Modernist ideology, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, having gone to war with the New Urbanist movement, is now pushing a dubious new practice they call “Landscape Urbanism.” Don’t be fooled again. Under the fashionable “green” rubric, it’s another version of “nature” as the default remedy for cities, a rejection of genuine urban form. Landscape Urbanism affects to be concerned with site planning, but it displays a complete lack of interest in the basic components of urban design: street and block systems.  Instead, it incorporates lots of high tech “magic” infrastructure for directing water flows and requires massive, costly, complex site interventions that amount to little more than art stunts. Landscape Urbanism is explicitly against density and vehemently pro-automobile. In effect, it’s just super high-tech suburbia. It’s designed mainly to generate big fees for site-planning firms while it does nothing to prepare this society for a post-oil economy. Naturally, it comes with heaps of opaque theory, designed to mystify and impress the non-elect.

Harvard has been battling the New Urbanists for two decades on the grounds that traditional urban design is insufficiently avant-garde, intellectually unadventurous, backward-looking, lacking in sex appeal, un-ironic, square. But the USA doesn’t need more architectural fashion statements or art stunts. It needs places to live that are worth caring about and compatible with the capital and material resources that we can expect to retain going forward, which are liable to fewer and scarcer than what we’ve gotten used to. The USA doesn’t need any more mendacious ideologies meant to confound the public about the operation of cities and the things in them so that star-architects can appear to be wizards.

The USA does need a body of principle and skill that will allow us to assemble places with a future, and the New Urbanists have retrieved this information from the dumpster of history – where it was carelessly tossed by two generations in thrall to the phantom of limitless expansion. They recognize the resource limits we are now up against and the threats posed by climate change. They’re keenly aware of the need to re-integrate local food production into the landscape in an appropriate relationship with the places where people live. They’re the only group of design professionals on the scene right now who are capable of delivering a vision of the future that is consistent with the reality of the future."

LU Conference in the Central States

I just received this announcement of a conference sponsored by the ASLA Central States Chapter entitled "Landscape Urbanism: Economics of Healthy Communities" - (a remarkably odd title imho, but) including keynote speakers Andres Duany, John Crompton, and Brad McKee... topic session submittals are due tomorrow so late notice, but the conference itself is on May 5-6 in Des Moines.  More info, contact Matt Carlile at mcarlile@thinkconfluence.com

Got Something to Say?

 Landscape Urbanism is looking for essays, thoughts, ideas + innovative aproaches to landscape urbanism. We are looking for unique approaches to defining, understanding, communicating, and practicing landscape urbanism. Clarity of writing and communication are imperative. If you had to explain landscape architecture or landscape urbanism to the public, how would you describe it? Why does it matter? Why do designers do what they do? Why is landscape urbanism increasingly relevant and important? How will you be involved in changing the paradigms of design?

Shorts | 500-750 words | Short, timely, evocative thoughts on the status of landscape urbanism, events happening around the world, and new projects or ideas.

Features | 1000-2500 words | Feature-length essays. In-depth philosophies, questions, and discussions. Submit your feature essay here. 

Coverage | 250 words | Cover feature news stories and articles around the web and in print relating to landscape urbanism. 

To apply for the position, submit (3) sample coverage articles, with links, your spin (no more than 250 words), and a resume. Send applications to mail@landscapeurbanism.com. All submissions will be notified within 2-3 weeks regarding their status and anticipated publication date. Deadline for Launch Issue: April 2, 2011.

Reading, Thinking, Observing: A New Direction for L+U

Forgive my self-indulgent post, but my lack of blogging is not an indication of lack of thinking (and walking) - as my attention has shifted from following the various blogs (i used to follow many, and now have reduced this to around a dozen) and their myriad paths of discussion towards a more rigorous engagement with some literature, journal articles and  books to read and reflect.  This shift has happened for a range of reasons, including a dramatically different engagement in work (btw, running your own firm is amazing), exposure to a dramatically different sphere of influence due to academic pursuits (btw, higher education is also amazing), and a general decline in interest (exhaustion?) in the ephemera of the digital realm.

This seems a turning point in the content and focus of the blog, where capturing the zeitgeist (a common theme over the past three years) has become much less important to me (and has been picked up beautifully by a number of other bloggers) - shifting instead to a more comprehensive depth in specific topics.  A blog is always a personal reflection - and it's hard for me to reconcile this new-found focus, being a pure generalist.  Perhaps, I hope, this signals a sign of 'maturity'?  In that vein, exploration of major themes, historical origins, theoretical underpinnings and observations 'from the field' seem to occupy most of my time nowadays, and it's given my a wonderful context in which to think about landscape + urbanism. The source materials range from the hyper-academic to the more mainstream - including historical tracts to modern writings, including journal articles (which i now have unprecedented access to).

So stay tuned for some writings (probably not book reviews) in the form of ruminations on recent readings.  In addition to our upcoming group reading of the Landscape Urbanism Reader (Waldheim, ed., 2006),  I started previously (read here and here) but have finished the large tome Ecological Urbanism (Mostafavi & Doherty, 2010) including the afforementioned Urban Design (Krieger & Saunders eds., 2009), as well as two recent popular books: Makeshift Metropolis (Rybczynski, 2010) and Green Metropolis (Owen, 2009).  Some other books I've made it through recently, one quoted previous is the collection Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (Cronon, 1996), as well as The Machine in the Garden (Marx, 1964): Placeways: A Theory of the Human Environment (Walter, 1988); Human Ecology (Steiner, 2002); After the City (Lerup, 2000); Changes in the Land (Cronon, 1983); and Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (Banham, 1971).

In addition to books, I will intersperse a number of journal references into the mix, particularly as I continue to expand on my studies in ecological urbanism, historical urbanism & ecology, and methods for research (both social & ecological science-based) study of the urban conditions.  Any recommendations for key readings and sources that have influenced you, please comment - and I'm always up for intriguing guest posts on a range of topics. Looking forward to a new chapter in the blog and an expanded focus in my personal exploration of all things landscape and urbanism.

The Urbanism Wars: AD v. CW

Turns out you have to read and write a bit in doctoral studies - which sometimes cuts down on the time for blogging... who knew?  But glean and collect I still do, and lots of good reading since the last dispatch on the ongoing dispute/feud/discussion/turf-war on who controls urbanism - aka the LU/NU debates (which should actually be the AD/CW debates for Mr. Duany and Mr. Waldheim). 

My google alert for landscape urbanism has literally blown up in the last couple of weeks - mostly due to the debate emerging from some more mainstream media - which is an interesting twist... bringing a smallish academic squabble out into the open.

:: image via Boston Globe

I make my bias clear as a landscape architect, I find much of LU compelling in both the potential to expand the practice of landscape architecture (process over product) and in larger ideas of dealing with modern cities (flexibility in responding to rapid change).  I like the concept of NU, but also take issue with some tenets (level of control for instance, determinism, generic transects, equity issues) feeling it's a great formula for a certain problem type that will continue to be relevant, but in it's present form is ill-equipped to handle many urban issues that need to be addressed.  Both will evolve through discussion, not through 'swallowing up' or destroying the other.  Others think differently - and dialogue is the generator of new ideas and solutions.  Unfortunately, we are not witnessing or participating in a dialogue, and  neither Waldheim or Duany is the prophet to lead us out of this. 

LU comes from an academic base, and is attempting to refine the inherent conversation (or add to it) by recognizing the need to acknowledge (i.e. accept, not promote) that cities are different, people are different, there is sprawl, there are lots of roads and cars, some people don't like density, the line between 'city' and suburb is not longer clear, etc.  Right now it is theory and discovery (i call that urbanism in the true defintion which should come from academia) that is trying to expand a conversation.  Thus there is not charter, and there are no rules or regulations in which to critique at this point, and there are few built works to evaluate as well.  This may come, or more likely it will assimilate into professional practice in a number of disciplines - not emerge as either a professional position (i.e. I am a landscape urbanist) or become codified into a system (such as NU).

NU comes from an established professional base that has a body of work and a well-tended methodology that produces good results for walkable, mixed use, community plans.  The successes and limitations are well documented, and the proponents have much sway of many types of developments (and many vocal adherents).  So, the questions are:   Does it have a wider relevance in cities, retrofitting suburbs, attacking rapidly expanding global mega-cities?  Can it apply to a wider demographic?  Can it adapt a transect model based on a monocentric model to the reality of messy, polycentric cities?   What it is is method and application (i call that planning, urban design, architecture) resulting in work but in need of new, wider discussion about how to deal with our changing cities and spaces.  How does this discussion take place if the response to any new idea is to hunker down and fight.

That said, neither is a panacea, and believe there is much to be found in a dialogue.  The conversation and media has been mostly to misrepresent the LU agenda (i'm sorry but that's what it is, plain and simple - hint - despite Waldheim's claims, there isn't an agenda).  Thus the reaction is not to reality and disagreement with a position, but knee-jerk, uninformed reactions to a constructed version by people feeling threatened by a different (note I didn't say opposing) viewpoint and wanting to tear it down.  The similar practice is done and has been for a while by those in opposition to NU (i am as guilty as anyone else of this) - oversimplification of complex issues.  This need to stop on both sides.  Criticism is one thing.  Uninformed criticism is useless, or worse, moves the discussion backward instead of forwards.  

Sidebar:  Can any other LU proponent beyond Waldheim out there (i know you are there, now hiding behind 'ecological urbanism') step up to this conversation, or are ya'll all too busy now getting high profile commissions?   Conversely, can we get some response from the West Coast school of NU, particularly from Calthorpe et. al?

 I blame the word 'landscape' which is just too loaded with preconceptions for people to get over the fact that we're not talking about sprawling density with green spaces and parsley in the urban sphere (just look at the image from the Boston Globe article - buildings and cars draped in greenery.  People think of landscape as landscaping, not the opposite of building.  Thus in looking at a fundamentally different way of approaching cities in an 'un-architectural' manner the word landscape detracts from what is fundamental (an un-architecturally driven urbanism).  This doesn't preclude buildings and density, and sidewalks and people - but rather isn't driven by building and then filling in the spaces in between.  Ecological urbanism, I daresay, is an even worse title.  Then again, the oxymoronic use of 'new' in New Urbanism has shown much success by focusing on the exact opposite of their name... so maybe there's hope. 

Or wait.  Better yet, let's all take a time out for a sec. 

Let's sit down and read each other's stuff rather than making stuff up. 

Or, rather than perpetuate this dueling - perhaps we can look at the larger issues of urbanism that could draw from many urbanisms, rather than the drama of a cat fight. 

Then again, our culture of reality TV and polarizing politics seems to appreciate a cat fight and drama over an informed conversation... on that note...  or your reading pleasure:

Recent Dialogue

Green Building by Leon Neyfakh (Boston Globe) with the sidebar Where its Happening
(yields another class Duany quote... that really gets to the heart of the debate)...

"“What you’re seeing is the New Urbanism about to swallow the landscape urbanists,” Duany said. His plan now, he said, is to systematically “assimilate” the language and strategies that have made his opponents such a white-hot brand. “We’re trying to upgrade ourselves. I’m not gonna say, ‘We’re gonna flick ’em off the table because they’re a bunch of lawn apologists.’ I’m gonna say, ‘For God’s sake, these guys took over Harvard!’ ”

A actually had a really great email exchange with Mr. Neyfakh prior to and after publication about some aspects of landscape urbanism, which is echoed in a follow-up piece discussing the historical development of the Back Bay Fens by Olmsted as a prototype for modern LU:  'Boston's long history with landscape urbanism'


A Tire in the Park  by Emily Talen (The New Urban Network)



Landscape Urbanism: sometimes an enemy is good to have by David Sucher (City Comforts)


James Howard Kunstler on Landscape Urbanism by Sam Newberg (CNU)
I can't find the actual article on Orion so if anyone has a link... anyway per this quote he's just parroting what others are saying in his 'clusterfuck' lens... for what it's worth.


The War Over 'Landscape Urbanism'   by Tim Halbur (Planetizen)

New Urbanism, Landscape Urbanism and the Future of Settlements by Christopher Ryan (Post Carbon Institute)

Landscape Urbanism vs. The New Urbanists (Brookline Perspective)

Discussion on Cyburbia from the Boston Globe Article

Isms, Ideology, & Landscape: Boston Globe Edition (Eric Papetti)
(a landscape architect's perspective)

Landscape Urbanism, New Urbanism, and the Future of Cities (Alex Steffen)

As you see, these aren't all anti- or pro- positions - but are reacting more to the war than the point of the war... which I think will happen with time.  Next year's CNU conference may be the biggest ever due to Waldheim & Duany there together.  Good for ratings.


Post-script:
Along a similar timeline, the Minneapolis Riverfront competition is definitely infused with a landscape urbanist perspective with teams from Ken Smith Workshop, Stoss Landscape Urbanism, Tom Leader Studio and Turenscape as mentioned by Archinect - 3-1/2 of the proposals hint at landscape urbanism. 

Another article from the WSJ talks with Adriaan Geuze of West8, making ample references to LU...


There's also some great dialogue about the concept of urbanism and the role of urban design in the book 'Urban Design' by Krieger and Saunders - a look back at the origins and development of modern urban design since 1956, and well worth exploring (stay tuned for a book review here) and giving some perspective on our constant ability to disagree, which will continue well past this debate and others... 

A related but not specific to LU story on Slate by Witold Rybczynski entitled: "A Discourse on Emerging Tectonic Visualization and the Effects of Materiality on Praxis: Or an essay on the ridiculous way architects talk"  revisits the tired metaphor of professional language to exclude, given the fact that most of this language emerges (yes i said it) from academic discourse (said that too) and not from praxis (again, guilty!).   Any journalism that uses Ted Mosby as an architectural model is suspect.

Upcoming:

Also we kick off Reading the Landscape with timely discussions of 'The Landscape Urbanism Reader' later in February, which is sure to yield some great discussion from a diverse group of folks from all backgrounds, regions, and discplines... entry for the group is closed, but there will be dispatches at points to capture the conversation... stay tuned.

SHIFT:journal

SHIFT:infrastructure release + SHIFT:process call for submissions

The inaugural issue of SHIFT: suggests that the integration of natural systems into the built environment provides for a more sustainable model of landscape architecture in infrastructure design. However, the skillful employment of ecological principles does not necessarily ensure a culturally sensitive design. In the 21st century, Landscape Architecture faces the challenge of not only creating ecologically regenerative designs, but going so in a way that engages the public through education, community mobilization, and inspiration. This is important for the long-term viability of the design as well as its economic success.

How can we as students re-imagine the design process that engages modern culture (such as changes in media, communication technology,  and social networking)? This new process should holistically integrate the designer, the users, and ecology in the process of design. What does this process look like? Where does it take place? How do these processes improve on current techniques?

SHIFT: process calls for submissions from current students from any discipline, or student work from graduates within the past 2 years.  We are looking for work that encourages debate and discussion of this important topic through informed and academically rigorous creative thinking. Each submission will be reviewed by an independent jury, which is composed of nationally recognized leaders in Landscape
Architecture.

Submissions may be: academic essays (up to 3,000 words), narratives, project graphics including mixed media, or anything one considers key in communicating their ideas. We strongly encourage graphics, photography, diagrams, flash animation, stop motion animation, models, social networking tools, games, community building art forms, puzzles, interactive media of any kind, and...you get the idea. Each submission must include a concise written abstract with bibliography.

Visit the publication website and the student blog for more information.
Our student blog: shiftncsu.wordpress.com

Submissions are due by February 15th, 2011.
Questions? Please contact mnevans@ncsu.edu

Ecology.Agency.Urbanism

I warn the reader that my take on the recent NOWurbanism lecture featuring Chris Reed, Randy Hester and Howard Frumkin may be skewed by a really bad cold and the influence of massive doses of cold medicine, along with spilling an entire water bottle inside my bag that literally muddied my notes into a semi-decipherable pulpy mess.  As all histories are individual, this will be my reading of the nights events (and I fear I will not do them justice).  But then again, perhaps this is the perfect storm of dissociation in which to warp and skew the voices into a coherent narrative.

I was really excited to hear from Reed, Principal at Boston-based Stoss Landscape Urbanism and adjunct associate professor of landscape architecture at Harvard GSD.  As recipient of the 2010 Topos International  Landscape Award, "...in recognition of the “theoretical and practical impulses the firm provides to the advancement of landscape architecture and urbanism as dynamic and open-ended systems.”  As a practitioner who embraces the project-oriented aspects of landscape urbanism, I think Reed is unique in straddling the line between theory and praxis - and approach that is often attempted, but rarely done in a legible way.  I was keenly focused on finding out the methods for achieving this balance.

Ecology.Agency.Urbanism

The bulk of Thursday's time was given to Reed's lecture entitled 'Ecology Agency Urbanism' in which he frames landscape and ecology in a context beyond the current concepts of 'sustainability' and 'LEED', arguing for the 'agency of ecology' that is not used as a palliative but as an instigator.  In our search for a positive performative approach, we often rely on the crutches of simple definitions or rating systems, which move towards luke-warm, incremental changes, but not paradigm shifts.

Some History

Reed first frames some of the historical elements of ecology as it relates to planning and design, mentioning Ian McHarg's ecological assessments (inventory, mapping, overlay) and giving value systems to data to use for design and planning-based decision-making.  While acknowledged as important in elevating the discussion, there is also the flip side of criticism's of this objectivty and quantification of processes, alluding to the lack of a cultural lens in which to perform interventions with this information.  The most interesting idea, according to Reed, from McHargian theory was that of 'propinquity', an innate acknowledgement of the proximity, but also the kinship of the environment and it's actors - aligning the needs of the people with that of the surrounding ecological landscape.

:: image via Gardenvisit

He follows this with the next phase of landscape ecology, best expressed in the work of Richard TT. Forman which "catalyze the emergence of urban-region ecology and planning", using the concepts of matrices, interconnections, and networks to express exchange of materials.  The major contribution of this is the visual, using mapping to acknowledge not a static ecological system, but to facilitate flows that observe an active and dynamic nature.   On a practical front, Reed mentions the work of Richard Haag and George Hargreaves as innovative early examples of built projects using these environmental dynamics as generators of form under the mantle of landscape architecture.  The realizations contributed to a conceptual shift of ecology from the static (equilibrium theory) to one that included fluctuations in response to disturbance and change.

:: Louisville Waterfront Park (Hargreaves) - image via Hargreaves Associates

The final phase came in some of the early large scale landscape competitions, such as Downsview Park in 1999, which featured time as part of the design brief.  All of the entires worked time into the solutions, which laid some foundations of modern landscape urbanism theories of indeterminancy.  Not the finalist, but of interest was the proposal from James Corner and Stan Allen, "Emergent Ecologies, which is described on the Downsview site: "The framework consists of an overlay of two complimentary organizational systems: circuit ecologies and throughflow ecologies. These systems seed the site with potential. Others will fill it in over time. We do not predict or determine outcomes; we simply guide or steer flows of matter and information."


Four Tendencies
The next section discussed the 'Four Tendencies' that have emerged into a set of typologies of ecological systems, summarized by Reed here (and hopefully captured in some sense of legibility):

1. Structured Ecologies:  Active habits of plant growth, water movement, habitat use - manipulated over time in response to change, factoring in resiliency and incorporating landscape as a dynamic field.


2. Analog Ecologies: Use ecological elements to achieve non-biological products, epitomized in the work of Ned Kahn and Chuck Hoberman.


3. Hybrid Ecologies:  Responsive design systems that tap into large scale system dynamics, including human and non-human interaction in space.


4. Curated Ecologies:  Structured interactions with dynamics over time, not under specific control, but poked and prodded - designers role shifts as project demands.

The work evolved from the Harvard GSD, particularly the work of Nina-Marie Lister, for a May 2010 event 'Critical Ecologies' which synthesized the historical and current practices of biology, horticulture, and anthropology as antecedents to design.  (need to find out more on what happened here, as it sounds like a great event with some amazing speakers.

Work of StossLU

In the next part, Reed explained some of the work of Stoss, to give a physical reality to some of the ideas of open-endedness and concepts in action. To provide a framework for these approaches, these were intermixed within a number of larger ideas.

Thicken the Surface:
Using the concept of multiple uses and meanings for land, imbued with both form and performance - but not strictly in a sculptural sense.  This best expressed in Riverside Park, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, an eco-park that elaborates the performance aspects of topography, with formal sculptural qualities as a result of the underlying processes.

 

:: Riverside Park - images via stossLU

Draw on Local Practices:  
The project mentioned was the Competition for the Herinneringspark in regional West Flanders, Belgium, which used ephemeral interventions over large spaces for this historical WW II site - specifically focusing on agricultural cycles to highlight specific forms.  (sorry, couldn't track down any pics on this one)

Flexible Spaces for Social Interaction:
Using the Erie Street Plaza in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as an example, mentioning the patterning of materials (lawn and pavement) and the interplay as a randomized surface that allows for a flexibility of uses.  The other aspect of interest was the connection to the water table and the fluctuating levels of moisture and the use of steam to melt portions of the snow for year-round use.

:: Erie Street Plaza - image via Architect's Newspaper

Open Ended Design:
The garden festival in Grand-Metis, Quebec is the example for open-ended design, 'Safe Zone' was designed with simple materials in new forms, for a flexibility of uses... a play area, but not prescriptive, rather a safe and injury free surface for experimentation and adaptable play (one as Reed mentions, kids get intuitively, but adults take time to adapt to)...

:: images via playscapes
(more pics here on L+U)

Civic Scale:
A more expansive explanation included the concepts of civic scale, expanding some of the more ephemeral and small-scale interventions into significant projects in urban areas.  One example Reed noted was the Fox Riverfront in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which is built above a sheetpile walll, and required the manipulations of various surfaces to accomodate a range of spaces.  The stepped benches form seats and chaise lounges, reacting to the different heights of the subsurface conditions.

:: image via Minnesota Public Radio

The overall site also responds to the flooding conditions that come up and over the bulkhead, creating a reactivated civic space while simultaneously incorporating a functional piece of civic infrastructure.

:: image via National Design Awards

Engaging/Recalibrating Infrastructure
The representative project for this concept was the controversial (locally) competition for capping the Mt.Tabor Reservoirs in Portland.  Stoss's concept was one of the more innovative, blending a new ecology while creating a social spaces.

:: image via National Design Awards

An Integrated Project: Lower Don Lands


A larger example of a project was the competition for the Waterfront and Lower Don River area in Toronto, Canada, which Reed explained in a bit more detail.  The concept (the competition eventually won by MVVA) by Stoss offers a chance to provide an integrated approach, with a goal towards both restoration of the Lower Don River and the subsequent urbanization.  This river first, city second does resonate with the landscape urbanism principles of new form-making driven by landscape/ecological processes.

:: image via The Torontoist

The condition of the existing 90 degree bend of the river, and the need for a more modulated river/lake interface required designing a river, which had both a performative and aesthetic requirement.  This involved a couple of what Reed refers to as principles and flexible tactics:

1. Amplify the Interface: between the river ecosystem and the restored estuary
2. Hybridize the Parts: changes between armored and porous materials, restoring the marsh condition and then letting the ecological systems take over, which provides flood control while creating spaces for urban activities.
3. Modify the Harbor Wall:   establishing a vocabulary of marshes and channels, which form courtyards as catalysts with flexible programs.
4. Unique Building Typologies: Flexibility of form, and flow of landscape across spits and islands, then up the faces of the buildings - green machines.

:: image via The Torontoist

:: image via Penn Design

As Reed mentioned, this provides an example of using ecologies as generative forces (agencies), which as seen from the above examples provides a snapshot into the conceptual framework that is applied to projects at a variety of scales.  Be sure to check out the full range of project work on the Stoss website and get more information on some of these projects mentioned.

Stay tuned for a synopsis of the Panel Discussion coming in a separate post.
Thanks to all the great folks at UW, as well as Chris, Howard, Randy, and Peter for the great after lecture discussions and dialogue.

NOTE: Anyone in attendance wanting to clarify, contest, or expand any of these thoughts, feel free to comment.  Look forward to hearing more.

Parsley On the Building

A great overview on Urban Omnibus features some of the recent site specific events in the 50th Anniversary of the GSD celebrating the half century of urban design (which at least in a modern perspective evolved from Harvard and mid-twentieth century theorists).  While the author seems to incorrectly equate concepts ecological urbanism and landscape urbanism, and does reinforce some anti-density precepts that have been tacked on to landscape urbanism, the overall tone is pretty evenhanded and worth checking out.  My goal here, then, is not to rehash the recent 'wars' which have received a ton of attention, but to point out a few new conceptual tidbits worth exploration.  The first one that got me a bit riled was attributed to Duany in the following paragraph:

"It is probably best that these two urbanisms are fighting to dominate intellectual territory of urban design, for both will be necessary to promote real sustainable solutions. This was made quite clear when Duany suggested that the best use for Ecological Urbanism was biophilia: greening buildings to make them more aesthetically pleasing to the middle class."

Yes, biophilia is a powerful concept that will continue to become more integrated into landscape and architecture and urban planning, as a metaphorical and formal framework to achieve needed access to nature (both visual and physical).  The fact that this becomes Duany's 'best use' for ecological urbanism, making buildings palatable for the middle class, definitely counts as another over-simplification at best.  While the notion of the vegitectural as aesthetic 'parsley on the building' has definitely become commonplace with architects - at least in photoshopped forms (it has also been vilified, rightly so, for it's simplication as inert green garb - used as an inert architectural material, applied like any other inert material) - preferrably for architects in a aggregated 'system' that can be specified and purchased on a square foot basis.

There is an innate ecological value in the process of attaching vegetation to buildings, so to reduce it to aesthetics is belittling both that value and the value of those working in these areas of practice.  One aspect of a true ecological urbanism would be to incorporate not merely biophilic (which is valuable, but non-performative), but bioclimatic principles (incorporating ecological systems into the fabric of building systems to augment and replace mechanical systems, improve indoor air quality, increase comfort, and provide myriad other benefits beyond those of the biophilic).  It can't just be appliquéd - but rather must be integrated, using interdisciplinary approaches (not photoshop) resting on ecological principles.  The result is centered on building users, environmental concerns and reduced impacts to natural resources, and a vital connections to local context that is necessary for optimum performance.

The second quote involves the framing of NU for sustainable urban design.

"... Duany listed three reasons why the recent financial and intensifying environmental crises favor New Urbanism to offer sustainable urban design solutions. First: peak oil will make it more costly to drive, thus favoring creation of the dense, walkable neighborhoods advocated by New Urbanism. Second: the mainstay metric for ecological footprint analysis is carbon emissions, which will incentivize walking and public transit over cars as favored modes of transportation. Third: the residential, mixed-use typologies championed by New Urbanism were too complicated to be included in the mass securitization of mortgages and thus were resilient to the housing crisis."

The concepts of adaptability and indeterminacy (and I'd say, a renewed focus infrastructure) will have more benefit than those of New Urbanism in responding to peak oil, as although we can see the crisis looming, we have no way of predicting what impact it will have on cities, and the impacts of individual investigations at a site scale will be minimal.  While the 'nifty' six point plans for suburban retrofits make for good soundbites for new sustainability initiatives and plans for reducing ecological footprints, they involve a recontextualizing of the same principles, not a reformulating of an approach to urbanism.  Yes, we will fight out the new urban condition in fields of grey and brown, but will: "...restructuring and redevelopment of suburbia - so that retrofitted centers are walkable, diverse and environmentally sustainable..." actually mean anything substantive and repeatable beyond a few American enclaves... while the rest of the world decays at an alarming rate and at a vastly different scale.  Furthermore, the typologies mentioned I'd say were immune to the mortgage crisis purely due to lack of affordability, as those buying these houses are not those specifically impacted in the economic malaise. The packaging and reformulating of the ideas will provide some solutions to these crises, and incorporating walkability, diversity, and sustainability are laudable goals.  But with few viable and repeatable examples (particularly in terms of diversity) so far realized, making it's tough to see how this will be 'the' solution.

Talking 'bout My Generation
I found it doubly interesting, to put it in perspective, that the GSD Urban Design Program is 50, the principles of New Urbanism recently turned 30, and the theories Landscape Urbanism barely clocks in over 10 (a wee bit over perhaps)... give or take a few years a span of a generation between each.  Take in for a second the concepts of maturity and growth, as new concepts are born, learn, adapt, and mature - sometimes rigidly dismissing their elders, often becoming a new hybrid 'adult' formulation worthy of adoption or dismissal.  While I'd love to say my 10 year old self was correct, it would be good to note how these ideas have changed and grown (for instance, new urbanism developing a much more successful concept of sustainability long after it was 10 years old), or urban design learning from 'modernist' experimentation (success and failure), incorporating new ways of seeing cities, such as those of Jane Jacobs) and developing a level of maturity.

Much as new urbanism did not throw out the foundations of urban design but framed them in specific ways, landscape (and ecological) urbanism does not aim to disregard a history of theory and practice gleaned by many professionals over the years - but rather aims to re-evaluate these principles through new lenses.  These lens promote sprawl or focus solely on infrastructure.  They also don't preclude walkability, cities for seniors, appropriate density, or 'practical patterns of human settlements' - but rather acknowledge a  reality that is complex beyond a simplified deterministic approach.

I'd like to agree with Michael Sorkin's point in Urban Omnibus that we can merely use the lens of humanity, equity, sustainability, and beauty (all good concepts that seem aptly homogenized in reductive strategies like LEED) but perhaps we need these arguments to frame a real approach to urbanism that is both realistic and beneficial to all.  Maybe not calling it anything (although that seems hard to market) would be helpful, but I think we all still project and promote urbanisms as frameworks and use the ensuing dialogue for good, healthy, progress, not just a staking out of territory and proclaiming oneself the victor.  

The result will be closer to the goals Sorkin mentions:  

"We need a lot of new cities and a lot of better old ones. They should assume many morphologies. We are very far from done with inventing the form of the city. Neither the reflexive reproduction of historic types … nor the ‘go with the flow’ of urban capital sluts will work it out alone"

Probably neither of those are LU or NU, but both have much to offer to conversation.  

Environmental Urbanism

Excited to have a chance to head up to Seattle for tomorrow's lecture as part of the NOW Urbanism series at University of Washington.  Look for a report of the festivities in coming days.

November 18: 

Environmental Urbanism: Ecological Design for Healthy Cities

Kane Hall, Room 120 (University of Washington)

What does it mean to envision a healthy city - one that nurtures both people and the environment? Environmental Urbanism acknowledges and embraces the relationships between people and their material surroundings. This session will explicitly consider how the human processes of city making involve an ongoing negotiation with various non-human elements-- soils, water, atmosphere, and animals. By considering the intended and unintended effects of urbanization, our goal is to better understand how and to what extent we can intentionally shape future urban landscapes.

Lecture and discussion panelists include: 

Chris ReedstossLU, Boston

Chris Reed is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and founding principal of Stoss Landscape Urbanism, a Boston-based strategic design and planning practice. Reed is a registered landscape architect with professional interests in strategic planning and urban framework design. His research interests include infrastructure and urbanism in the contemporary North American metropolis, with a recent focus on Los Angeles; the recalibration of engineering and infrastructural technologies toward an expanded and hybridized notion of a landscape-based urbanism; and a reconsideration of the meaning and agency of ecology in design practices and design thinking.

Reed’s own work has been awarded, exhibited and published nationally. He lectures internationally, and has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Rhode Island School of Design and Florida International University."

 

Randy Hester  Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley

Professor Hester’s research focuses on the role of citizens in community design and ecological planning. He is one of the founders of the research movement to apply sociology to the design of neighborhoods, cities and landscapes. His current work is a search for a design process to support ecological democracy. Topics of special interest include Citizen Science, Stewardship, Sacred Landscapes, and Environmental Justice.

 

Howard FrumkinDean, UW School of Public Health

Howard Frumkin is Dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health. He is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist, and epidemiologist. From 2005 to 2010 he served leadership roles at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, first as director of the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and later as Special Assistant to the CDC Director for Climate Change and Health. Previously, he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Emory Medical School.

His research interests include public health aspects of the built environment; air pollution; metal and PCB toxicity; climate change; health benefits of contact with nature; and environmental and occupational health policy, especially regarding minority communities and developing nations. He is the author or co-author of over 180 scientific journal articles and chapters and several books.

'A Landscape Manifesto'

Always a big fan of manifestos - the recent release of Diana Balmori & Michael Conan's 'A Landscape Manifesto' aims to be an interesting read (I have a copy en route, so stay tuned for a more expansive review).

:: image via Amazon

Some info on the book, from the Manifesto Website.

"A Landscape Manifesto' is a new book by Diana Balmori that presents her theory and practice of urban landscape design as an art that spans the divide between culture and nature, while combining the science of ecology with formal aspects of aesthetics.  This timely Manifesto - consisting of 25 points - advocates a new language for landscape, reflecting the shift in our understanding of nature and how it interacts with "the city".

A Landscape Manifesto is much more than just a book to read, enjoy and set aside –– it's intended to spark a conversation about the infinitely changeable nature of our world, and how we might effect positive transformation where we live, work, sleep and play."

The points are concise and evocative - for instance #1 is timely in the current debate surrounding LU v. NU.

"Nostalgia for the past and utopian dreams for the future prevent us from looking at our present."

– Manifesto point #1, from The Landscape Manifesto by Diana Balmori.

As an adjunct to the book, and to meet some of the above goals of an expanded converstation, Balmori has launched a companion website and call for 'Post-It Landscape' to illustrate the key points of the manifesto.  A few examples are up on the site - giving some physical context to the narrative of the manifesto points, using a simple media of staged photographic elements.

For example Yen Trinh's example of Manifesto point #18 uses a contested space, specifically an East Village Community Garden, showing evolution of a grassroots process of reclaiming space, and some of the subsequent pressures for development that have made this particular landscape an 'actor' in the political arena.

It should be interesting to see these connections, gleaned from a range of sources - as a great example of new media (building on Balmori's very cool Twitter version of space planning on the 'Making Public Places' from 2009).

Look for info more soon, including a review and my own addition to the Post-It Landscape... and thanks to Monica @ Balmori for the heads up!

More on the Urbanism Wars

GSD as Epicenter

The escalation of voices in the (let's call it debate for lack of a better term) about some of the urbanisms out there - most notably New Urbanism and Landscape Urbanism, has kicked up a notch even in the past few weeks since the initial salvos. There has been a fair amount of dialogue around this (and also a lot of posturing), which from reactions I've heard has both engaged and alienated equal numbers from both camps.  As most folks have heard, in Metropolis, Duany attacked (there's no other word for it), the alleged 'takeover' of the Harvard GSD with a nefarious Waldheim-led transformation so that "the Urban Design Program will morph entirely toward third world initiatives—all offshore—thereby leaving the field clear for Landscape/Ecological Urbanism to be the GSD’s only urban program operating in North America and Europe." and that "there will not be much of whatever remained of the urbane, urban design sensibility. Landscape/Ecological Urbanism will rule without dissension."

The response from Alex Krieger (soon after) captured a less reactionary tone of a natural progression of ideology over time (something the CNU may consider a valuable lesson).  He mentions:

"I suspect Andres’ postulating a nefarious ‘coup’ at Harvard, in which Urban Design is erased in favor of something called Ecological Urbanism, is actually a cover for a personal worry that the term Landscape Urbanism will soon supplant New Urbanism amongst the purveyors of design sloganeering. The arrival of a new oracle, timely draped with environmental virtues is unsettling. "

Not really having a lot to say about the GSD or it's influence on the profession, I think the specifics of the exchange are less interesting than the very public 'shot across the bow' as Krieger put it, leading to what I think may prove to be a significant escalation on both sides of the battle lines (as if it were a war with only two sides...).  The war continues...

Some Recent Battles

Waldheim's post on Agrarian Urbanism got some convinced that Landscape Urbanism wished for a return to the 'sprawl utopia' of Wrights Broadacre City or other utopian agro-urban visions from the twentieth century.  Taking the mantle of oppositional dynamics of cities and ag lands - even when it is obvious there is a strong desire for some balance.  As Daniel Nairn, who came up with an interestingly balanced proposal of urban agriculture worthy of investgation, on his blog Discovering Urbanism mentioned, "A quick background check on Landscape Urbanism suggests that he may seriously be hoping to revive the Broadacre City. When we thought Jane Jacobs had thoroughly shellacked the whole decentralist train of thought back in the 1960s, a few academics have apparently determined that the dictates of avant garde subversiveness actually swing them back into the direction of auto-dependency and vigorous fragmentation of land."  

:: Farmadelphia - image via Ziger/Snead

He then swings widely to a broad generalization of the opposition, which i think is the most interesting point of the arguments, as it belies the balanced approach of land (ecological, productive, useful) within the urban pattern - which can be done without the sacrifice of density and urbanization.  More production in cities will impact urban form - it's inevitable and part of a conversation - but if we're really talking about where people live and what they want, it's very clear that food (for novelty, self-sufficiency, or even for apocalyptic preparation) is something than can and will be woven into our cities.  It won't look like Garden Block, and it won't look like Broadacre City...

This alludes to another in a line of misunderstandings, perpetuated by a cherry-picking of thoughts from literature - similar to that of Michael Mehaffy's article before, amping up the notions of justifying sprawl (how the hell the landscape urbanists caused sprawl is beyond me), or a desire for automobile-centric cities (being realistic about culture and conditions is not the same as condoning them).  I wonder what the critics would say about similar exercises like Weller's Boomtown 2050 which uses a number of utopian frameworks to envision development and density of Perth, Australia (reminiscent of the equally abstract 'Metacity/Datatown' explorations of MVRDV  These are not projects to pick apart - but are, at best, inspired and relevant thought exercises that we can learn from - with no notions that these are actual solutions.

:: Datatown from MVRDV 

The ideas that we understand an urban reality and 'get real' about sprawl, ecological systems, the prevalence of cars and transportation desires, amongst and other realities - is helpful, and (rather than ignoring them for some traditional ideal) reflects the sense of landscape urbanism ideology and venturing into history for precedents seems valid for any urbanist approach.  Also the common assumption that landscape or ecological urbanism is about throwing out the baby by displacing urban density and elimination of walkability, compactness, transit (good city planning, smart growth, new urbanism, whatever you want to call it) in lieu of protecting the bathwater and providing 'greenery', as demonstrated in Nairn's split shot of a natural lake scene and a downtown streetscape - is also equally misguided, as there isn't a call for suburban utopia of Broadacre or a modernist tower in the park of Le Corbusier.  An ecology of the city is not, like early 20th Century ecology, removed from humanity, but interwoven into it.  It is also not purely based, as critics would like to admit, on avant-garde artistic expression at the detriment to good urban principles.  It is rather not deterministic - relying on a fluidity and acknowledgement that we set a stage, but ultimately fail when we try to control all of the details of a city.

The point made by Waldheim, (and Daniel - it's Charles, not Peter) was not a tacit agreement with the proposed projects, nor a call to an agrarian suburbia dominated by cars.  Understanding the history of the agrarian urban tradition (my reaction to Waldheim's essay here) is vital - and discussion of historical examples is not to be equated with a blind acceptance of the merits of these proposals.  (Yes, hindsight is good, but vilification for revisiting history is something New Urbanists may want to avoid).  In fact, Waldheim seemed cautious of the proposals, not laudatory - a sort of a plea, in our rush to implement all things urban agriculture, to perhaps learn and not repeat some of history's mistakes.  As stated by Waldheim, it is an exploration, as:

"...these brief notes outline a history of urban form perceived through the spatial, ecological and infrastructural import of agricultural production. The choice of projects is based on the idea of agricultural production as a formative element of city structure, rather than as an adjunct, something to be inserted into already existing structures; thus this tentative counter-history seeks to construct a useful past from three projects organized explicitly around the role of agriculture in determining the economic, ecological and spatial order of the city."

Another post from Yuri Artibise gets into the discussions of the variety of available 'ubanisms' - mentioning the concept of 'sustainable urbanism' (also echoed in Duany's essay in the Ecological Urbanism book that is supposedly the 'first official guide of the new regime').  As mentioned: "Sustainable urbanism is an emerging discipline that combines creating multi-modal places, nurturing diverse economies and building high-performance infrastructure and buildings. It is more than a synonym for green or ecological urbanism. Rather, it looks at the triple bottom line by making sure that our urban centers are socially inclusion, economically dynamic and environmentally conscious."  

:: Sustainable Neighborhood - image via Google

This seems more like 'green' new urbanism than anything else.  And there's nothing inherently wrong with the sentiment - as an ecological lens to new urbanism has been much more integrated in recent years, which was a welcome addition.  It's the subtext that this is unique and different from other urbanisms (underlined passage to highlight this) that seems odd.  If one can reference above definition as antonymous to green or ecological urbanism, then it represents a common misunderstanding by many of green or ecological urbanism - reduced to greenery in cities with little to no regard for the actual social and economic functions of cities - which is a simplistic viewpoint that doesn't mesh with the literature.  More also to come on Duany's article in the EU book - which is pretty interesting reading...

:: Page from Ecological Urbanism - image via GSD

Is it LU v. NU?

The responses above (and the current ire/debate/flame war) I believe stems from the very specific attack (there's no other word for that either) thrown out by Waldheim previously that LU was in diametric opposition to NU - as quoted:

"Landscape Urbanism was specifically meant to provide an intellectual and practical alternative to the hegemony of the New Urbanism.” 

And as Krieger mentions in response to Duany: "Well, those are fighting words, I guess, and so a counter-offensive campaign among the New Urbanists has been ordered. ". This kind of provocation is kind of asking for some reflexive response (perhaps that was the goal?) but I think muddies the waters in terms of the debate. While it's easy to say that it is placed in opposition, I don't see Landscape Urbanism being approached in any sort of systematic way to refute or offer an alternative approach directly framed as attacks on New Urbanism.  Perhaps a more nuanced reading and criticism of NU (along with some really good questions, like why West Coast Calthorpe NU seems so different than the Neo-Traditional approaches?)

:: Calthorpe's Urban Network - image via Neo-Houston

There are too obvious fundamental differences and a philosophical gulf between the two concepts but its simplistic (and diminishes the value of LU) to frame it merely as an alternative to NU (see a recent, more broadly articulated vision from Waldheim here) - as it is looking at a vastly different context, scale, and approach.

Voices of Reason

A couple of readings from both sides of the argument give a much clearer ideological breakdown and are much less divisive - which I think is much more useful than name calling and stereotyping based on simplied notions of either NU or LU theory (both sides are guilty of reducing for the purposes of denigrating the other).  These two voices seem to offer a useful discussion of the merits.

The first, from Tim Stonor from The Power of the Network, questions the divisiveness of the debate, recognizing both positive and negative overlaps between the two and understanding the potential of these to reinforce each others.  From the post.

"The most striking aspect of the presentation was that Landscape Urbanism’s breakup of urban places into small enclaves is resonant of many projects of the New Urbanism, where relatively isolated “communities” of pretty, historically familiar houses are set within a green landscape. But, Waldheim was clear to present Landscape Urbanism as a critique of New Urbanism – as beyond New Urbanism. However, his critique focused on the aesthetic – the architectural treatment of the buildings within the pockets – rather than on the morphological – the pockets themselves. In terms of morphology and not aesthetics, the overlap between Landscape and New Urbanism outweigh the differences."

Stonor does go on to adopt the same 'grey versus green' assumption of NU critics of LU, stating that "The Landscape Urbanism projects that separate the green from the grey do not therefore do enough, if anything, to change the paradigm of “you can have either local or global but not both together” that the New Urbanism inherited from Buchanan." and goes on to use the New Urbanist 'transect' as a replicable model. "It should be to see the “grey” city, in itself, as an ecological object. To acknowledge that the grey city – as a network of streets and spaces that are simultaneously landscape corridors and conduits of human movement, community relations, commerce and ideas – is the green city. New Urbanism offers the concept of the “transect” as one means of doing so. This is a powerful start. One that Landscape Urbanism ought to be able to embrace."

:: Broadacre City - image via Discovering Urbanism

The transect is an interest metaphorical model, again worthy of discussion (and I know for a fact that many LU folks are intrigued by the ideas - at least until it becomes a mechanism for Smart Codes).  It is not, however, to be translated into a one-size-fits-all solution (unless you can find me a great monocentric model city where the categories work).  Much like economic city models that use monocentric principles (simplified versions of city dynamics), they are fine for analysis, but not necessarily for action because they don't capture the complexity of the reality of cities - because no code is that smart.  

I also wonder, somewhat, where these 'projects' are that are the basis of some of this criticism (as I've mentioned previously, this is still a very vague notion - and I would love some specifics, if only to evaluate what is being evaluated). I don't think there's agreement on what is a work of landscape urbanism (if it exists at all), so using project specific criticism seems a bit hollow.  Is it site based?  Aggregations?  Districts? or just viable at a city scale... I'm slowly amassing some ideas from readers, and it's leaving me with more questions than answers - so LU proponents and NU critics - let's look for a shared understanding that at least is a point of departure for philosophical differences we can debate.

:: Crossroads Project from LA Dallman

Another post, (and belying my ideological stance) is what I think is the most elegant and eloquent response I've heard (worth all of us reading) from Charles Birnbaum, written in The Huffington Post today.  voice of rationality to the entire proceedings.  The sentiment from the article, which is gleaned from a number of practitioners and academics can be summed up as such:

"Since the early 1980s, Waldheim noted, landscape architects have played the role of environmental advocates, concluding, "the advocate scenario reached the limit." He added, "The rise of landscape as a design medium is bigger than all of us and none of us have exclusive access." Waldheim is building a big tent in theory and now in faculty. The approach welcomes shared values, myriad and overlapping expertise and a celebratory embracing of complex social, environmental and cultural systems. He notes, "there is a decentralization to horizontality and it is very difficult to structure urbanism out of buildings. ... 

I am among those that believe that the time for landscape architecture has come and that there is sufficient evidence of increasingly greater global demand for our leadership. Our potential role has never been more central. So to Duany and those that disagree or feel threatened, go back and read Olmsted, Jr., because in addition to the principles that you have liberally borrowed for context-sensitive architecture and planning, much can be gleaned from Olmsted Jr.'s enormous comfort zone, which like the Landscape Urbanism movement, embraces a shared value, systems-based approach that is built on collaboration and open mindedness." 

:: Green Networks in Olmsted Bros planning - image via Heaviest Corner

Birnbaum reaches to Waldheim, Czerniak, Pollack, and even Martha Schwartz for some of the recent thinking on the emergence of landscape architecture, who collectively provide a range of ideas in practice and academia.   Perhaps for those not excited about Martha Schwartz as our defender, can look to folks like Mark Rios (both and architect and landscape architect) who offers a great perspective:  

"Architects are trained to design objects. They go through design school looking at form and program. Landscape architects look at voids, space, systems, based in training in ecology. They deal with bringing spaces together -- how they are transformed through ecology. It feels to me that the basic training of the professions is different and landscape architects deal with city building in holistic ways."  "New urbanism does not do that. It is a holistically fabricated place that does not look at pieces in the puzzle." He suggests, "We need to find ways to be fabric weavers -- you can't have a whole city of objects."

The 'we' in this case is all of use collectively, and divisiveness only furthers the gulf, to the deteriment of our collective impact on cities.  Only with an understanding of each side can we compare and contrast - so those with issues with New Urbanism (or parts of it) need to learn what the concepts and results are.  Those who aim to dismiss Landscape and Ecological Urbanism may do everyone a favor and do the same.  It's a simple case of knowing thy enemy. 

Getting Back to Urbanism

This is illustrated in another recent definition (from Tom Turner at Gardenvisit) for the slippery idea of what landscape urbanism (or at least the urbanism part) actually is.  From some recent discussion, he states that: "LANDSCAPE URBANISM is an approach to urban design in which the elements of cities (water, landform, vegetation, vertical structures and horizontal structures) are composed (visually, functionally and technically) with regard to human use and the landscape context."  I'd disagree, saying the reference to 'design' and composition make it landscape architecture, not urbanism.  A good case in point is the High Line - which can be understood in terms of landscape urbanism through its contextual place in the urban fabric, but in application is seen as a design using compositional principles.  See why this is so confusing?

:: High Line (landscape design or urbanism) - image via Arch Daily

Thus, I find it funny that the term 'urbanism' (at least how I interpret it) has become disconnected from the origins that makes it a powerful analytical and theoretical tool.  Urbanism, per se, is not a planning system or urban design method, and it is definitely not a landscape design strategy or architectural approach.  Rather, it is a way of reading cities in ways that yield information that is utilized towards those ends (which not being the means to those ends).  As Wikipedia simplifies it: "Broadly, urbanism is a focus on cities and urban areas, their geography, economies, politics, social characteristics, as well as the effects on, and caused by, the built environment."


One aspect I think worthy of discussing is the general premise that New Urbanism is a codified normative planning strategy, meaning 'that it is indicative of an ideal standard or model', while Landscape Urbanism, which is primarily a postive (or descriptive) planning strategy, aimed at describing 'how things are'. This is overly simplified, but really constructive when you consider that landscape urbanism is looking at a different worldview that is much closer aligned to what we mean by urbanism - not seeking out or determining outcomes that is more akin to architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design.  

:: Transect - image via Think of Thwim

I've even heard folks in the urban design realm (and landscape architects as well) starting to get their hackles up, criticizing LU by either saying it's irrelevant or that it is what we're already doing.  This misses the point, as you are fundamentally talking about a key different between design and urbanism - which seems lost on most folks.  Thus I can be an urbanist (landscape, ecological, or other...) while also being a landscape architect - not having to trade one in for the other because they are fundamentally different modes of operating in cities.

Comparing Apples to Apple Trees

The analogy that comes to mind, instead of saying these are comparing apples to oranges, is that the comparison is closer to comparing apples (NU) to apple trees (LU).  One is a discreet product, the other a complex system.  One is small and decipherable, the other larger and more complex.  One yields understandable forms, flavors, colors and textures, while the other is more varied (not containing an inherent 'taste' or 'style') but forming an armature for myriad possible differences in its fruit.   Yet they both coexist and are reliant on each other... much as the apple and apple tree are.  

:: Apple Trees on the Chantemesle Hill - (Monet 1878) - images via monetalia

I think perhaps to take the metaphor a bit further let's call a city an apple tree, and the Landscape Urbanism a larger-scale, complex, rooted, system and each individual apple is a context-based product yielding a specific result.  Cities, through urbanism, have a generalized structural focus on the 'how things are', while sites have a specific programmatic and spatial configuration determined through urban design, planning, landscape architecture, and architecture.  I believe this is why it is so difficult to pin down 'works' of landscape urbanism - because the concept doesn't operate at the scale of works, but rather at a larger scale (what that is is undetermined), one concurrent with a true definition of urbanism. 

The Future of Urbanism


Perhaps as mentioned by Mason White on Twitter, is there an opportunity to open up the debate on urbanism to a wider array, and see who is the survival of the fittest: He posits:  "this new urbanism vs landscape urbanism scuffle could use more ____ urbanisms to let a full fledged Darwinian onslaught unfold. any takers?"  The [blank] urbanism debate not withstanding (and frankly I'm enjoying a sort of cage match format) - the whole concept of urbanism as a term is quickly becoming somewhat comical (similar to the modification of terming ending with -urbia that preceded it) with either serious or seriously funny iterations - which if anything is going to render meaningless the concept of which we try to understand.  Few of these discussions are about 'urbanism' in a true sense, but rather descriptors for planning, urban design, landscape architecture and architectural solutions.  I wonder what should, and what is going to replace it, because after this we may have to abandon it's lifeless corpse, leaving it again to those who want study cities, not design them.

I do agree that, once all the huffing, puffing and chest thumping is over, there will eventually be a shaking out of a somewhat cohesive (and constantly evolving) group of approaches to urbanism.  Not one of these will be the answer to all of our problems, but perhaps we can reach a level of stasis where each is mutually reinforcing and complementary to the others to allow a range of potential readings of the city.  These 'urbanisms' will be reinforced by a range of strategies for portions of the urban areas, through planning, urban design, site design, and architecture.  Any designer/urbanist/planner/architect - lending to the flaws of a single-purpose approach that we've seen so shallow and misguided throughout history - is going to be quickly left in the dust of the more enlightened and holistic thinkers.