Going viral: Blurred Borders

I'm pleased to announce that Landscape+Urbanism will be featured along with some great company as part of the Voices Going Viral Exhibition and event developed by AIANY.   More information below.

The AIANY Global Dialogues committee has dedicated 2012 to “uncovered connections” with the intention to investigate issues that are similarly impacting multiple regions, cultures and individuals. Going Viral: Blurred Borders explores the impact that social media, technology and device culture are having on our design process, and ultimately the way we practice. How do we shape a global conversation? How are we changing the relationships between academia and the profession? What is the impact of hyper information sharing and critique? Throughout the evening, the topics of communication, research, collaboration, and data distribution will be addressed and debated.

Bjarke Ingels of BIG, Toru Hasegawa of Morpholio and Columbia University Cloud Lab, Carlo Aiello of eVolo, and David Basulto with David Assael of ArchDaily will come together for a lecture and panel discussion moderated by Ned Cramer, editor-in-chief of Architect. In addition, selected game changing blogs and websites will be exhibited as Voices Going Viral on the evening of the event. Please join us at the NY Center for Architecture on May 21st at 6:00 pm and online for further information and to RSVP.

The exhibit will feature a ton of great design blogs, so good company to share - and thanks to the curators for the inclusion, and of course thanks to all of you for reading.  Check out the full list in alphabetical order:

Apartment Therapy created by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan and Janel Laban
ArchDaily created by David Basulto and David Assael 
Archidose created by John Hill
Archinect created by Paul Petrunia 
Architect’s Newspaper created by William Menking 
ArchitectureMNP created by Ryan McClain, co-founded by Kiye Apreala
Architizer created by Matthias Hollwich, Marc Kushner, and Benjamin Prosky
Archive of Affinities created by Andrew Kovacs
BLDGBLOG created by Geoff Manaugh
Blurr created by Ahmed Elhusseiny 
But Does It Float created by Folkert Gorter, Atley Kasky, & Will Schofield
Cooking Architecture created by Claire Shafer and Juan Jofre
The Cool Hunter created by Bill Tikos
Core 77 created by Eric Ludlum, Stuart Constantine, & Allan Chochinov
Culture Now created by Abby Suckle, Ann Marie Baranowski, Susan Chin, Diana Pardue, and Nina Rappaport
Curbed created by Lockhart Steele
Death by Architecture created by Mario Cipresso 
DesignBoom created by Birgit Lohmann & Massimo Mini
Design Sponge created by Grace Bonney
DesignReform created by CASE designreform.net Dezeen created by Marcus Fairs
e-Oculus created by the AIA New York Chapter 
eVolo created by Carlo Aiello
Inhabitat blog created by Jill Fehrenbacher
Landscape + Urbanism created by Jason King 
Mammoth created by Stephen Becker and Rob Holmes
Morpholio created by Mark Collins, Toru Hasegawa, & Anna Kenoff
Places Journal online created by Nancy Levinson, Harrison Fraker, William Drenttel, Jessica Helfand and Michael Bierut
Post Post created by David Jaubert
Project created by Alfie Koetter, Daniel Markiewicz, Jonah Rowen, & Emmett Zeifman

Credits: Global Dialogue Chairs: Bruce E. Fisher AIA and Jeffrey A. Kenoff AIA Event Co-Chairs: Elie Gamburg, Diane Chehab Design and Curatorial Team: James Kehl, Rebecca Pasternack, Ciara Seymour, Sarah E. Smith, Andy Vann 

Building a Bike Highway

The video of the presentation for GOOD Ideas for Cities is up, along with a nice write-up from organizer Alissa Walker from GOOD - so enjoy. Also check out some more detail, and download a PDF of the presentation over at the THINK.urban site.

GOOD Times in Portland

The recent event for GOOD Ideas for Cities happened last week in Portland, and generated some great dialogue.  I was also on one of the teams that presented.  A short recap.

:: custom notebooks by Scout Books

 "Each team was issued a challenge proposed by a local urban leader. At the event, the creative teams will present their solutions to their assigned challenge, and the urban leaders will join them onstage for a brief Q&A with GOOD Ideas for Cities editor Alissa Walker."  Teams included international talent from Wieden + Kennedy and Ziba Design, as well as local groups Sincerely Interested, THINK.urban, ADX, and the Official Manufacturing Company, all tackling some pressing (and not so pressing) urban ideas.

The event was held at Ziba's beautiful new HQ building in the Pearl District, and the sold-out event had some great people and conversations.  As you can see the packed house (including Mayor Sam Adams) is checking out Alissa from GOOD's intro, and had some great energy for the various groups.

 

:: image via Portland Mercury

My evolving side project THINK.urban, under development as a non-profit with fellow PSU Grad Students Allison Duncan and Katrina Johnston, was one of the teams, as mentioned above.  We've been slamming away on ideas for six weeks, and presented our ideas for world-class bike infrastructure, working from a challenge from Bikeportland.org's Jonathan Maus).

:: image via Portland Mercury 

As mentioned in a recap by Sarah Mirk from the Portland Mercury (check out the post for all of the ideas) - here's what we've been working on.

"CHALLENGE (from BikePortland.org editor Jonathan Maus): How can we create a major new bikeway that helps make bicycling as visible, safe, convenient, and pleasant for as many people as possible? 

IDEAS (from PSU grad student nonprofit THINK.Urban):  Take a cue from Europe and build two-way cycletracks on Portland's biggest streets. The two-way lanes would be separated from cars on streets like Sandy, Broadway, and Hawthorne, by a grassy median. "Prioritize bikes on the same level as cars. People are tired of looking at Europe. We want to see these things here now."

We were really happy with the ideas that were developed, honored to be in such great company, and looking forward to seeing this new bike infrastructure take root.  More on the ideas will be posted at THINK.urban, and I'll link them back here when they do. 

GOOD times.

Soundtrack for Spaces - Next Generation

I have discussed the concept  previous posts on the 'Soundtrack for Spaces', where I was making connections between physical locations in the landscape and the potential to imbue place with appropriate musical accompaniment.  These varied, but included looking at the Fleet Foxes as driving music in the Columbia River Gorge, the video customization for Arcade Fire's 'The Wilderness Downtown', and another video stitched together from Google Street View clips.

The ideas at the time were somewhat nascent, and sort of hinted at the concept of adaptable, location-specific music responsive to place.  This was reinforced by reading one of William Gibson's latest novels called 'Spook Country', which discusses the concept of 'locative media' within the storyline, which means media that is delivered "directly to the user of a mobile device dependent upon their location."  Another thread was a tale of games of location-specific 'Urban Pacman' taking place in Portland - using the game-friendly layout of Ladd's Addition as a container. 

:: image via Robot Mutant

An article from a few weeks back in the NY Times - "Central Park, the Soundtrack" takes this idea to an entirely new level.  Bluebrain, a musical duo have created.  The first of the series looked at the National Mall, and the second, of these 'locational' music pieces, 'Listen to the Light' provides an experiential soundtrack for Central Park.  From the Times article:

"As you walk, new musical themes hit you every 20 or 30 steps, as if they were emanating from statues, playgrounds, open spaces and landmarks... The themes layer over one another, growing in volume as you approach certain points on the map and fading out as you move away. It’s a musical Venn diagram placed over the landscape, and at any time you might have two dozen tracks playing in your ears, all meshing and colliding in surprising ways. The path you take determines what you hear, and the biggest problem with what the composers call a “location-aware album” is that you may get blisters on your feet trying to hear it all."

The Venn diagram looks something like this, and the tracks reference GPS coordinates.  A diagram or map of the overlay of different musical phrases, from the Bluebrain site:

You can get a taste for the 'classical' inspired work as well.


Central Park (Listen to the Light) - A New Location Aware Album by BLUEBRAIN from BLUEBRAIN on Vimeo.

Definitely check out the slightly longer 'making of' video for "Listen to the Light" for more detail on the technical aspects.  It is somewhat difficult to assess whether the piece is a success or not, divorced from context, but that might be the point.  For those of us who have a constant soundtrack going through our head - which hits shuffle based on a word on a street sign or a sight of a sunset, it does lead one to think that there many possibilities that we are just scratching the surface.

Another interesting example mentioned in the article was GPS Beatmap: Planet as Control Surface, which uses location-specific positioning to mash-up musical phrases based on where you are. Check out a video of this in action here:


GPS Beatmap from Jesse Stiles on Vimeo.

It's pretty exciting, even in these simple formats - and it isn't difficult to envision new radio stations that are location-driven, where users can select a genre, plug in headphones, and participate in an immersive, place-based experience customized to their own particular 


For more, check out ASLA's The Dirt post on Bluebrain here.

Siftings: 01.11.12

"“All great art is born of the metropolis.” - Ezra Pound

 :: image via NY Times


A great little snapshot on urban serendipity from the NY Times that looks at the accidental 'curation' of spaces that the urban environment yields, such as the framed view from the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge.  Perhaps the uniformity of the grid is part of the magic, as the NYT also talks about the 200th Anniversary of the Manhattan Grid, along with the exhibition at the Museum of the City.  And speaking of paving here in Portland, local group Depave got some nice coverage on OPB for their continued work on rolling back pavement in the city.  As for making money on the urban agriculture and gardens - a study in Vancouver, BC finds that it is still a challenge to make a living wage farming, even in the city.  Perhaps we can lobby for urban farm subsidies?

:: image via Museum of the City

Nate Berg at the Atlantic Cities sums up Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne's year-long project to explore his city through its literature, and some of his conclusions on where we stand.  As quoted in the Atlantic article:

"“What the books have suggested to me,” Hawthorne argues, “is that we really don’t have – and need – a new framework for understanding the city at this moment in its history as it undergoes this transition.”

A review of his most recent reading of 'Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and Contested Space' can be found here - which is an interested exploration of the role of space, and the role of social status, on the way we interpret urban histories.  Related, and probably not big news, but people are less enamored with the suburbs, and are re-urbanizing, in this case, Philadelphia along with living in more dense types of housing. 

:: image via Philly.com

More on Occupy, with the recent flurry of Global and US occupations bringing into question the 'limits' of how public spaces are.  As mentioned in the story:

"The Occupy Wall Street movement showed there are often limits to how long one can stay in the town square of a “free” state to express one’s opinion. Various kinds of force were used to get people out of New York’s Zuccotti Park."

An interesting article from The Dirt on the $50 million!!!!! dollars of planning documents and designs for the Orange County Great Park, which has failed to yield much in terms of output.  It brings into question the time-scale on these massive endeavors, and how much needs to happen to create a 'park' in a traditional sense to satisfy some - while allowing space (and budgets) to evolve over decades.

:: image via The Dirt

Finally, a new competition from the Land Art Generator Initiative asks how renewable energy can be beautiful with a planned site at the Freshkills Park - which has a similar time-scale to the Great Park above.  And Freshkills may be an apt model for Mexico City, who is planning to close their massive landfill... And for the squeamish, a new report from the National Research Council changes the tune of reclaimed wastewater (aka toilet to tap) from a 'option of last resort' to a viable strategy that poses no more health risks than other sources.  Drink up!

Data Appeal - Making Map-Landscapes

A follow-up on new mapping tools from the author of 'The Exposed City: Mapping the Urban Invisibles' (read a review of this great book here).  Nadia Amoroso alerted me to a new endeavor called Data Appeal, which provides tools for visualization of data through mapping in order to engage people in new ways.

London - Economic activity w/ Green Space

 Ms. Amoroso sent me some information to give a snapshot of this new tool, which she describes as:  "...a new way of geo-data visualization. This web-based  application takes geo-referenced data files and generates beautifully  designed 3D and animated maps. The application is ideal for anyone  interested in transforming their data into powerful, communicative, and  visually appealing messages."

 

Toronto - Green Space in Neighborhoods

As you can see, the aesthetic variations allow users to choose from many options of shapes and graphic tweaks such as color and transparency to fine-tune the end result.  This flexibility gives option for a number of different iterations to provide more lively 'datascapes' which will hopefully engage users in new ways.  A variation includes colors and different symbology, as seen below:

Ranking of Los Angeles Restaurants

 More from the site: "This  application merges analytics, modeling and art into a new data  visualization tool. In essence, it is a simplified GIS, and visual  geo-analytics tool. The team at DataAppeal wanted to create an  application in which individuals can analyze their data visually and at  the same time have fun with their information, by designing it in a way  that expresses the subject, and by transforming numbers in an artful  way."

Chicago Green Space - alternative view angle

The exciting aspect of the service currently is that it is available free, at least for now.  In the future, a premium version with advanced features, analytic options and more data-design options will be available.   As Amoroso mentions, there has been lots of interest in the site from government  agencies, municipalities, environmental agencies, universities,  research groups, geography associations, market analysis research  companies, news agencies, media groups, national defence agencies,  healthcare institutions, social enterprise, telecommunication companies,  cultural institutes, real estate agencies are typical users groups.

This tool has been created through a collaboration of GIS specialists  and artists to ensure that data is displayed in a more visually  appealing manner to create a stronger response to information.  The tool   builds on the dialogue from Amoroso and collaborators in her book, while providing a shared platform, easy data interface, and access to robust tools for customization and creation of maps for many uses.

Map with dashboard for customization

Stay tuned, as I plan to interview Nadia to get some additional information on the development and future plans for Data Appeal and how it can continue to expand our ability to generate innovative map-landscapes.  For now, check out the site, and peruse some of the features and demos to more - particularly some interactive sites related to New York City Population and Toronto Bars and Restaurant Ratings - where you can visit the map, data, and other pieces that go into the map creation and visualization. 

Reading the Landscape: The Emergence of Landscape Urbanism

The next essay from the Landscape Urbanism Reader is by David Grahame Shane, entitled 'The Emergence of Landscape Urbanism'.  This essay builds on Waldheim's essay and further elaborates on the origins of the theory - with a broad take on the historical foundations and precedents around landscape urbanism as mentioned in the introductory text: “Shane surveys the growing body of literature attendant to landscape urbanism, while tracing the institutions and individuals implicated in the discourse, especially as they relate to the disciplinary formations and discourses of urban design.” (17)


As far as defining landscape urbanism, Shane mentions that the concept "has recently emerged as a rubric to describe the design strategies resulting in the wake of traditional urban forms.” (58) and echoes Waldheim in describing it as encompassing: "the practices of many designers for who landscape had replaced architectural form as the primary medium of citymaking.  This understanding of decentralized post-industrial urban form highlighted the leftover void spaces of the city as potential commons.” (57-58) Furthering this defintiion that provides a way out of the current methodologies of urban design practice.

“Landscape urbanists want to continue the search for a new basis of a performative urbanism that emerges from the bottom up, geared to the technological and ecological realities of the postindustrial world… implies an opportunity open urban design out beyond the current rigid and polarized situation to a world where the past building systems and landscape can be included as systems within urban design.” (65)

Shane mentions this in terms of creating new "recombinations and hybridizations, liberating the urban design discipline from the current, hopeless, binary opposition of past and present, town and country, in and out." (65)  but does mention that although filled with potential as noted above, "All of landscape urbanism’s triumphs so far have been in such marginal and ‘unbuilt’ locations.” (62)  This is another common refrain from critics of landscape urbanism, and it is worth noting that the ideas of contemporary urbanism and its potential solutions are very different in distant open spaces as opposed to dense urban fabric, which is valid, but also misses the point that the theory is attempting to address this situation, not, as many posit, blindly accepting sprawl as a given and deciding to operate within the residual post-industrial or generic Koolhaasian fields of landscape within the periphery.  Rather there is a residual fabric of corridors, edges, and other surfaces that can be re-engaged within this ideology.

:: Louisville Waterfront Park - image via LouisvilleKY.gov

The precise operational dynamic of works of landscape urbanism is one thing - but to move beyond this and think of ways in which the concepts that interweave into practice is a different approach altogether.  The landscape urbanist project, if you would call it such, is addressing all of this (hence the term distiguished from the suburban), and Shane does explain that “The recent discourse surrounding landscape urbanism does not yet begin to address the issue of urban morphologies or the emergence of settlement patterns over time. The problems of this approach is its amnesia and blindness to preexisting structures, urban ecologies, and morphological patterns.” and concludes that “Landscape urbanists are just beginning to battle with the thorny issue of how dense urban forms emerge from landscape and how urban ecologies support performance spaces.” (63)


This essay is way to dense to capture in any detail, but does offer some thought provoking historical origins of theory spanning the last century.   The change in urban form and dynamics through this time period are exp
ressed by 'decompression', evolving from the ideas of Post-Fordist modes of production, deindustrialization leading to shrinking cities, and the resultant postmodern organization that "became obvious in the 1990s with the proliferation of sprawling cities, gated enclaves, residential communities, megamalls, and theme parks.” (59)

This context of contemporary urbanism is best captured by the provocatively wonderful 'City as an Egg' diagram from Cedric Price, which contrast three city morphologies "traditional, dense, ‘hard-boiled egg’ city fixed in concentric rings of development… the ‘fried egg’ city, where railways stretched the city’s perimeter in accelerated linear space-time corridors out into the landscape, resulting in a star shape… and the postmodern ‘scrambled egg city,’ where everything is distributed evenly in small granules or pavilions across the landscape in a continuous network.” (64)

:: City as an Egg - image via Archiable

A wide array of projects are included as examples.  Some are more obvious or oft-mentioned, such as the Parc de la Villette, Downsview, and Freshkills competitions, and also the East River Competition conducted by the Van Alen Institute.  There are some new ones, includingWest Market Square by West 8 (1994) which is a space owned, maintained and programmed by the city, but " which is also free at times to be occupied by local people of all ages, under the surveillance of cameras and local police.” (60) marking a new example of heterotropic space.  The New Town Competition entry from Koolhaas/OMA from 1987 is another precedent where the residential form is shaped by, in the words of Corner, "linear voids of nondevelopment." (60) hinting at the concept of privileged site over architectural form.


Other examples include the unbuilt Greenport Harborfront project in Long Island (1997), which is an example of  “the concept of ‘performative’ urbanism based on preparing the setting for programmed and unprogrammed activities on common land.” (59) which is reflective of some of the later work from Field Operations as well.  A built example of the idea, in a more architectural and site scale context, is the sculptural Osaka Ocean Liner Terminal by FOA, where the architects "turn the concept of the green roof into a dynamic, flowing, baroque parkland setting… Pier and park, two previously separate urban morphologies, are hybridized so as to become inseparable.” (65)

:: Yokahama Terminal - FOA - image via Matt Kingstreet

Shane references an even more extensive list of references, which provide some great historical precedents.   Many of these cover basic historical urbanism, such as the work of Kostof (The City Shaped, The City Assembled), history of the Western/US landscape by Slater and Conzen, and early 20th century writings on garden cities from Howard and regionalism, specifically 'Cities in Evolution' by Patrick Geddes from 1915.  Other writings include later writings of Lynch, Rowe, as well as McHarg's 'Design with Nature' and shifts to more contemporary discussions from Harvey and Soja for exploration of postmodern urbanism, writings from Guy Debord 'The Society of the Spectacle' from 1995 and the explorations by Garreau of the edge-city phenomenon from 1991.

::  Tyson's Corner Edge City

A fundamental aspect discussed by Shane is the connection to landscape ecology, specifically the work of Forman (Landscape Mosaics) and Forman & Godron (Landscape Ecology) and mentioning that its strength "is the consideration of the geographical landscape and the ecological cause-effect network in the landscape.”(61)  The connections of landscape ecology and its roots in Europe are important due to the differing relations between nature and culture (rather than just dealing with landscape sans humans).  As Shane elaborates:

"European land management principles merged with post-Darwinian research on island biogeography and diversity to create a systematic methodology for studying ecological flows, local biospheres, and plant and species migrations conditioned by shifting climatic and environmental factors (including human settlements.” (61)

Finally, the essays captures some of the more recent writings tied closely to LU theory, mentioning 'Stalking Detroit' (2001), 'Mississippi Floods' by Mathur & da Cunha (2000), 'Reclaiming the American West' by Berger (2002), 'Sub-urbanism and the Art of Memory' by Marot (2003), and 'Recovering Landscape' edited by Corner and published in 1999 - which i would consider a close precedent to the currrent discussion.  Stalking Detroit is also an important contribution, offering essays by Waldheim and Corner and provides context, within the prominent shrinking city model of Detroit for a changing city typology.  "After Ford' by Schumacher and Rogner, “provides a most convincing explanation for the relation between modern urbanism and Fordist economic imperatives, as well as the surreal spectacle of decay and abandonment found today in many North American industrial cities.” (57)

:: Shrinking Detroit - image via VIA Architecture

The work in Stalking Detroit, although unbuilt, provides some examples of potential operational methods of landscape urbanism.  One project discussed was Waldheim's 'Decamping Detroit', which illustrates a four stage process for recolonization of space in the shrinking city, including "Dislocation (disconnection of services); erasure (demolition and jumpstarting the native landscape ecology by dropping appropriate seeds from the air ); absorption (ecological reconstitution of part of the Zone with woods, marshes, and streams); and infiltration (the recolonization of the landscape with heteropic, villagelike enclaves.” (59)

 :: Decamping Detroit (Waldheim) - image via detroit disurbanism project

This context of deindustrialization and surburban sprawl is a consistent theme, moving away by necessity from the modernist planning ideology and including a different reading of the city, focus on urban morphology, activated with new strains of thinking from landscape ecology with a goal, as explained by Shane:  “A determination not to accept the readymade formulas of urban design, whether ‘New Urbanist’ or ‘generic’ urbanist megaforms a la Koolhaas.” (64)  The key this is a reversal of normal processes, which "opens the way for a new hybrid urbanism, with dense clusters of activity and the reconstitution of the natural ecology, starting a more ecologically balanced, inner-city urban form in the void.”(59)

Check out as well a longer version of this article from the Harvard Design Magazine (pdf) and I would highly recommend 'Recombinant Urbanism' from 2005 for an exhaustive study of urban modelling processes.

Reading the Landscape: Landscape as Urbanism

The next essay in the Landscape Urbanism Reader, following 'Terra Fluxus' and the initial 'Reference Manifesto' is a longer essay by Waldheim exploring the idea that landscape is most suited to the modern metropolis, being "uniquely capable of responding to temporal change, transformation, adaptation, and succession... a medium uniquely suited to the open-endedness, indeterminacy, and change demanded by contemporary urban conditions." (39)  This idea could be considered one of the formative structures on which landscape urbanism is built, explained by many writers as a response the failings of architecture and urban design to cope with the complexity of the urban situation, leading to Waldheim's apt, but somewhat hyperbolic statement that "the discourse surrounding landscape urbanism can be read as a disciplinary realignment in which landscape supplants architecture's historical role as the basic building block of urban design." (37)

:: Lower Dons -  River + City + Life by Stoss LU

Ironically, this essay explains clearly that landscape urbanism theory has its origins in the same rejection of modernist architecture and planning, and the retreat to "policy, procedure, and public therapy." (39)  This is a common refrain from contemporary planners as a way to distance themselves from top-down, totalitarian schemes of the mid-twentieth century, which has led to a renaissance of engagement in both community and context that makes all urban design and planning better but also a tendency to favor specific strategies.  Corner is quoted as well, mentioning that "only through a synthetic and imaginative reordering of categories in the built environment might we escape our present predicament in the cul-de-sac of post-industrial modernity, and 'the bureaucratic and uninspired failings,' of the planning profession." (38)

I think at heart it means there is room for both a rejection of modernist planning, along with a rejection of some contemporary approaches as well which may be suited for some situations but not appropriate for all.  As an alternative path to new urbanism, rational planning and similar strategies, the fixed nature of deterministic planning must be questioned - thus forming the heart of this debate, Waldheim mentions:  

"the very indeterminacy and flux of the contemporary city, the bane of traditional European city-making, are precisely those qualities explored in emergent works of landscape urbanism." (39)

The context here is important, as many critics of landscape urbanism point out some form of 'anti-urban, pro-sprawl, pro-car' agenda within the writings, whereas proponents of LU might be summarized as arguing that the current forms of urban planning and design are alternatively 'anti-reality,' as they don't acknowledge the messy reality of shrinking, decentralized, globalizing, capitalist, sprawling, market-driven, polluted, socially diverse and complicated nature of the modern city.  Thus beyond a palliative that uses greenery to mitigate urban ills, the definition includes a more expansive field of view, including infrastructure systems (water, waste, transportation), post-industrial sites, waterfronts, linear systems, public open space, as well as more traditional urban-scaled landscape projects.

 :: The Contemporary Context - image from Drosscape - Alan Berger (link)

The context of environmental movements is important as well, as this drives the landscape architecture to a new relevance in sustainability (yet a marginalization in such contemporary processes such as LEED).  Invoking ecology as a "model for process" (39) where projects "appropriate the terms, conceptual categories, and operating methodologies of field ecology: that is, the study of species as they related to their natural environments." (43)  Corner warns of the ecological being solely about advocacy that leads us into the distance of humans from the natural environment, summing current environmentalism as "nothing more than a rear-guard defense of a supposedly autonomous 'nature' conceived to exist 'a priori' outside of human agency or cultural construction." (38)  Applied in a holistic manner to a range of systems and project types listed above, this fundamental advantage of landscape urbanism and its ecological viewpoint allows for "the conflation, integration, and fluid exchange between (natural) environmental and (engineered) infrastructural systems." (43)

These fundamentals of cultural ecology draw on historical precedents like Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, urban development in Barcelona in the 1980s and 90s, and the human-shaped landscape of the Netherlands, which is often used as a model for a non-pastoral idea of shaped (i.e. cultural) landscape that differs from the American frontier model of verdant wilderness).  More specifically, Waldheim mentions some of the other formative competitions, including the less ecological Parc de la Villette (1982) as well as more recent examples of Downsview Park Toronto and Fresh Kills Landfill which strongly incorporate the ideas of ecology.

:: Downsview proposal by Corner/Allen - image via ecosistema urbano

La Villette, on the other hand, focuses on ecologically inspired idea of indeterminacy in spatial arrangement and programming, with both Tschumi's winning entry and the OMA/Koolhaas plans providing "a nascent form of landscape urbanism, constructing a horizontal field of infrastructure that might accommodate all sorts of urban activities, planned and unplanned, imagined and unimagined, over time." (41)  Thus the fluidity of the plan is the generation of adaptable, not fixed, form - able to react and change, quoting  Koolhaas from 'Congestion without Matter':

"the program will undergo constant change and adjustment... the underlying principle of programmatic indeterminacy as a basis of the formal concept allows any shift, modification, replacement, or substitutions to occur without damaging the initial hypothesis." (41)

Other current practice that fits into landscape urbanism derive from global context, such as the work of West 8 in the Netherlands, which allows for a wider latitude in cultural conceptions of open space that have been implemented including the Shell Project (Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier), Schipol Amsterdam Airport, and Borneo & Sporenburg, the last referenced as "an enormous landscape urbanism project... suggests the potential diversity of landscape urbanist strategies through the insertion of numerous small landscaped courts and yard, and the commissioning of numerous designers for individual housing units." (46) 

:: Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier - West 8

In addition to the work of West 8, inventive work in the post-industrial realm is evoked, including historical precedent like Seattle's Gas Works Park by Richard Haag, and the more expansive contemporary Duisburg Nord Steelworks Park by Latz & Partners - the model for reclaiming post-industrial landscapes as a cultural landscape.


The list of references is long, with some of the formative writings that have been incorporated in the structure of landscape urbanism, including ecological regional perspectives of Geddes, Mumford, McHarg (Design with Nature), the urban city-theory of Lynch (Image of the City; A Theory of Good City Form), and more recently the expanded realm of the polycentric city with Rowe (Making a Middle Landscape), Lerup (Stim and Dross) and Koolhaas (Delirious New York; S,M,L,XL).  Koolhaas marks the shift in thinking towards landscape using Atlanta as a prototype, stating that "Architecture is no longer the primary element of urban order, increasingly urban order is given by a thin horizontal vegetal plane, increasingly landscape is the primary element of urban order." (42)

:: 2008 Aerial View of Atlanta - image via Ace Aerial Photography

An important contribution to this is an 1995 essay by  Kenneth Frampton entitled 'Toward an Urban Landscape' in which he expands on the early essays on critical regionalism with a focus on the "need to conceive of a remedial landscape that is capable of playing a critical and compensatory role in relation to the ongoing, destructive commodification of the man-made world." (42)  He continues with two main points privileging landscape: "First, that priority should now be according to landscape, rather than to freestanding built form and second, that there is a pressing need to transform certain megalopolitan types such as shopping malls, parking lots, and office parks into landscaped built forms." (43)

 The second source worth exploring in more detail is the essay 'Mat Urbanism - the Thick 2-D' by Stan Allen (2001) - which expands the flat horizontality of the field with imbuing these suficial space as a process landscape.  "Increasingly, landscape is emerging as a model for urbanism. Landscape has traditionally been defined as the art of organizing horizontal surfaces… By paying close attention to these surface conditions – not only configuration, but also materiality and performance – designers can activate space and produce urban effects without the weighty apparatus of traditional space making.” (37)


This essay is another building block in the tradition of urbanism as exploration and study, not yielding specific answers to these questions but looking at the history of critical thought and linking to some of the formative analyses done, as well as some of the preliminary precedents that have emerged in the past century.  Critics have claimed as well that many of the concepts of landscape urbanism theory is not necessarily new - which is true, but is also a claim which sort of misses the point.  We should always look back to sources to inform our current thinking as there is much to be learned from both successes as well as failures - and by looking at new ways to apply these lessons to our current context (which I would posit is unique to cities throughout history).

Thus, Waldheim encapsulates the context of landscape urbanism within this historical framework, where:  "…the ability to produce urban effects traditionally acheieved through the construction of buildings simply through the organization of horizontal surfaces – recommends the landscape medium for use in contemporary urban conditions increasingly characterized by horizontal sprawl and rapid change.” (37)

Reading List: Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA

'Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA' published in 2011, is edited by the Infrastructure Research Initiative of SWA including Los Angeles office principals Gerdo Aquino and Ying-Yu Hung.  This is supplemented with contributions from Charles Waldheim, Julie Czerniak, Adriaan Geuze, Matthew Skjonsberg and Alexander Robinson.  While ostensibly about landscape infrastructure, this type of book is a new sort of publishing hybrid that has emerged, combining the firm-specific work of a monograph within a more topical subject matter on a particular typology or approach to project work.

I think this may become a new trend in publishing, as it provides firms with the opportunity to showcase work, but also offers a more expansive vehicle for exploration of themes and inclusion of more collaborators, making the book both more widely marketable while putting the work of the firm in the forefront of emerging trends.  This differs somewhat from the Dutch examples and their production of brick-like graphic tomes of research and work.  This collection of essays and case studies benefits from the inclusion of more voices, although is similarly directed at positioning a firm within a certain intellectual and conceptual frame of reference.

This frame of reference, landscape infrastructure, is not altogether new, but is definitely one of the more emerging ideas within landscape architecture and urban design, which is reflected in the description of the book, per the SWA website:

"INFRASTRUCTURE, as we know it, no longer belongs in the exclusive realm of engineers and transportation planners. In the context of our rapidly changing cities and towns, infrastructure is experiencing a paradigm shift where multiple-use programming and the integration of latent ecologies is a primary consideration. Defining contemporary infrastructure requires a multi-disciplinary team of landscape architects, engineers, architects and planners to fully realize the benefits to our cultural and natural systems."

The book exhibits some of the exploration of these topics, picking up on what Aquino mentions as the aim of SWAs Infrastructure Research Initiative "as a testing ground for engaging and redefining infrastructure in the context of future growth in our cities and towns." (p.7)  This is echoed by Waldheim, and the research of the firm and the position of infrastructure as a way to "enter contemporary discourse on landscape as a form of urbanism." (p.9) and is thus connected to the more well-known broader goals of landscape urbanism and other 'adjectivally modified' forms of urbanism. (for more on this, read Aquino's interview on Archinect 'What is a Park?')

Waldheim's essay is followed by exploration of landscape urbanism and infrastructure by Hung, which gives some more detail on the history and specificity of these connected trends.  The distinction offered is that this is a 'next step' "for the further inquiry as a city's development and economic future is in direct proportion to its ability to collect, exchange, distribute goods and services, resources, knowledge, and people across vast territories." (p.16)  The ideas of landscape infrastructure therefore are given more detail, including the relationship to 1) performance - allowing for metrics; 2) aggregation - scalable collectivity; 3) networks - working towards connectivity; and 4) incrementalism - allowing for changes and adaptation, as well as expansion over time.   While I'm not convinced this is altogether new territory, it is important nonetheless, and the sum of this exploration in defining what I would call a subset, not an expansion of what falls under the rubic of landscape urbanism.

Further essays include Czerniak's exploration of making infrastructure more 'visibly useful' (p.20) and additional discussion by Geuze and Skjonsberg on 'Second Nature' expanding on previous writings derived from John Dixon Hunt and the expanded concept of the cultural landscape that is not pastoral, but is made up of the entire working landscape (infrastructure) that is shaped by man through direct and indirect means.  The final essay by Robinson takes on the ability to modulate, not to suppress or to make off-limits, flows by implementation of new infrastructural systems, using examples like the Los Angeles River, with the goal of providing expanded open space opportunities in the metropolis.  All offer ideas worth exploring, giving an additional dimension of understanding to the infrastructural landscape.

If this new type of book is the trend, it's a welcome one.  The idea of a monograph is somewhat anachronistic and indulgent - so I can see how firms and publishers alike would move towards this value-added approach.  The book is richly detailed and provides interesting exploration of topics.  The 14 case studies of projects - organized per Hung's four areas of performance, aggregate, network, and increment - are introduced with a concise description and many graphics, exploring the process as well as the product - showcasing innovation beyond merely showing off a project.

While not comprehensive case studies with data and other information, there is some meat on the bones of these cases, making it useful beyond the 'wow' factor in informing other projects.  Obviously the urban scope of SWAs work makes this a broader geographic range of work that touches North America, as well as China and South Korea.  This gives the work a context of both our indigenous urbanism as well as developing solutions in rapidly expanding globalized urban areas as well.

This cross cultural and multi-scalar range of projects offer a glimpse into the complexities inherent in tackling large-scale infrastructural projects.  This applies to both the content as well as the visualization, with interesting graphical representations that attempt to communicate temporality, adaptability, and fludity (which is no small feat).  I will leave you to check out the book for more and decide if the $70 (US) price tag is worthwhile, but the breadth of information makes this a valuable addition to the library of those landscape and urbanists working in these arenas and interested in ways, as Waldheim mentions in wrapping up his essay, to identify "the discourse around landscape urbanism generally, and infrastructure more specifically, as an entry point into contemporary readings of landscape as a cultural form." (p.13)

[images from the book - copyright SWA]

Pruitt Igoe Now

Another good ideas competition, Pruitt Igoe Now the infamous St. Louis housing complex that was demolished in 1972 and considered one of the touchstones in the 'death' of modernism.  The site is typical of the towers in the park ideal most notably ascribed to public housing and derived from version of Le Corbusier's Radiant City designs.  In this case, bars of housing were interwoven with roads, parking, and open space within immense superblocks as seen in the aerial and plan of the original development.

From the site: "Pruitt Igoe Now seeks the ideas of the creative community worldwide: we invite individuals and teams of professional, academic, and student architects, landscape architects, designers, writers and artists of every discipline to re-imagine the 57 acres on which the Pruitt-Igoe housing project was once located."   What could the site be today?

Part of the site has been rebuilt as a school, but a large portion is still undeveloped, and has developed its own feral ecology, as shown in these before and after shots of the demolition of building C-15 in 1972 and the same site in 2010.

Even if you aren't interested in the competition, a quick tour around the site gives a really fascinating look at some of the history of this contentious site.  Also, check out the new documentary 'The Pruitt-Igoe Myth' for some more background... here's the trailer.


The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: an Urban History – Film Trailer from the Pruitt-Igoe Myth on Vimeo.

URBAN REALITY: Landscape Urbanism 3 Day Design Challenge

[note: the previous post for LU 72 HR Urban Action has evolved into the following, thus the update at the behest of the organizers]

URBAN REALITY: Landscape Urbanism 3 Day Design Challenge invites teams to design and construct a site in response to a brief in just three days. The challenge aims to bring together creative minds both nationally and internationally to compete in an action packed, hands on, game plan competition that responds to this years state of design festival theme design that moves. Melbourne's docklands will become the workshop, the camp, the dining room and the party venue for the teams for three entire days with winning teams being awarded with prize money and the pleasure of having a realised project in Melbourne's public realm.

There are a number of public events available throughout the duration of the 5 days.  A symposium will be held at BMW Edge on Tuesday 26 July. The opening ceremony will take place on Wednesday 27 July at the Docklands. The announcement of the winners will take place at the Docklands on Saturday 30 July.

Various commentary and guides will be occurring throughout the event.  More info @ www.urbanreality.org and via email @ urbanreality@outr.org

Materials Library: Rust

A revisit of an old feature on L+U, investigations of materials for inspirational purposes.  For starters, one of my favorites, the rusted metal of Cor-ten, weathering steel, or whatever you'd like to call it, a durable and wonderful addition to exterior projects in it's ability to blend with natural materials (landscaping, wood, stone) and more urban materials of concrete and glass.  The following shows a display of a few projects displaying the wonders of rust. A simple installation for this exterior stair also shows the malleability of creating forms with metal for this Tourist route Atlanterhavsvegen by 3 RW Arkitekter.

 :: image via Vulgare

More Hidden Rivers - NYC

An interesting post from Urban Omnibus from earlier in January entitled 'Grey vs. Green: Daylighting the Saw Mill River' is less intriguing in design concept that in larger idea of envisioning the expression of the variety of waterways that are hidden/buried/forgotten within our urban areas.  As referenced by Eric Sanderson through  his work on the fabulous Mannahatta project "The movement of water is universal. What takes it out of the ordinary is the infrastructure we have built around and in spite of it. Mannahatta notes that there were once 34.9 miles of “rocky headwater stream communities” and 14.2 miles of “marsh headwater stream communities” on our island, in addition to numerous springs, ponds, and intermittent streams."


The idea of  a more artistic expression comes out in the great image from the article.  The idea, as mentioned in the caption: "Spanning the corridor between the 42nd Street/Bryant Park BDFV station and the 5 Av 7 station, Samm Kunce’s mosaic “Under Bryant Park” is an evocative imagining of the root and water paths behind the tiled walls. ."

:: image  via Urban Omnibus - Photo by Zach Youngerman

The design concepts seem pretty standard fare visually, although the are made up of highly artificial and engineered system.  The authentic expression of 'system' seems an interesting challenge for designers, similar to restoration processes for the LA River which has elicited terms like 'Freakology' to describe the hybridized ecological system.

Zappata Romana

The ease of online mapmaking leads to a democratization of the dissemination of all forms of information.  In the spirit of Greenmaps, Italian firm Urban Architecture Project presents Zappata Romana, a simple, icon-based mapping of community-run green spaces on underused and abandoned areas in Rome.


Visualizza “ZAPPATA ROMANA”: community-run green areas _by studioUAP in una mappa di dimensioni maggiori

Some additional information about the project:  "About 50 community-run green areas mapped: little urban gardens, play yards, edible gardens and areas for walking, resting, or simply talking. Citizens and associations acting together to reclaim the abandoned areas in Rome. More than 100 sites together with the 65 spontaneous gardens registered by the Rome municipality.  Urban farms too and other interesting experiences such as Partecipation Houses, “Punti Verdi Qualità” and green areas maintained by established associations." 


Imagine the growing potential, using shared geographical data from a global resource (in this case, the ubiquitous Google Map) - how the layering of information has grown, and will continue to do so, due to tools that are easy to manipulate with little technical expertise and little to no cost.  For a similar project, check out my Beta version of the PDX Greenmap - which aims to feature a range of sustainable sites and strategies around Portland (more info here).

Maps=Information
Information=Power [thus]
Maps=Power.

Black Friday

Let's make the shopping experience a bit more dangerous... Asphalt Spot in Tokamashi, Japan by R&Sie(n).

:: images via Space Invading

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.