Essay in 'Atlantis' Magazine

I am happy to report that a recent essay was published in 'Atlantis' Magazine, which is published by Polis and collects writings that make "...the link between students, academics and professionals besides the Polis activities. This magazine is our medium to keep you as member up to date about everything going on in the urbanism & landscape architecture world.  The issue 22.4 discusses concepts around the 'Urban Landscape' and features contributions from a wide range of authors.

The essay "Land- 'scape' / Land- 'space':  Pedantic, Semantic or just Anagrammatic" is a tongue-in-cheek play on words that carries with it a more serious message.  The dialogue around landscape urbanism has been called pedantic, and the splitting of hairs could be dismissed, particularly by those uninformed and who disagree with the concepts, as mere semantics.  The anagrammatic is purely a place on words.  The content, revolving around an exploration of the terms 'landscape' and 'urbanism', and more specifically the parallels of the anagrammatic terms 'space' and 'scape' begin the discussion. 

 

Using definitions from JB Jackson's essay 'The Word Itself', the parallels between space and scape are delineated, as Jackson's cultural reading of landscape as "...a composition of man-made or man-modified spaces to serve as infrastructure or background for our collective existence.” (Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape, 1984)  This expands our idea of landscape beyond scenery and greenery to encompass a more broad understanding of 'context'. 

Urbanism is also investigated, starting with Wirth's 1938 essay 'Urbanism as a Way of Life' and tracing the divergence of urbanism as 'study' to that of action.  I claim we need to differentiate between the study of urban areas and the design and planning activities. This will allow us to operate in a shared space for dialogue:

"Thus study equates to urbanism (of which there can be many types of study), and practice equates to disciplinary modes and interdisciplinary contexts, such as urban design, architecture, landscape architecture and planning (of which there can be many types of solution). The distinction allows us to avoid binary argument because there are infinite types of study and methods of solving problems – each driven by the unique context. Dialogue and critique can still operate – but there will more transparency and it won’t be summed in an either/or proposition. The complexity of urban areas in our contemporary world is too immense for only one of two solutions"

The end along with a call for more clarity in writing about these terms, specifically the need for clear definitions when discussing terms.  We are too loose with terminology today, and the overall impact and reach of our discussion suffers from this. Whichever way you choose to interpret and intervene the urban conditions, there needs to be shared understanding of fundamental issues, because, as I mention: "In the end, no discussion or argument (binary or otherwise) is worth much if it happening around vague language..."

Comments and discussion, with clear definitions, always welcome.

Check out the entire magazine online here, or click to download a PDF of the article here.

Science of Pedestrian Movements

 An interesting article from the Economist on 'The Wisdom of Crowds' echoes much of the seminal research of William Whyte (City), Edward T. Hall (The Hidden Dimension), and others that have closely studied the behavior of pedestrians and other users of public spaces. The interplay of cultural habits that tells us to step right or left to avoid collisions on a busy street can lead to a certain inherent poetic 'choreography' when viewed. There are different theories on how these actions are coordinated, and the article focuses on new scientific methods for predicting and studying pedestrian movements. 

:: image via The Economist

 As Jane Jacobs mentioned in The Death and Life of Great American Cities this urban realm is likened to a ballet:

"It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations.”

It was interesting, in this context, to remember my recent travels to Europe, namely London, where traffic on the roads occupies the left lane, but as mentioned in the article, there is not a correlation between this and pedestrian movement. While they mention that London follows pedestrians on the right, that is an oversimplification, as it doesn't necessarily follow, at least in my experience. Many people follow the walking to the left, which is culturally learned in the UK, mirroring the driving, but the influx on many non-locals that have their own rules often leads this to degenerate into chaos. Thus there is not a typical rule of thumb - and you are therefore required to be much more actively engaged in the surroundings to navigate successfully.

London Pavement Parkings - (image by Jason King)

As mentioned in the originally referenced article, culture is less important in this process as is habit and repetition: "Mehdi Moussaid of the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, this is a behaviour brought about by probabilities. If two opposing people guess each other’s intentions correctly, each moving to one side and allowing the other past, then they are likely to choose to move the same way the next time they need to avoid a collision. The probability of a successful manoeuvre increases as more and more people adopt a bias in one direction, until the tendency sticks. Whether it’s right or left does not matter; what does is that it is the unspoken will of the majority."

The importance of this sort of study (sorry thought, as mentioned, this not a 'youngish field') has long been known in urban realms. It is being rediscovered by other sciences and disciplines (seems like everyone wants to study the city now!) such as physics, who are using modeling in the context of crowd safety, particularly in a more multi-cultural world, to better understand what has long been studied the old-fashioned way - by watching people in person or through video.

While thinking of people in similar terms of particles may be helpful, as people are governed by many rules - there is somewhat of a wildcard element in human behavoir as people act as "particles with a 'will'", doing sometimes unpredictable things and non-linear behaviors. The issues with modeling are obvious, when you take into account the sheer number of variables at play even in the most simple pedestrian-to-pedestrian interaction. The article mentions this in the context of a study between Indian and German pedestrians, where the direction is also complicated by cultural spatial rules as well:

"Trying to capture every element of pedestrian movement in an equation is horribly complex, however. One problem is allowing for cultural biases, such as whether people step to the left or the right, or their willingness to get close to fellow pedestrians. Trying to capture every element of pedestrian movement in an equation is horribly complex, however. One problem is allowing for cultural biases, such as whether people step to the left or the right, or their willingness to get close to fellow pedestrians. An experiment in 2009 tested the walking speeds of Germans and Indians by getting volunteers in each country to walk in single file around an elliptical, makeshift corridor of ropes and chairs. At low densities the speeds of each nationality are similar; but once the numbers increase, Indians walk faster than Germans. This won’t be news to anyone familiar with Munich and Mumbai, but Indians are just less bothered about bumping into other people."

It would be interesting to do a lit review of cultural spatial studies, building on the work of Hall, to see if these have been updated, and if we have learned anything new in the past 20 years, since The Hidden Dimension was published in 1990. The world has changed dramatically and is much more global, thus it makes sense that even this sort of revolutionary study, while still somewhat applicable, will have changed due to a changed world. This goes as well to updating Whyte's classic video studies of public spaces (i.e. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces), which are great but extremely dated and not reflective of a much more culturally rich society. A screen shot of one of the videos shows a different environment than what exists even 20 to 30 years later. This doesn't mean his data are any less relevant, but that we must continue to engage in further study to learn more.



A research agenda that looks at these phenomena, how we use spaces, how we react and incorporate multiple cultural viewpoints, and more is vital to our continual understanding of proxemics, pedestrian movement, crowd dynamics, and more. This can be done by incorporation of more scientific modeling of typically non-urban disciplines, such as the complex modeling processes in physics. It is, to me, much more interesting to envision this study through updates of the seminal urban research studies, which would be a worthy endeavor in our ever globalizing world and our constantly diversifying cities.

This post originally appeared on THINK.urban on January 05, 2012.

Siftings 01.06.12

Another round of Siftings from the past couple of days.  Starting off with a couple of Occupy-related posts, including a great article from Saskia Sassen and Hans Haacke from Artforum entitled 'Imminent Domain'.  The first sentence - "OCCUPYING IS NOT THE SAME as demonstrating..." points out a recent and annoying trend of calling any sort of protest an occupation.  It diminishes the act of occupying to do so.  Worth reading, but a snippet I will include:

"To occupy is to remake, even if temporarily, territory’s embedded and often deeply undemocratic logics of power, and to redefine the role of citizens, mostly weakened and fatigued after decades of growing inequality and injustice. Indeed, the occupations have revealed to what extent the reality of territory goes beyond its dominant meaning throughout the twentieth century, when the term was flattened to denote national sovereign territory."

The National discusses a competition for Egypt's Tahrir Square, particularly to provide a monument that is a "memorial competition to commemorate the actions of the revolution."  Particularly, the article mentions, is to remember the estimated 846 people who died in the protests (yes, that was a real occupation).  It points out also, that while in the US, we can claim public space, and also claim a measure of shared atrocity with the liberal use of baton and pepper spray to disperse crowds, we're still along way from bullets and grenades as a typical strategy, as is found in many parts of the world. 

On a different note, Richard Florida, if anyone is still listening to him, has an article in the Atlantic on 'How the Crash Will Reshape America' which is worth a read, along with an interesting exploration on 'The Case for Congestion' - which argues for some slow-ness, but perhaps not to the degree of the scenarios that imagined a "City Without Its Public Transportation" and what that would mean for automobile gridlock. 

An article from the NY Times 'Taking Parking Lots Seriously, as Public Spaces' includes some study from Eran Ben-Joseph, including some startling stats, such as that there are: "...500 million parking spaces in the country, occupying some 3,590 square miles, or an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined." 

The article and slideshow (thanks NY Times for not allowing pic downloads!!!) - also yielded a gem from Lewis Mumford, which has definitely made the rounds on Twitter and Facebook:

"“As the critic Lewis Mumford wrote half a century ago, ‘The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is the right to destroy the city.’"

 And finally, from 'Growing Your Greens', an interesting Incredible Edible Public Garden in Irvine, California (with apologies for the host yelling all the time)... The title is a bit misleading, as it would be quite a feat to feed 200k of people with 7.5 acres.  Enjoy.

Introducing THINK.urban

I am happy to announce the formation of a new organization, THINK.urban in Portland, Oregon.  Along with colleagues Katrina Johnston and Allison Duncan, our group plans to promote, as our tagline mentions: "Better Design Through Applied Research."   We bring a range of experience in urban design research, landscape architecture, urban ecology, public space, and social science, combining academic rigor with creative expression.

In short, we are a research based non-profit that connects academic research to urban design practice through a number of means, including expertise, scholarship, interventions, publications, and consultation with professionals.   We have current focus areas in public space, streets, and landscape - and cast a broad net across urbanism in general - with a goal to act as a bridge between theory and practice.  We are currently forming the 501(c)(3) organization and recruiting board members, so more is happening in 2012.

A snapshot of a couple of the projects that we are working on in tandem and as an extension of our studies at Portland State, include:

• Public Space + Protest:  OPDX  (Katrina Johnston)
• South Auditorium Study (Allison Duncan)
• Hidden Hydrology Project (Jason King)

Find out more about the activities of the non-profit on the website and ongoing blog, by following us on Twitter @think_urban or by checking our our new Facebook page.  

In the spirit of economy (and my own sanity), I will be cross posting periodically between these two sites - particularly posts that are relevant to both - but will still have original content on each as it makes sense.   Enjoy!

Source: Terrain Vague - de Sola Morales

A formative source in thinking about indeterminant spaces is Terrain Vague, a 1995 essay by Spanish Architect Ignasi de Sola-Morales.  The essay starts with a discussion of the idea of photography, which is mentioned by the author as vital to our understanding, particularly through photomontage and their inventive juxtaposition of forms, aiding our ability to explain the urban realm. Conversely, with its ability to frame and 'edit' the urban conditions - resulting in a disconnect of image from reality.  As mentioend by de Sola-Morales, "When we look at photographs, we do not see cities - still less with photomontages.  We see only images, static framed prints." (109)  From this jumping-off point of photography comes the 'non-space' of terrain vague, as defined by the author:

"Empty, abandoned space in which a series of occurrences have taken place seems to subjugate the eye of the urban photographer.  Such urban space, which I will denote by the French expression terrain vague, assumes the status of fascination, the most solvent sign with which to indicate what cities are and what our experience of them is." (109)

The etymology of the definition is explored, due to the lack of a clear translation into English.  First, the concept of terrain (as opposed to the concept of land) is more expansive, including more spatial connotations and the idea of a plot of land fit for construction, meaning that it has more direct ties to the urban.  Vague, on the other hand - has ties to a range of ideas.  From German 'woge' which is tied to the movement of seas - we get "movement, oscillation, instability, and fluctuation."  From French, the roots lie in 'vacuus', which yields connotations of vacancy, emptiness, and availability.  Another meaning is derived from the Latin 'vagus' which is most closely related to the origins in landscape urbanism thinking giving "the sense of 'indeterminate, imprecise, blurred, and uncertain.'"  (110)

Thus the dual concept of a plot of land defined by indeterminacy is the key to understanding of terrain vague, which has both a spatial as well as a social connection - defined by what it is, but that being specifically defined by how the space is used.  As de Sola Morales mentions, these become "spaces as internal to the city yet external to its everyday use.  In apparently forgotten places, the memory of the past seems to predominate over the present." (110)

These spaces have an innate duality - due to their marginalization, they have the sense of externality ot the order and security of the city making them alluring as a way of out the typically homogenized urban realm, meaning they become "both a physical expression of our fear and insecurity and our expectation of the other, the alternative, the utopian, the future." (111)  Identified as a certain 'strangeness' which has been cataloged throughout urban history as tied to the social dislocation of our shift to urban dwellers - most notably captured in Georg Simmel's 'The Metropolis and Mental Life' and our evolution to the blase cosmopolitan. 

This is captured by de Sola-Morales as 'estrangement' which becomes the formative construction of the terrain vague: "The photographic images of terrain vague are territorial indications of strangeness itself, and the aesthetic and ethical problems that they pose embrace the problematics of contemporary social life. What is to be done with these enormous voids, with their imprecise limits and vague definition?"   Thus these become fertile ground for artists whom "seek refuge in the margins of the city precisely when the city offers them an abusive identity, a crushing homogeneity, a freedom under control.  The enthusiasm for these vacant spaces - expectant, imprecise, fluctuating - transposed to the urban key, reflects our strangeness in front of the world, in front of our city, before ourselves." (112)


Terrain Vague is a difficult concept - being essentially 'non-design'- but is also powerful in its ability to theorize on the margins of the ordered world in which we reside.  On the difficult side, the actions of a designer is somewhat in opposition to the unstructured configuration of these spaces.  As de Sola Morales mentions:  "the role of the architect is inevitably problematic.  Architecture's destiny has always been colonization, the imposing of limits, order, and form, the introduction into strange space of the elements of identity necessary to make it recognizable, identical, universal."  (112)  This innate desire to transform disorder into order leads to a catch-22 in the employment of design 'agency' within these structures, as mentioned in the text:

"When architecture and urban design project their desire onto a vacant space, a terrain vague, they seem incapable of doing anything other than introducing violent transformations, changing estrangement into citizenship, and striving at all costs to dissolve the uncontaminated magin of the obsolete into the realism of efficacy." (112)

While design is about form, there is still plenty of potential in exploring the concept of terrain vague, as it offers the opportunity to give shape (both spatial and social) to an existing urban phenomenon of indeterminancy, tapping into the city inhabitants continual seeking of "forces instead of forms, for the incorporated instead of the distant, for the haptic instead of the optic, the rhizomatic instead of the figurative." (112)  It is still unclear how we use this, but further investigation should yield the possibilities of learning from this existing urban condition - not trying to recreate it, which is inevitably an exercise in futility, but looking at the ability to allow disorder, not fall into the trap of modernism in trying to rationalize and organize all of the spaces within a narrowly defined set of uses.  Can it work?  de Sola Morales posits that:

"Today, intervention in the existing city, in its residual spaces, in its folded interstices can no longer be either comfortable or efficacious in the manner postulated by the modern movement's efficient model of the enlightened tradition.  How can architecture act in the terrain vague without becoming an aggressive instrument of power and abstract reason?  Undoubtedly, through attention to continuity: not the continuity of the planned, efficient, and legitimized city, but of the flows, the energies, the rhythms established by the passing of time and the loss of limits... we should treat the residual city with a contradictory complicity that will not shatter the elements that maintain its continuity in time and space." (113)

More on this as we tie together threads of the 'terrain vague' with the ideas of 'heterotopias' and other models of indeterminate 'otherspace' in the urban context.  In classic urbanistic inquiry, the field of study has been identified, theorized, and classified - the translation of this into actions of architecture, urban design, planning, and landscape architecture - is another, more difficult jump.  But then again, that's the fun, no?

Originally published in 'Anyplace' - edited by Cynthia C. Davidson (1995) - citations here are from 'Center 14: On Landscape Urbanism' (Almy, ed. 2007)

Source: Whatever Happened to Urbanism? - Koolhaas

In 1995, Rem Koolhaas & Bruce Mau published 'S,M,L,XL', one in a line of oversized volumes so fondly disseminated by the Dutch.  Amazon mentions the work as "extraordinary, massive, and mind-boggling 1,300-page book combines essays, manifestos, diaries, fairy tales, travelogues, a cycle of meditations on the contemporary city--and complex illustrations..." giving shape to a mixed bag of visuals and texts on the work of OMA/Koolhaas and their speculations on the city.  One short essay, 'Whatever Happened to Urbanism?' by Koolhaas is fixed into the literature of landscape urbanism, quoted by many - specifically a key, oft- mentioned fragment:

"If there is to be a 'new urbanism' it will not be based on the twin fantasies of order and omnipotence; it will be the staging of uncertainty; it will no longer be concerned with the arrangement of more or less permanent objects but with the irrigation of territories with potential; it will no longer aim for stable configurations but for the creation of enabling fields that accommodate processes that refuse to be crystallized into definitive form; it will no longer be about meticulous definition, the imposition of limits, but about expanding notions, denying boundaries, not about separating and identifying entities, but about discovering unnameable hybrids; it will no longer be obsessed with the city but with the manipulation of infra-structure for endless intensifications and diversifications, shortcuts and redistributions - the reinvention of psychological space." (123)

The term 'irrigation of territories with potential' always struck me as akin to pissing in the wind - perhaps just in its alliteration, but as a phrase it does resonate with many of the formative elements of LU theory - particularly the idea of uncertainty, hybridization, infrastructure, and process above form.  The other important idea that fascinates me is the concept of 'urbanism' when realized in Euro-centric terms as 'study', whereas Koolhaas definitely considers urbanism as a more active endeavor, stating in the context of rapid urbanization, that "urbanism, as a profession, has disappeared at the moment when urbanization everywhere - after decades of constant acceleration - is on its way to establishing a definitive, global 'triumph' of the urban condition?" (122)

This demise of the urban is rooted in the reactions and rejections in the professional and educational realms to the mid-century pinnacle of high-modernism - which has caused a retreat into nostalgia.  Koolhaas considers the irony of this as the current form and idea of a city has totally shifted - becoming "beyond recognition," summed up as "'The city no longer exists."  Thus the clinging to nostalgia comes at the exact time when the classic idea of the city, the context urbanism, was snuffed out by rampant urbanization that erased our understanding and approaches to the fuzzy realm of urban/suburban/hinterland that currently exists.  Koolhaas claims then:

"For urbanists, the belated rediscovery of the virtues of the classical city at the moment of their definitive impossibility many have been the point of no return, [the] fatal moment of disconnection, disqualification." (122)

The result is that urbanism is gone, replaced with architecture... creating a gap in the overall understanding of the city beyond that of the architectural object.  This focus on architecture "exploits and exhausts  the potential that can be generated finally only by urbanism, and that only the specific imagination of urbanism can invent and renew.  The death of urbanism - our refuge in the parasitic security of architecture - creates an immanent disaster: more and more substance is grafted on starving roots." (123) 

While I would say there has been a re-emergence of urbanism since the mid-nineties (albeit an urbanism confused with urban design and planning), the overall idea of an urbanism project is still valid - and the resultant current dialogue/discussion is vital and gets to the root of non-design urbanism.  As mentioned by Koolhaas, "Redefined, urbanism will not only, or mostly, be a profession, but a way of thinking, an ideology: to accept what exists." (123)  Thus,

"To survive, urbanism will have to imagine a new newness... We have to imagine 1,001 other concepts of city; we have to take insane risks; we have to dare to be utterly uncritical; we have to swallow deeply and bestow forgiveness left and right."  (123)  

This is what we lost in the disaster of the modern project, the ability to think big, and perhaps fail, while trying to deal with this unprecedented urban condition.  This has left us with small ideas tiptoeing around the crisis under the rubric of safe interventions or tepid theorizations.  The final words then ring true:  "What if we simply declare that there is no crisis - redefine our relationship with the city not as its makers but as its mere subjects, as its supporters?  More than ever, the city is all we have." (123)

Originally published in 'S,M,L,XL' (OMA/Koolhass/Mau - 1995) - citations taken from Center 14: On Landscape Urbanism (edited by Almy - 2007).

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 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]

Source: Axioms for Reading the Landscape - Lewis

Doing some readings of seminal texts for an upcoming essay/book chapter on landscape urbanism, and want to capture some of the content, at least in fragments.  'Source' will be the code for snapshot of a particular essay - not a thorough review but an abstract and some specific reflections.  In this case the instructive 'Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Scene' by geographer Pierce Lewis (1979)*.

The main thrust of Lewis is to provide a roadmap for reading the 'cultural landscape'.  The concept of understanding this wider view of 'landscape' is important, as it moves us from the more bucolic associations of the term to one in which it is understood as part of the human experience.  The associations of the word landscape are covered often and referenced in literature on landscape urbanism, which eschews the idea of 'landscape' as beautification, rather echoing Lewis as encompassing "everything from city skylines to farmers' silos, from golf courses to garbage dumps, from ski slopes to manure piles... in fact, whole countrysides, and whole cities, whether ugly or beautiful makes no difference." (p.23)

This expanded view of landscape is vital, as it moves us from viewing nature as a detached process to a more broad idea of landscape, even the most banal, as attached with cultural meaning, and in the words of Lewis: 

"Our human landscape is our unwitting autobiography, reflecting our tastes, our values, our aspirations, and even our fears, in tangible, visible form." (p.23)

The Axioms, then are derived from a dearth of academic scholarship on the ordinary, in the vein of J.B. Jackson, giving us the grammar and usage for this cultural landscape.  The axioms therefore, are:

1. The Axiom of Landscape as a Clue to Culture
 In essence, our culture and who we are is reflected in our landscape, per the quote above our 'autobiography' in a visible form.  This includes some corollaries to this, including that of 'cultural change', implying that changes to landscape reflect changes to culture, the 'regional' corollary, that the landscapes in certain regions indicate differences of culture; the corollary of 'convergence', meaning that homogenization of culture is reflected in the landscape; the corollary of 'diffusion' whereby changes in culture and landscape occur through imitation; and finally, the corollary of 'taste' where the cultural landscape form is tied to culture.

2.  The Axiom of Cultural Unity and Landscape Equality
The presence of items in the cultural landscape almost always reflect the culture - and they are assumed to be equal with others.  Lewis uses some examples, such as the equality of the ubiquitous McDonald's to a architectural landmark like the Empire State Building.  This gives us the latitude to not elevate certain aspects of the landscape as more important that others in a hierarchy, but give equal weight to the ordinary, at least in terms of what they say about our culture.

3. The Axiom of Common Things
There is inherent difficulty in reading the landscape through traditional academic methods, for a number of reasons.  The lack of study of the 'ordinary' is due to these elements, as content, seeming to be of lesser value to scholars.  Therefore, we look to journalism, trade journals, advertisements, travel literature, and the occasional enlightened author to paint this picture of the 'common' elements of our cultural landscape. 

4. The Historic Axiom
The content of the cultural landscape cannot be divorced from history, as the past provides the context in which certain elements were constructed.  This is expanded with the corollary of 'historic lumpiness' which shows not a linear timeline but in fits and starts; the 'mechanical' or 'technological' corollary, where the actual mechanics of creation and the technologies used, such as the lawn and it's devices for care, need to be included in the reading - in the words of Lewis, "where things started, when, and how." (p.30)

5. The Geographic (or Ecologic) Axiom
Similar to history, the geographic context of the landscape must be understood, giving specificity to place in determining the spatial relationship that is shaped by culture. Culture is a major driver of the arrangement and use of places, thus determination of what is there is definitely tied closely to the opportunities and constraints that exist there.

6. The Axiom of Environmental Control
Related to geography, there must be knowledge of the physical environment in which cultural landscapes exist, and this influence on the spaces.  Not just the land use of human-defined spatial arrangements, these derive from climate, topography, geology, and other environmental features - which in turn are reflected in how we build, the use of energy, and myriad responses to the local patterns of the environment.

7.  The Axiom of Landscape Obscurity
The issue of legibility is key to reading the landscape, and this axiom reinforces that although messages exist, they are somewhat difficult to extract or translate.  The reaction is to look at other sources for this information, but much of what we seek is not available, is sometimes contradictory or difficult to confirm.  The only way to be sure, is to go right to the source and that this "alternation of looking, and reading, and thinking, and then looking and reading again, can yield remarkable results, if only to raise questions we had not asked before." (p.32)

Together these provide a working method for urbanism, which is not derivative of a preconception or prescription, but based on the actual, on the ground interaction with the cultural landscapes in which our decision-making rests. 

* The essay was originally published in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes by (Meinig & Jackson, 1979) and reprinted in Center 14: On Landscape Urbanism (Almy. ed., 2006) - page citations from Almy, ed.

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Brief Thoughts on Binary Thinking

The on-going debate on LU/NU is interesting less for any content (of which there has been little beyond posturing and uninformed rhetoric), and more than its continuation of a history of binary discussions between oppositional actors that has occurred in many arenas, including a long history within urbanism and design.  Lest we think there is something special about this particular debate, it's important to remember some of those 'debates' (such as the visible rift between Mumford & Jacobs to name one of many - which is a fascinating dialogue worth some future exploration) have existed in the past.  These, instead of merely creating factions of us v. them, expand our understanding and discussions of larger, complex, urban issues.  A few thoughts on binary distinctions in general, therefore, is worthy of further exploration.

I always turn back to Elizabeth Meyer's essay in Ecological Design and Planning (Thompson & Steiner, 1997) where she elaborates on 'The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture' and the tendency to provide 'binary sets' within discussions, such as architecture/landscape, culture/nature, and art/ecology.  The dualism in these positions are too distinct and limits potentials, positing that: “The scholar can develop theories for site description and interpretation that occupy the space between nature and culture, landscape and architecture, man-made and natural, and that are along the spatial continuum that unites, not the solid line that divides, concepts into binary opposites.” (p.74)  Instead, in the terms of landscape architecture, this requires "The rediscovery of the space between the boundaries – the space of hybrids, relationships, and tensions – allows us to see the received histories of the modern landscape as the ideologically motivated social constructs that they are… the gap between man and nature will be replaced with the continuum of human nature and nonhuman nature.” (p.51)

Having always been fascinated by the nature/culture debate, another resource worth mentioning is Placing Nature: Culture & Landscape Ecology (Nassauer, ed. 1997), which offers a range of essays in this realm, specifically focusing on blurring disciplinary and theoretical silos.  As Nassauer mentions in her concluding remarks: "Landscape ecology insistently confronts us with the complexities of connection. Rather than establishing boundaries to separate ecosystems or disciplines, it repeatedly points out their connectedness... [it] suggests that we should go beyond the boundaries precisely because sufficient answers are unlikely to lie solely within them. Respect for the complexity of the ecological relationships must balance out human propensity for know the world by simplifying it.” (p.165)

How we do that matters, but ecology offers some interesting parallels in thinking of urban systems, as both can no longer be perceived as closed, static, homogeneous collections, but rather are constantly evolving due to disequilibria, instability, disturbance, and flux based on a similar interactivity through reciprocal relationships between organisms and their environments.  This point is made thoroughly in Human Ecology (Steiner, 2002), who melds ecological thinking into our social construct at scales ranging from habitat to globe - describing an extension of the shift from deterministic ecological thinking towards a new ecology where humans are vital participants in the process.  In explaining this 'Subversive Subject', Steiner makes a case for ecological thinking as a new method for framing discussions, stating that "...human ecology emphasized complexity over reductionism, focuses on change over stable states, and expands ecological concepts beyond the study of plants and animals to include people.  This view differs from the environmental determinism of the early twentieth century."  (p.3)

I would make the case that this is the main thrust of landscape urbanist theory (i.e. it's not about landscape in a physical sense) in exploring a similar distaste with the concept of environmental determinism and looking to evolve this into more ecological thinking is mirrored in our changing from totalitarian urbanist schemes and deterministic urban strategies (closed systems) to methods that allow for temporality, market forces, chaos that fit within the complex mosaic that represent the modern metropolis.  These open systems, as mentioned by Steiner as possessing "...fluid, overlapping boundaries across several spatial scales from the local to the global," (p.4) and subsequently changes our approach to design and planning, where "...individual designed objects, be they buildings or gardens, are not viewed independently, but rather as parts of dynamic landscape systems." (p.10)  

This sort of thinking is missing from any single scheme of urbanism that claims to have 'the answer' to all of our problems.  Perhaps this is the inherent polarity in the distinction between NU (i.e. we have the answers) and LU (i.e. we have more questions) which leads to disagreement.  This is also represented in modern green building systems like LEED which are building-specific, because they can only exert influence over one distinct level of a complex, nested hierarchy of the entirety of  the urban realm.  A series of one-off, ultra-green buildings or dense, walkable communities are beneficial within a certain scale for sure.  The real question is to what extent to they solve larger problems of sustainability and issues of urbanism beyond their selected boundaries?  The either-or dialectic is not the issue but rather how we connect interventions within their larger (and smaller) contextual hierarchies, and how we general multiple solutions to deal with the complexities we face in addressing modern cities.  LU theory, for all its inability to articulate projects and its acknowledgment (not acceptance) of current urban issues (i.e. autos, suburbia) in my thinking isn't trying to occupy a binary opposite to NU (sorry Waldheim) but rather to offer a counterpoint to a larger urban methodology that is focused on product instead of process.

In this context, and shifting gears back to conflict for a second, I was struck by the parallels when delving into the great collection of essays 'Uncommon Ground' (1996), edited by one of my favorite writers, William Cronon, offers a wide discussion on the idea of nature in our modern thinking.  More exploration of that soon, but for now let's focus on the similarities inherent in debates on urbanism, in relation to binary thoughts related to 'environmentalism' and 'nature'  Cronon mentions, "...once we recognize that not all human groups and cultures view nature in the same way, it becomes at least more complicated to assert that one group's ideas of nature should take precedence over another's.  At a minimum, we need to enter into a dialogue with other people about why they think as they do... [and] we should be willing to question some of our own moral certainty in an effort to understand why we ourselves think of nature as we do, and why others do not always agree with us." (p.21)

By making a leap that substitution of the word 'urbanism' the same framework could inform our thinking in similar terms.  In conclusion, a wonderful quote can illuminate the recent LU/NU debate, particularly in relation to binary modes of thinking and the type of rhetoric that it has spawned due mostly to the previously mentioned, and much misguided feeling of moral certainty in one's particular viewpoint: 

"We live in a time when political discussion favors extreme positions and sound bites.  In the struggle to attract attention and support for one's own views, the temptation if very great to caricature those of one's adversaries.  The result it a rhetorical landscape of polarities, in which start oppositions arise and cartoons become our most common way of conducting what passes for reasoned debate.  In such a world, your either for the environment or against it, and any inquiry that points towards more challenging ways of framing the discussion can seem threatening.  The crucial task of self-criticism is all to easily avoided because it can seem to lend aid and comfort to the enemy." (p.22)

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.

Walking the Turtle

While familiar with the concept of the flâneur, the inquistive wanderer, or  "...detached pedestrian observer of a metropolis, a gentleman stroller of city streets".  Reading After the City last night, Lars Lerup, in discussing the idea of the 'speed' of the modern metropolis, made a passing reference to a 19th century custom of using a turtle to set the pace for the observer.  I was intrigued.

 :: walking the turtle - mixed media oil by michele maule - via etsy

A quote from the nonist (a post that also has some great links) entitled: "Taking the turtle for a walk and letting him set the pace." reinforces this idea in an uncredited quote.

"There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but there was also the flâneur who demanded elbow room… Around 1840 it was briefly fashionable to take turtles for a walk in the arcades. the flâneurs liked to have the turtles set the pace for them."

Another reference on One-Way Street - expands on this in the post on f 'A Turtle on a Leash':

"The second development in urbanism leading to the rise of flâneurie was the construction of the Paris arcades in the early nineteenth century. The arcades offered a respite from the bustling crowd outside. Dandies began to frequent the fashionable arcades, taking in the sights and offering themselves up as spectacles in their own right. Around 1839, Benjamin reports, it was fashionable to walk through the arcades with a turtle on a leash in order to enforce the slow pace really determined looking required."

The concept of speed in our modern city makes one appreciate the idea of a pace-car to offset the rapidity of our contemporary life.  This includes the physical (high speed rail, bus rapid transit, more horsepower, higher speed limits), as well as the virtual (rapid access to information via rss, web, smart phones, wi-fi) make just sitting (or strolling) and observing somewhat of a novelty. 

A recent exercise in a class on research methods reinforced that for me - by sitting in a space (namely a local plaza here in Portland) for three separate occasions to merely 'observe' and take notes was jarring in its simplicity.  I wasn't counting or doing anything qualitative, merely going for a rich description of activity and use of space.  The experience made me think of what we miss in our fast-paced lifestyle in car windows, or even on bike or just walking 'to get somewhere'.  Opening oneself up to observation at a slow(er) speed is invigorating and the polarity of our   We stare at computers, magazines, books, or other media, but when the subject is the city (urbanism), it is easy to forget this isn't a detached idea, hypothesis, or theory - but something right outside your door.   

Grab the turtle... its time for a walk.

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.

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.