Representing Transects

Picking up on a couple of great posts on transect delineation over at FAD (and a lively discussion thread as well that is worth checking out), this idea continues to permeate the discussions around the Urban Edge.


:: image via CATS

Taking a different tack than the critique of the transect per se (of which there is plenty), I've been tooling around looking at ways to break out of the traditional modes of representation when showing the experience of the transect and the ability to communicate this to a viewer. As we know, the common transect has a simple expansion of the typical section cut technique. In a natural condition this slices through a number of ecosystems:


:: image via CATS

A common reference is this diagram that has become a touchstone for New Urbanist applied theory, outlining a generalized zoning diagram with their associated T-zones (transect zones):


:: image via CATS

The definition from the CATS site gives a quick idea of the concept of transect which borrows from the ecological concept: "A transect is a cut or path through part of the environment showing a range of different habitats. Biologists and ecologists use transects to study the many symbiotic elements that contribute to habitats where certain plants and animals thrive. Human beings also thrive in different habitats. Some people prefer urban centers and would suffer in a rural place, while others thrive in the rural or sub-urban zones. Before the automobile, American development patterns were walkable, and transects within towns and city neighborhoods revealed areas that were less urban and more urban in character. This urbanism could be analyzed as natural transects are analyzed."

The CATS site has a range of transect images that provide some good ideas for representation. The most simple, falling along the natural ecosystem transect comes from McHarg's Design with Nature, and is represented by more of a typical scaled sectional cut through a dune landscape. An interesting interpretation via the CATS site that sort of oversimplifies the work as anti-humanitarian: "McHarg’s brilliant analytical/ operational system never integrated the human habitat, which was simply relegated to wherever nature was least valuable. In this sense. it is a step backwards from the Geddes transect of a half-century earlier."


:: image via CATS

Another adaptation is from the transect done for an Regional Plan for Western New York State shows some of the precedents in representation and analysis, which are the seeds of modern transect studies: "A regional transect of natural conditions and existing thoroughfares, drawn in 1926 with compact towns and villages, is overlaid with the present SmartCode's three basic Community types in purple."


:: image via CATS

These were inspired by the more generalized earlier transect from planner Patrick Geddes - which is delineated with this more graphical 'Valley Section' showing a typical natural system overlaid with use zones showing, for lack of a better word, exploitation zones of the landscape section. I guess that's the step backwards we're talking about by not including overt humanity into the equation.


:: image via CATS

I find it fascinating that many of the concepts in the New Urbanist pantheon are 'borrowed' from ecology including transects, zones, quadrats, and such. It's also interesting that these are as much a graphical exercise as they are a planning one, with a very specific intent and bias from the drawings (show me a drawing that isn't biased in some way?). For instance the 'wedge' shape denotes relative usage of land: "The wedge shape of this naturalistic illustration signifies that the more urban Transect Zones, with their greater density, use less land per capita than the more rural zones."


:: image via CATS

To say that any of these drawings is merely inert is sort of laughable - as there's typically an agenda at work behind the scenes (literally behind the scenography of these graphics). That's not to say there's some nefariousness, as they are generalized stereotypes and tools for use in planning, and application of some of the more robust planning materials like SmartCode (more on this later). The more traditional vertical transect drawings start to look like panels in a cartoon, showing a typical American and European iteration of the panels:



:: images via CATS

There's some parallels with the idea of movement as captured in graphic novels, film storyboards, flip-books and the like. There is also a reference back to Chinese scrolls, where the entirety of a transect can be captured on a never-ending length of paper... at an appropriate scale could be new maps of territories.




:: images via CATS

One commentor on FAD alluded to this image from R.Crumb 'A Short History of America' (posted here on L+U) which is graphically a little too similar to the stylized transects above:


:: (click to enlarge) - image via R. Crumb

Check out the Center for Applied Transect Studies site for some more great info on the topic and some great historical graphic. More about this soon, as I'm continuing to look at how the transect (the generic or ecological term that is akin to section) is valuable in urban exploration, notation, and planning in the particular context of Portland's urban edge.

There's much to learn from this in terms of both technical application as well as marketing cachet, as it leads to a pretty compelling (albeit graphically utopian or manipulated) version of (new?) urbanism that many people respond favorably to. The real question is: Does this work on a City with an urban growth boundary, or does it need the more gradual filtering of density from sprawl to really accentuate the beauty of the transect? Do we skip over a few T-zones in this way or does the construct fall apart? Can this be captured in selected explorations of our urban edge?

How to represent a line, which is a place itself and a container for a place delineating in- and out, that is dynamic with flex and pull and change of weather as well as politics and economics? It's gonna be a fun ride.

Reading List: Kerb 17: Is LA Dead?

"Landscape architecture has not evolved the necessary operational agility to manage the growing complexity of regional urban infrastructures... Contemporary landscape architecture should seek to generate new performative models of infrastructural form that renew the biophysical environment while facilitating a regional understanding of market forces. Landscape architecture has failed to embrace the technical complexity of infrastructural systems in the city as a programmatic concept with as much currency as the idea of leisure or recreation"

- from (re)tooling landscape architecture, (p. 11)

Well, I was hoping to save this one for the best of the year lists, but figured it was time to offer up the accolades that this issue of Kerb, truly deserves. Published by RMIT, issue 17 offers a simple question that opens up a complex dialogue about the very nature of what we do. In the age of information overload and constant opportunities for reading great things, it's rare to want to take the time to re-read anything - but this issue kept drawing me back - and I'd guess I went through many of the essays at least twice.



It may have been the subject matter for starters - something we grapple with on a daily basis - seeking relevance and expansion of our field. The inquiry into the health of the profession of landscape architecture isn't new (for a snapshot of this longstanding dialogue, see 'An Apocalyptic Manifesto' and the find and read much of the tepid response in the April 2005 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine) or go further back to the art v. science debates of the late 1990s.

The editors of this particular volume of KERB seem to take on really dangerous topic with a freshness that was missing in many of the iterations of this long-standing dialogue. From the editorial (p.73):

"Dear landscape architecture,

Hello?

Are you dead?

Were you ever alive?

If so, what did you achieve? What significance did you have? Will you be remembered?

Probably not... "



This sort of bluntness is a great to way to frame the conversation about the death of landscape architecture for a new era of practice. Rather than a rehash of the entire volume, I'm just going to sprinkle some choice quotes within some of the spreads... don't take my word for it - order it now!

"landscape architecture: the corpus is alive but the mind is ailing..." p.5



"Landscape Architecture is at a point of change. But if we're reliant on twentieth century capitalism and economics to drive high quality public space then I do wonder whether it might indeed be dead..."

- from 'A Conversation with site|office (p.85)



"The 'scape' is killing the profession."

- from 'land architect', (p.91)




"Landscape architecture needs to resituate itself within the world. Culturally relevant and ecologically suitable places don't appear out of the ether. Their design must be based in discourses that are grounded in scientific and artistic theories, methods, and practices."

- from Massive Change Required (p.105)



"Landscape urbanism's current theoretical argument embraces flexible operations that address fluidity, non-linearity, open-endedness and indeterminacy. The representation of these processes then asks for techniques that promote the in-between and the unexpected through abstraction "

- from 'Crisis in landscape representation' (p.53)



Another great and inspiring essay was from experimental firm Gross.MAX, that definitely had the best quote in the entire volume from page 126:

"If...landscape architecture is dead, it is dead below the waist. We need some passion in between the sheets of landscape. Some projects can act as stimulus like XTC or Viagra."



GROSS.MAX continues to elaborate on a model of praxis that is quite compelling - giving way to a new model for the post-economic boom landscape (literally and figuratively) that exists out there in the world. Sort of a post-landscape approach focuses and accepts landscape as a commodity, and capitalizes on this fact by playing with the notions of this versus trying to recapture authenticity and precious historicity. Along with a handful of others - this paves a new path for the next wave to follow.

Overall this is by far one of the best collections of landscape architecture essays, not just from this year, but ever. And the fact that it came from an educational institution, versus the traditional pathways of journalism should make the current landscape architecture press stand up and take notice. Simple format, graphically rich and diverse, and an accessible cost. This is (is this?) a glimpse towards future of landscape architecture media.

Historic Depave Portland

As previously mentioned, the main drag along the Willamette was formerly a multi-lane highway named Harbor Drive, which was removed in the mid-1970's to make way for the current resident along the river, Tom McCall Waterfront Park.


:: image via Portland Mercury


:: image via Flickr - William200549

Text, from the article 'The Dead Freeway Society' in the Portland Mercury, outlines this paradigm shift in a decade from planning massive expansion to promotion of removal:

"The first freeway to dissolve was Harbor Drive. Built in 1942, the wide slab of asphalt ran over what is today Tom McCall Waterfront Park, now where tourists and idyllic children roam with ice cream, Barack Obama spoke, and once a year the Oregon Symphony shoots live cannons in a performance of the 1812 Overture. In the '50s and '60s, the freeway, streaming with big-finned cars, was featured on postcards promoting a modern Portland. By 1975, it was gone.

"There was a shift in local government in the late-'60s. It went from a good-old-boy network to a much younger generation of politicians," explains Ballestrem. Urban planning historian Gregory L. Thompson wrote that when one young politician arrived in Portland in 1973, the politico noted that everyone had a copy of anti-freeway handbook Rites of Way tucked into their hip pocket.

When the state began buying up land next to Harbor Drive to widen the waterfront freeway in 1968, a citizen alliance against the expansion found open ears at city hall and the governor's office. Old-school traffic engineers said closing the freeway would be a disaster, but Governor Tom McCall, Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, and County Commissioner Don Clark heard the citizens' opinion that most car traffic could be rerouted to the city's newly built freeways, like the I-5. Throughout the summer of '69, Portlanders organized "consciousness-raising picnics" to rally people against Harbor Drive. Three years later, a governor's task force declared that the low-traffic, 30-year-old road should be ripped out and replaced with a park."

While not one of the stellar park spaces in town, the park really acts as a front yard to downtown, and is also a major pedestrian throughfare, as well as a consistent field for festivals throughout the summer.


:: image via Friends for our Riverfront


:: image via Portland Ground


:: image via uyau

The results aren't half-bad for a former highway.