INTERNATIONAL MASTER PLANNING ＆ LANDSCAPE URBANISM
As one of the subjects connecting various disciplines, urban design has different degrees of involvement in subjects including architecture, landscape design, urban planning and so on. Landscape urbanism, which is also related to urban and landscape design, is naturally necessary for an urban designer to understand.
So what is landscape urbanism?
A widely accepted view is that landscape urbanism regards architecture and infrastructure as the continuation of landscape or the uplift of the earth’s surface.The idea is that cities are constructed from interconnected, ecologically rich horizontal field conditions, rather than arrangements of objects and buildings. Landscape urbanism, like infrastructural urbanism and ecological urbanism, emphasises performance over pure aesthetics and utilises systems-based thinking and design strategies. Since then, the phrase ‘landscape urbanism’ has been used in many different ways, but is most often cited as a postmodernist or post-postmodernist response to the ‘failure’ of New Urbanism, and as a shift towards a comprehensive vision and demand for modern architecture and urban planning.The phrase ‘landscape urbanism’ first appeared in the work of Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology student Peter Connolly in the title of his 1994 MA Urban Design thesis. Here he suggests that “a language of ‘landscape urbanism’ is virtually non-existent and needs to be articulated” and that “existing urbanism …… is limited in its exploration of the landscape”. He also uses the term ‘landscape as urbanism’ in his 1994 article ‘101 Ideas for Great Parks’.
Landscape is not only a green scenery or natural space, but also a continuous surface structure, a kind of thickened ground. As an urban supporting structure, it can accommodate ecological infrastructure dominated by various natural processes and public infrastructure dominated by multiple functions, And provide them with support and services. This open-ended carrier that can predict and participate in future needs and function is what we call landscape infrastructure.
However, any new ideas and theories will be affected again, which is not only inevitable, but also a necessary step for the development of human culture and science.For more than ten years, the concept of landscape urbanism has been discussed by the landscape architecture community. Like many emerging ideas, this concept is the fruit of the joint thinking of landscape architecture academia and practitioners. The term “Landscape Urbanism” was proposed by Charles Waldheim, the current head of the Department of landscape architecture at the Graduate School of design of Harvard University. He is committed to the formation of this concept together with his colleagues Alex Krieger and Mohsen Mostafavi, as well as James corner of the University of Pennsylvania.Compared with Europe, in the United States, a profound debate on landscape urbanism has been going on, in which a boundary of “who agrees and who opposes” is drawn from time to time. Mainly speaking, the debate basically focuses on three aspects: first, there is almost no new view of landscape urbanism, which is more like an enhanced version of mchager’s theory in the 1970s; Second, it is difficult to define landscape urbanism, and the signboard is greater than the content; Third, landscape urbanism threatens to replace the field of landscape design, especially traditional design schools such as Harvard GSD.
In recent years, landscape urbanism has constantly proved its significance. For example, the application of Landscape Urbanism in master planning.Charles Waldheim, a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), has recently written a book entitled Landscape as Urbanism, in which he says that if one is to understand the metropolis of the 21st world, “it is no longer desirable to read the city as an architectural extension, because the city is There are greater forces and flows in the city. This means that the traditional architectural approach of reading the city as being influenced by ecology, infrastructure and economics is no longer relevant.”
In other words, the urban environment is no longer about addressing function or segregation, but should be integrated into the fabric of the city. This type of programme will inevitably become more flexible in relation to functionalism, becoming an adjunct to economic change and the functional development of the land. These twelve projects are representative of this practice, not only because of their intention to adapt to past interventions, but also because of how they are ahead of a statistically based urban environment through their own continuous mobility. This idea is precisely a new way of thinking in line with the connotations of landscape urbanism on the basis of holistic planning.
Now, in order to make us feel the practical charm of landscape urbanism, let me show you a few cases：
First one is Beijing Capital International Airport.
（Vladimir Gintoff (2016). 12 Projects that Explain Landscape Urbanism and How It’s Changing the Face of Cities. [online] ArchDaily. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/784842/12-projects-that-show-how-landscape-urbanism-is-changing-the-face-of-cities.）
Through its large scale form, which transcends the norm, the entire airport adds a new material to the city that is extremely tense, continuous, beautiful and striking.
And second one is 11th Street Bridge/OMA,OLIN.
（Vladimir Gintoff (2016). 12 Projects that Explain Landscape Urbanism and How It’s Changing the Face of Cities. [online] ArchDaily. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/784842/12-projects-that-show-how-landscape-urbanism-is-changing-the-face-of-cities. ）
The space is more intimate and gentle, less futuristic but more human, than the smaller scale of the previous case. The integration of the building as a whole with its environment is a gentler intervention of landscape urbanism.
References：
Sergi Costa Duran (2008). Contemporary landscape architecture. Cologne ; New York: Daab.
baike.baidu.com. (n.d.). Baidu – the world’s leading Chinese encyclopedia.
Waldheim, C. (2016). Landscape as urbanism : a general theory. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
www.arup.com. (n.d.). Masterplanning and Urban Design.
Vladimir Gintoff (2016). 12 Projects that Explain Landscape Urbanism and How It’s Changing the Face of Cities.
Thanks for the insightful blog. I liked the way you introduced the term Landscape Urbanism in the beginning but somehow the latter part was a bit difficult to follow. Also, at one place where you explain about Professor Charles Waldheim, his book, and ideologies it could have been talked about in more detail according to me. Moreover, you also mention something about twelve projects and explained just two, so it has tough to understand which projects you were talking about. It would be great if you could mention the names of it so that we can read and understand them better.
I would like to elaborate on your article. As you have already introduced Charles Waldheim, I would like to mention that he talks about the environmental crisis in today’s era like global warming, rise in sea level, climate change, loss of animal and plant habitat, species extinction, air and water pollution, desertification etc. He proposes that Landscape Urbanism is a feasible solution to tackle these issues. It identifies the city as decentralized, with rapid changes and developments of urban sprawls. But critics of Landscape Urbanism believes that it ignores the most important issue, whether urbanization should happen in areas or not. Hence, a new idea has emerged as an extension of Landscape Urbanism and critique of it, Ecological Urbanism.
Furthermore, the origins of landscape urbanism can be found in modernist architecture and planning. A critique like Charles Jencks said modernism has an inability to produce meaningful and liveable space. Likewise, they believe that it devalued traditional urban values of pedestrian scale, street grid and contextual architectural character. Moreover, the dependence on systematically styled architectural objects could not sustain due to mobile capital and decentralization. Contemporary Landscape urbanism practices showcase the use of infrastructural systems, shaping the organization of urban settlement and determining its economic, political, and social futures.
In conclusion, I think the relation between urban city and landscape provides us with an advantage of the conflation, integration, fluid exchange between environmental and infrastructural systems. The landscape can be used to stitch the urban fabric of the city and the knowledge and design strategy involving landscape urbanism in public design provides a disciplinary framework for the contemporary urban field.
Reference:
1. “Landscape as Urbanism” from The Landscape Urbanism Reader (2006) by Charles Waldheim
2. https://www.azuremagazine.com/article/charles-jencks-obituary-postmodernism/
3. https://metropolismag.com/projects/charles-waldheim-landscape-urbanism-all-grown-up/
4. Terra Fluxus in Charles Waldaheim, ed., The Landscape Urbanism Reader (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006)
Gaining comprehension of the field ‘landscape urbanism’ is a more complex endeavour than one might anticipate. Nonetheless, this blog provides an accurate representation of the ambiguity and abstraction surrounding the practice. The modern world is more advanced and progressive than ever seen before. Thus, our approaches toward and outcomes from design and development of the built environment must also be flexible. This is ‘a necessary step for the development of human culture and science’. This idea is prominent throughout your work and is one that I would like to expand on.
Flexibility is a crucial characteristic of modern day landscapes. As society journeys further into the future, the urban context must have the capacity to adjust efficiently and effectively – with the COVID-19 pandemic being the most recent instance. The idea of flexibility has both micro and macro scale application. It can be implemented in a single space or city-wide. With this in mind, flexibility can be broken down into versatility, convertibility, and expansibility (Ardeshiri et al, 2016). The London Olympic Park is an exemplar for this facet of landscape urbanism. It is sensitively integrated into the existing landscape and is a versatile, convertible and expansible development; as you said, ‘it is integrated into the fabric of the city’.
Moreover, your comment on the relationship between flexibility and function is intriguing. In 2007, Trafalgar Square in London was covered with a 2,000 square foot lawn. This transformation was not only physical, but what was a prescriptive civic space became a popular village green for picnics and play (Ivers, 2018). At a smaller scale, this transformation was not revolutionary. However, it is a relevant and valid example of how a small change can generate larger scale, compounding results.
Finally, I refer back to the ambiguity and abstraction of landscape urbanism that I introduced this comment with. Having read that you also considered this, I would like to share with you the most complete synopsis I have found from architect and landscape architect Christopher Gray,
“Landscape urbanism tries to understand the massive complexity of the world that we live in, to work collaboratively with other disciplines to produce solutions that are respectful to sites and inhabitants, and also create new urban spaces that contribute to the wider natural and cultural territory” (Gray, 2011).
References
Ardeshiri, M et al (2016) Explaining the Concept of Flexibility in Urban Spaces. 79-91. [Accessed 18th December 2021]. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340133373_Explaining_the_Concept_of_Flexibility_in_Urban_Spaces
C, Gray. (2011) Landscape Urbanism: Definitions and Trajectory. [Accessed 18th December 2021]. Available from: https://scenariojournal.com/article/landscape-urbanism/
Gintoff, V. (2016) 12 Project that Explain Landscape Urbanism and How It’s Changing the Face of Cities. [Accessed 18th December 2021]. Available from: https://www.archdaily.com/784842/12-projects-that-show-how-landscape-urbanism-is-changing-the-face-of-cities
Ivers, C. (2018) Staging Urban Landscapes. [Accessed 18th December 2021]. Available from: https://www.lda-design.co.uk/kindling/long-read/staging-urban-landscapes/