Landscape urbanism is a theory of
urban design
Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban de ...
arguing that the city is constructed of interconnected and ecologically rich horizontal field conditions, rather than the arrangement of objects and buildings. Landscape Urbanism, like Infrastructural Urbanism and
Ecological Urbanism, emphasizes performance over pure aesthetics and utilizes systems-based thinking and design strategies. The phrase 'landscape urbanism' first appeared in the mid 1990s. Since this time, the phrase 'landscape urbanism' has taken on many different uses, but is most often cited as a
postmodernist
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
or
post-postmodernist response to the "failings" of
New Urbanism
New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually inf ...
and the shift away from the comprehensive visions, and demands, for
modern architecture
Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form ...
and
urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
.
The phrase 'landscape urbanism' first appeared in the work of Peter Connolly, a student from RMIT Melbourne in the title of his 1994 Masters of Urban Design proposal. Here, he suggested that 'a language of "landscape urbanism" barely exists and needs articulating', and that 'existing urbanisms ... are limited in the exploration of the landscape'. He also used the term 'landscape as urbanism' in his 1994 essay, '101 Ideas About Big Parks'. In 1996 Tom Turner wrote that
The city of the future will be an infinite series of landscapes: psychological and physical, urban and rural, flowing apart and together. They will be mapped and planned for special purposes, with the results recorded in geographical information systems (GIS), which have the power to construct and retrieve innumerable plans, images and other records. Christopher Alexander
Christopher Wolfgang John Alexander (4 October 1936 – 17 March 2022) was an Austrian-born British-American architect and design theorist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature o ...
was right: a city is not a tree. It is a landscape.
In the late 1990s, concepts of 'landscape urbanism' were often used by landscape architects in the United States in the reorganization of declining post-industrial cities, such as Detroit. From the 2000s, it was used in Europe by architects to mean a highly flexible way of integrating large-scale infrastructure, housing and open space. By the late 2000s, the phrase became associated with highly commercialized, multi-phase urban parks, such as
Olympic park
An Olympic Park is a sports campus for hosting the Olympic Games. Typically it contains the Olympic Stadium and the International Broadcast Centre. It may also contain the Olympic Village or some of the other sports venues, such as the aquatics c ...
design. Landscape urbanism strategies in the U.S. are now widely used in waterfront redevelopment, recapturing urban vacancy, urban agriculture, and
green infrastructure
Green infrastructure or blue-green infrastructure refers to a network that provides the “ingredients” for solving urban and climatic challenges by building with nature.Hiltrud Pötz & Pierre Bleuze (2011). Urban green-blue grids for sustainab ...
. LU, EU, and IU strategies are rising in importance with growing concerns over climate change.
History
The first major event to do with 'landscape urbanism' was the Landscape Urbanism conference sponsored by the Graham Foundation in Chicago in April 1997. Speakers included Charles Waldheim,
Mohsen Mostafavi
Mohsen Mostafavi (born 1954 in Isfahan) is an Iranian-American architect and educator. Mostafavi is currently the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. From 2008 through 2019, Mostafavi served ...
,
James Corner James Corner (born 1961) is a landscape architect and theorist whose works exhibit a focus on "developing innovative approaches toward landscape architectural design and urbanism." His designs of note include Fresh Kills Park on Staten Island and th ...
of James Corner/Field Operations, Alex Wall, and Adriaan Geuze of the firm
West 8
West 8 is an urban planning and landscape architecture firm founded by Adriaan Geuze and Paul van Beek in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1987. It is known for its contemporary designs and innovative solutions to urban planning problems using lighting, ...
, among others. The formative period of Landscape Urbanism can be traced back to RMIT University and
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in the late 1980s, at a time when Peter Connolly,
Richard Weller
Richard Weller is an Australian landscape architect and academic. He is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, having succeeded James Corner in 2013. Weller also holds the Martin and Margy ...
, James Corner, Mohsen Mostafavi, and others were exploring the artificial boundaries of
landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
, urban design, and architecture, searching for better ways to deal with complex urban projects. However, their texts cite and synthesize the ideas of influential modernist methods, programs and manifestoes that appeared in the early twentieth century. Charles Waldheim,
Anu Mathur, Alan Berger, Chris Reed, among others, were students at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
during this formative period for Landscape Urbanism. After the Chicago conference, European design schools and North American design institutions formed academic programs and began to formalize a field of Landscape Urbanism studies, including the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
,
Harvard Graduate School of Design
The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...
, Oslo School of Architectur
Urbanism and landscape – AHO Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
br>
Landscape+Urbanism at MIT Catholic University in Leuven, Belgiu
the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
at Chicago and London's
Architectural Association
The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...
.
The development of an operative response to the broad and often vague concepts surrounding landscape urbanism was largely developed at the Architectural Association in London. Prior to this period of design exploration, landscape urbanism had never been clearly developed as an actual design practice. Today, much of the design culture that has come to be associated with landscape urbanism was initiated and developed in the AA Landscape Urbanism program during its early formative period and its influence persists in many educational institutions. A number of practices that have chosen to adopt the design and conceptual approach towards urbanism have also adopted many of these design strategies.
Landscape Urbanism and New Urbanism
Both the theories of Landscape Urbanism and New Urbanism emerged as responses to modernist architecture and planning practices.
Both intended to address the rigidity of the existing urban form as well as the lack of environmental consciousness informing urban design.
New Urbanists prioritize interconnectedness of the neighborhood through well-defined streets that generate walkability.
Landscape Urbanists place the importance of urban order on a “thin horizontal vegetal plane”, using the concept of green-space as the base for urban planning as opposed to the streetscape.
In this way, Landscape Urbanists wish to circumvent the inflexibility and “uninspired failings” of postmodern urban planning practices.
At its core, the theory of Landscape Urbanism addresses problems of urban sprawl, de-densification, and environmental change in what is referred to as “a disciplinary realignment… in which landscape is usurping architecture’s historical role as the basic building block of city making”.
It is primarily this principle that is debated between New Urbanists and Landscape Urbanists.
Themes
James Corner is the author of an essay entitled "Terra Fluxus." He has identified four general ideas that are important for use in Landscape Urbanism. They are as follows:
# Process over time – Understanding the fluid or changing nature of any environment and the processes that affect change over time. A respect for natural processes (Ecology) – the idea that our lives intertwine with the environment around us, and we should therefore respect this when creating an urban environment. Landscape Urbanism is concerned with a working surface over time – a type of urbanism that anticipates change, open endedness and negotiation.
# Horizontality – The use of horizontal alignment in landscaping, rather than relying on vertical structuring.
# Working Methods /Techniques – Those who practice the idea of landscape urbanism should be able to adapt their techniques to the environment that they are in.
# The imaginary – That in many ways the failing of twentieth century planning can be attributed to the absolute impoverishment of the imagination to extend new relationships and sets of possibilities.
Ten characteristics
Tom Turner
Tom Turner is an English landscape architect, garden designer and garden historian teaching at the University of Greenwich in London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and t ...
summarized the ten characteristics of landscape urbanism in the book ''Landscape design history and theory: landscape architecture and garden design origins'':
# Broad scale context: Landscape urbanism does not belong to a specific scale. It can be considered in small or large-scale projects.
# Landscape is a context which contains architecture and civil engineering.
# Landscape is seen as a third machinery arm that makes a connection between its components.
Mohsen Mostafavi
Mohsen Mostafavi (born 1954 in Isfahan) is an Iranian-American architect and educator. Mostafavi is currently the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. From 2008 through 2019, Mostafavi served ...
, the author of ''Landscape Urbanism : A Manual for the Machinic Landscape'' used the same phrase.
# LU projects can provide the opportunity of increasing the social interactions. Also, Emily Talen, one of the writers of ''Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents''
talks about social aspects of a LU project ''"by forming three theoretical alliances: one with
post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...
, one with
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
, and one --peculiarly-- with Marxism."''
# Function is the most significant concern in LU machine, which gives the appearance of a project less importance.
# LU discovers the potentials and opportunities in landscapes.
# The infrastructure are highlighted in LU projects.
# LU projects will develop the interrelationship between natural and engineered systems.
# LU will break the boundary between the landscape and the city and will organize them as one.
# The answer to the projects which are complex or have ecological concentrations, is landscape urbanism
Projects
![15th St 10th Av td (2018-08-16) 04 - High Line](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/15th_St_10th_Av_td_%282018-08-16%29_04_-_High_Line.jpg)
The following are Landscape Urbanism projects that can provide more information about the theory in practice:
* ''
Parc de la Villette
The Parc de la Villette is the third-largest park in Paris, in area, located at the northeastern edge of the city in the 19th arrondissement. The park houses one of the largest concentrations of cultural venues in Paris, including the Cité de ...
,'' Bernard Tschumi
* ''
Millenium Park'', SOM (Park Masterplan)
* ''
Olympic Sculpture Park
The Olympic Sculpture Park, created and operated by the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), is a public park with modern and contemporary sculpture in downtown Seattle, Washington. The park, which opened January 20, 2007, consists of a outdoor sculpture mu ...
,'' Weiss/Manfredi
* ''
Klyde Warren Park
Klyde Warren Park is a public park in Downtown Dallas, Texas. The park is over the Woodall Rodgers Freeway, and opened in 2012. It is named for Klyde Warren, the young son of billionaire Kelcy Warren who donated $10 million to the development of ...
'', The Office of James Burnett
* ''Madrid Rio'', Ginés Garrido [Director
Burgos & Garrido/ Porras La Casta / Rubio A.Sala /
West 8
West 8 is an urban planning and landscape architecture firm founded by Adriaan Geuze and Paul van Beek in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1987. It is known for its contemporary designs and innovative solutions to urban planning problems using lighting, ...
*''Fresh Kills Landfill Competition'', Field Operations/James Corner]
Field Operations – home*
''The High Line'', Field Operations/
James Corner James Corner (born 1961) is a landscape architect and theorist whose works exhibit a focus on "developing innovative approaches toward landscape architectural design and urbanism." His designs of note include Fresh Kills Park on Staten Island and th ...
*''
Downsview Park
Downsview Park is a large urban park located in the Downsview neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The park's name is officially bilingual due to it being federally owned and managed, and was first home to de Havilland Canada, an aircra ...
Competition'', all finalist entrie
::Parc Downsview Park: The Finalists::*''
Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam'',
West 8
West 8 is an urban planning and landscape architecture firm founded by Adriaan Geuze and Paul van Beek in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1987. It is known for its contemporary designs and innovative solutions to urban planning problems using lighting, ...
/Adriaan Geuze
*Projects by ''Stoss''/Chris Ree
Stoss Landscape Urbanism
Criticism
Landscape Urbanism has been criticized for being only a loosely defined idea that influences flashy projects. These have been decried as expensive schemes with a commercial and aesthetic purpose that satisfy a local ambition to invest in ecology or sustainability without posing a more globally applicable approach. Some believe that these projects pander to elite patrons and academics invested in design competitions, instead of accomplishing meaningful objectives.
It is recognized by many professionals that environmental, spatial, and social justice are considerations in the design of the contemporary landscape.
However, critics question the extent to which Landscape Urbanism has effectively championed the principles of equity, or if its projects have contributed more to the displacement of people in low-income and marginalized groups.
People debate who is truly best served by Landscape Urbanism.
Critics also see Landscape Urbanism as falling short of a true merger of the fields of landscape architecture and Urban Ecology. From this criticism American ecologist and landscape architect Frederick Steiner introduced the theory of “landscape ecological urbanism” as an approach to better include the field of urban ecology in city planning.
Others have emphasized that in order to develop a new urban ecology, this type of integrative planning and management of cities should be reliant on intensive analysis of nature in an urban environment.
An opponent to Landscape Urbanism is
New Urbanism
New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually inf ...
, led by
Andres Duany
Andres or Andrés may refer to:
*Andres, Illinois, an unincorporated community in Will County, Illinois, US
*Andres, Pas-de-Calais, a commune in Pas-de-Calais, France
*Andres (name)
*Hurricane Andres
* "Andres" (song), a 1994 song by L7
See also ...
,
which promotes walkable communities and smart growth with its
Transit Oriented Development
In urban planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship between ...
(TOD) and
Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND). In response to landscape urbanism’s focus on expansive green space in urban development, Duany stated that “density and urbanism are not the same.” Further, “unless there is tremendous density, human beings will not walk.”
The result is patches of green sprawl that lose connectivity to the greater network.
Emo Urbanism is another philosophy critical of Landscape Urbanism. The movement contends that Landscape Urbanism views ecology as an aesthetic element of style and not urban ecology. The artificial ecology replaces the entropic state to re-create a landscape that fits a particular brand or aesthetic. The loss is a dynamic, adaptive, and certainly essential urban system. Emo urbanism differs by making evolving "nature" a key component of the design process. The realization of this process is called “
Urbanature" and "Big Nature." As an evolving urban ecology,
Charles Morris Anderson has described this connection as the “thinness.” It is the simultaneous perception and implicit understanding of the past, present, and future. Emo Urbanist projects include the built work of Charles Anderson at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, WA; The Anchorage Museum Common in Anchorage, AK; the yet to be constructed Project Phoenix in Haiti and Hellinikon's Metropolitan Park in Athens, Greece.
Ian Thompson has published a critical review of landscape urbanism in which he identifies its ten tenets and asks six critical questions. His conclusions are:
... there are ideas with the Landscape Urbanism discourse which have great merit, among which I would include the breaking down of professional distinctions, the integration of ecological thinking, the foregrounding of infrastructure, the interest in the positive use of waste materials and the emphasis upon functionality rather than mere appearance. There is also a quantity of dubious philosophy, unhelpful imagery and obscurantist language that Landscape Urbanism ought to dump. ... Larding the case for Landscape Urbanim with Deleuzian and Derridean references was a mistake, since it was done principally to impress an academic elite, and it has even left large sections of its intended audience bemused'.[Ian Thompson (2012) Ten Tenets and Six Questions for Landscape
Urbanism, Landscape Research, 37:1, 7–26,]
See also
*
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
*
Ecological Urbanism
*
Urban design
Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban de ...
*
Urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
*
Urban vitality
Urban vitality is the quality of those spaces in cities that are capable of attracting heterogeneous people for different types of activities throughout varied time schedules. The areas of the city with high vitality are perceived as alive, live ...
*
Landscape planning
Landscape planning is a branch of landscape architecture. According to Erv Zube (1931–2002) landscape planning is defined as an activity concerned with developing landscaping amongst competing land uses while protecting natural processes and s ...
*
Geodesign Geodesign is a set of concepts and methods used to involve all stakeholders and various professions in collaboratively designing and realizing the optimal solution for spatial challenges in the built and natural environments, utilizing all availabl ...
*
Post-postmodernism
Post-postmodernism is a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture which are emerging from and reacting to postmodernism.
Periodization
Most scholars would agree that modernism bega ...
*
Landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
*
Landscape design
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garde ...
*
Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism Bat Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism, "Urban Action," is a design project in Bat Yam, Israel dedicated to examining and re-designing city landscapes and lifestyles. History
The first Biennale, was "Hosting," held in 2008. This event ...
*
Negative planning
‘Negative Approach to Urban Planning’, also known as "reversed planning" or simply "negative planning" is a landscape urbanism approach to urban planning. It is a new concept and terminology introduced by Chinese landscape architect, Profes ...
Further reading
*Almy, Dean, "Center 14: On Landscape Urbanism", The Center for American Architecture and Design, The University of Texas at Austin, 2007
*
Allen, Stan. "Mat Urbanism: The Thick 2-D." ''Case: Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital and the
Mat Building Revival''. Ed. Hashim Sarkis. Munich; New York: Prestel, 2001.
*Connolly, Peter, "Embracing Openness: Making Landscape Urbanism Landscape Architectural: Part 2", in "The Mesh Book: Landscape/Infrastructure", Edited by Julian Raxworthy and Jessica Blood, RMIT University Press, Melbourne, 2004, 200–219.
*
Corner, James. ''Recovering Landscape : Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture''. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.
*Czerniak, Julia. ''CASE—Downsview Park Toronto''. Munich; New York; Cambridge, Mass.: Prestel; Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, 2001.
*
Duany, Andres. The New Civic Art: Elements Of Town Planning. New York: Rizzoli 2003. Print.
*Kapelos, G. (1994). Interpretations of Nature : Contemporary Canadian Architecture, Landscape and Urbanism. Kleinburg, Canada: McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
*Kerb 15 – Landscape Urbanism]. This issue includes contributions from Charles Waldheim, Mohsen Mostafavi, FOA, Karres en Brands, Kongjian Yu, Kyong Park, Kathryn Gustafson, Stephen Read, Kelly Shannon, Richard Weller, Sue Anne Ware, Cesar Torres, Peter Connolly and Adrian Napoleone, Melbourne, RMIT Press, 2007.
*
Rem Koolhaas, Koolhaas, Rem. "Atlanta." ''S, M, L, XL''. New York: Monacelli Press, 1999.
*Moran, E. F. (2011). People And Nature: An Introduction To Human Ecological Relations. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
*Mostafavi, Mohsen, Ciro Najle, and Architectural Association. ''Landscape Urbanism : A Manual for the Machinic Landscape''. London: Architectural Association, 2003.
*Tanzer, K. (2007). The Green Braid : Towards An Architecture Of Ecology, Economy And Equity. New York, NY: Routledge.
*''Topos'' 71 -Landscape Urbanism. This issue includes contributions from Charles Waldheim, James Corner, Mohsen Mostafavi, Adriaan Geuze,
Susannah Drake,
Kongjian Yu
Kongjian Yu (simplified Chinese: 俞孔坚; traditional Chinese: 俞孔堅; pinyin: Yú kǒngjiān, born in 1963 in Dongyu Village in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China), is a landscape architect and urbanist, writer and educator, commonly credited ...
, Frederick Steiner, and Dean Almy.
*Wilson, Matthew. 'Vertical Landscraping, a Big Regionalism for Dubai', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34, 925–40. 2010.
References
{{reflist
External links
Sustainable Urban Development Resource GuideBat Yam International Biennale of Landscape UrbanismLinkedIn professional group of Landscape Urbanism
Landscape
Landscape architecture
Urban planning
Human ecology