Rene Van Der Velde | Delft University of Technology (original) (raw)
Papers by Rene Van Der Velde
Urban Forestry & Urban Greening
DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals - DOAJ, Jun 1, 2018
PART 4 Conclusions, Reflection & Outlook 9 Conclusions 301 9.1 Landscape Architecture as Multidim... more PART 4 Conclusions, Reflection & Outlook 9 Conclusions 301 9.1 Landscape Architecture as Multidimensional Praxis 301 9.1.1 Garden & Territory, Park Design & Landscape Architecture 302 9.1.2 Site, Process & Form 302 9.1.3 Recovering & Expanding the Notion of Composition 303 9.2 Revising Compositional Praxis 303 9.2.1 Revisions to Compositional Praxis as a process of Ecdysis 304 9.2.2 Importance of Contextual Factors 304 9.2.3 Ecdysis of Basic Form as Procedure 306 9.2.4 Ecdysis of Spatial Form as Procedure 308 9.2.5 Ecdysis of Programme Form as Procedure 310 9.2.6 Ecdysis of Image Form as Procedure 313 10 Reflection & Outlook 317 10.1 Transformation in Composition, Composition in Transformation 317 10.2 The Agency of the Brownfield Park 318 10.3 From the Mire of Modernity to the Age of the Anthropocene 321 10.4 Towards an (Landscape) Atlas of Brownfields 324 Summary 327 Samenvatting 329 References 331 List of figures 341 Biography 349 TOC 20
IOS Press, 2014
Since the late post-war period the relationship between park and city has significantly altered. ... more Since the late post-war period the relationship between park and city has significantly altered. Parks established between 1980 and 2000 in Paris - in particular Parc de La Villette – exemplify developments in park design and the park-city relationship in this period and form precedents for many subsequent parks worldwide. Park designation in this period was related to the reform of public (open) space policy by urban administrations in many European cities in the early 1980s. Parc de La Villette was also seen as a tool for spatial, economic and social urban regeneration, and as a vehicle for political expression. Developments in the park-city relationship at Parc de La Villette were influenced by its location on a former industrial site; an obsolete urban territory designated for green space, nature and landscape and necessitating the translation of urban artifacts into landscape space. With little ‘former’ landscape to work with, the importance of the natural and cultural landscape as a basis for place-making diminished. At the same time layers of urban history were integrated into designs. La Villette demonstrates a new and extensive interrelationship between park and city on a spatial-morphological level with the integration of infrastructure and built form in the design. The result is an extensive blurring of the distinction between city and park both within the park and its threshold areas. By contrast, the alignment of the folie grid and galeries to the geometry of the Canal de l’Ourcq and the La Villette basin is a clear integration of city and countryside via the axial organization of space.
When the city disintegrates into an archipelago of fragments a new role is imposed on the landsca... more When the city disintegrates into an archipelago of fragments a new role is imposed on the landscape as a carrier of topographical characterizations, cohesion and continuity. Patterns such as transportation corridors, settlement areas and landscape voids can be regarded as latent macro-landscape forms of the metropolitan territory. In the staging of the metropolis these forms need to be embedded in a compositional structure that addresses fragmentation and disorientation, without relapsing into utopian forms of the traditional city that have proven inadequate for the metropolitan condition. The potential basis to inform this structure is the landscape itself: permanent, neutral and ubiquitous. The underlying landscape also contains an annotated catalogue of situations, in which the genius loci is recorded and secured. These latent compositional elements are transformed into landscape architectural ‘narratives’ within the topography of the emerging metropolis. The enlargement and dist...
Technologies collecting location-based data in the real world have advantages over traditional me... more Technologies collecting location-based data in the real world have advantages over traditional methods for landscape perception research. The possibility to relate geo-referenced responses of inhabitants to the physical and social data in expert GIS databases can lead to new insights into the difference between laymen and expert opinions and may result in adjustments of policy forming. To date, the use of Social Sensing in Landscape perception and valuing is limited. This research presents the set of requirements for a mobile application for landscape and urban planning, discusses some of the main challenges, and concludes that a number of evaluated existing mobile applications just partly meet those requirements. _______________________________________________________ A. Tisma (Corresponding author) • R. van der Velde Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Email: A.Tisma-1@tudelft.nl M.M. de Weerdt • B. van Riemsdijk Faculty of Electrical Engineeri...
When the city disintegrates into an archipelago of fragments a new role is imposed on the landsca... more When the city disintegrates into an archipelago of fragments a new role is imposed on the landscape as a carrier of topographical characterizations, cohesion and continuity. Patterns such as transportation corridors, settlement areas and landscape voids can be regarded as latent macro-landscape forms of the metropolitan territory. In the staging of the metropolis these forms need to be embedded in a compositional structure that addresses fragmentation and disorientation, without relapsing into utopian forms of the traditional city that have proven inadequate for the metropolitan condition. The potential basis to inform this structure is the landscape itself: permanent, neutral and ubiquitous. The underlying landscape also contains an annotated catalogue of situations, in which the genius loci is recorded and secured. These latent compositional elements are transformed into landscape architectural ‘narratives’ within the topography of the emerging metropolis. The enlargement and dist...
The multi-dimensionality of BwN calls for the incorporation of ‘designerly ways of knowing and do... more The multi-dimensionality of BwN calls for the incorporation of ‘designerly ways of knowing and doing’ from other fields involved in this new trans-disciplinary approach. The transition out of a focus on rational design paradigms towards reflective design paradigms such as those employed in the spatial design disciplines may be a first step in this process. By extension, the knowledge base and design methodologies of BwN may be critically expanded by drawing on ways of knowing and doing in spatial design disciplines such as landscape architecture, which elaborates the agency of the term ‘landscape’ as counterpart to the term ‘nature’. Operative perspectives and related methodologies in this discipline such as perception, anamnesis, multi-scalar thinking, and process design resonate with specific themes in the BwN approach such as design of/with natural processes, integration of functions or layers in the territory and the connection of engineering works to human-social contexts. A se...
Journal of Architecture and Built Environment, 2014
This paper presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a comprehensive landscape char... more This paper presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a comprehensive landscape characterization, focussing on the largest and most complex urban realm: the metropolitan region. Landscape character has in recent years emerged as a new paradigm to understand, monitor and evaluate cultural landscapes undergoing change. The scope of characterization methods however, is by and large limited to the non-urban realm. In physical terms, the border between the urban and non-urban realms is becoming increasingly diffuse, particularly in metropolitan regions. Metropolitan regions thus conceptually challenge the scope of landscape characterization, as cities can also be understood to be in and of themselves a form of cultural landscape. Moreover, territories where urban and rural realms merge, result in new ‘hybrid’ types of space that fall outside existing characterization methods. The method developed and presented in this paper is aimed at producing a comprehensive landscape cha...
A+BE: Architecture and the Built Environment, 2018
This study enlarges on the notion of composition in landscape architecture. It builds upon the ‘D... more This study enlarges on the notion of composition in landscape architecture. It builds upon the ‘Delft method’, which elaborates composition as a methodological framework from its sister discipline architecture. At the same time takes a critical stance in respect to this framework, informed by recent epistemological developments in landscape architecture such as the site-specificity and process discourses. The notion of composition is examined from a historical and theoretical perspective, before turning to an examination of the brownfield park project realised in the period 1975-2015. These projects emerge as an important laboratory and catalyst for developments in landscape architecture, whereby contextual, process, and formal-aesthetic aspects emerge as central themes. The thesis of this research is that a major theoretical and methodological expansion of the notion of composition can be distilled from the brownfield park project, in which seemingly irreconcilable paradigms such a...
Research in Urbanism Series, Apr 27, 2015
Since the late post-war period the relationship between park and city has significantly altered. ... more Since the late post-war period the relationship between park and city has significantly altered. Parks established between 1980 and 2000 in Paris - in particular Parc de La Villette – exemplify developments in park design and the park-city relationship in this period and form precedents for many subsequent parks worldwide. Park designation in this period was related to the reform of public (open) space policy by urban administrations in many European cities in the early 1980s. Parc de La Villette was also seen as a tool for spatial, economic and social urban regeneration, and as a vehicle for political expression. Developments in the park-city relationship at Parc de La Villette were influenced by its location on a former industrial site; an obsolete urban territory designated for green space, nature and landscape and necessitating the translation of urban artifacts into landscape space. With little ‘former’ landscape to work with, the importance of the natural and cultural landscape as a basis for place-making diminished. At the same time layers of urban history were integrated into designs. La Villette demonstrates a new and extensive interrelationship between park and city on a spatial-morphological level with the integration of infrastructure and built form in the design. The result is an extensive blurring of the distinction between city and park both within the park and its threshold areas. By contrast, the alignment of the folie grid and galeries to the geometry of the Canal de l’Ourcq and the La Villette basin is a clear integration of city and countryside via the axial organization of space.
The appreciation of green infrastructures as ‘nature’ by urban communities presents a critical ch... more The appreciation of green infrastructures as ‘nature’ by urban communities presents a critical challenge for the green infrastructure concept. While many green infrastructures focus on functional considerations, their refinement as places where concepts of nature are represented and where nature can be
experienced and understood, has received little attention in research and praxis. Contemporary urban societies entertain varied and distinctive ideas on nature and their relationship to it, themes explored in contemporary urban park and garden design. These projects can provide insights into the representation, comprehension and experience of nature in green infrastructures. This article expands on contemporary conceptions of nature in urban parks and urban gardens such as those realised in Paris between 1980 and 2000. The projects
all display articulated expressions of conceptions of nature, reflecting both a return to the classical garden tradition, as well as elaborations of nature via the sensorial, ‘abundant nature’ and nature as process. These conceptions can be positioned within the theoretical framework of three forms of nature –
first nature (wilderness), second nature (cultural landscape) and third nature (garden). In Paris, contemporary parks and gardens not only express new forms of nature, they also form part of a green infrastructure network in their own right. As a series of precise moments connected by rivers and canals,
this network differs markedly from prevailing green infrastructure models. The network of parks and gardens in Paris represents a green infrastructural network made up of a layering of historical and contemporary elements connected in compound ways. The completeness of representations and
elaborations of nature – gathered in the three natures – can be dissected and spread out over different constructed landscapes in the city, and it is up to the green infrastructure to unite them.
This paper presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a comprehensive landscape char... more This paper presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a comprehensive landscape characterization, focussing on the largest and most complex urban realm: the metropolitan region. Landscape character has in recent years emerged as a new paradigm to understand, monitor and evaluate cultural landscapes undergoing change. The scope of characterization methods however, is by and large limited to the non-urban realm. In physical terms, the border between the urban and non-urban realms is becoming increasingly diffuse, particularly in metropolitan regions. Metropolitan regions thus conceptually challenge the scope of landscape characterization, as cities can also be understood to be in and of themselves a form of cultural landscape. Moreover, territories where urban and rural realms merge, result in new ‘hybrid’ types of space that fall outside existing characterization methods.
The method developed and presented in this paper is aimed at producing a comprehensive landscape characterization tool for metropolitan regions in order to understand, evaluate and monitor their spatial form. The method developed combines elements from conventional landscape character assessment with urban morphology, mapping, and cluster analyses. The first version of the method was tested using the metropolitan region of Rotterdam and resulted in a preliminary categorization of thirty-six metropolitan landscape types. Twenty- four of the thirty-six types are defined as ‘hybrid’ or mixed landscape types, which occupy approximately 30% of the territory. Their make-up is determined by formal varying densities of topographic elements, land use categories, and heights. The hybrid landscape types that have emerged as a result of applying this method are of particular interest, as they were not recognized as a specific category by other classification methods. The extent and character of these landscapes is not yet fully understood and therefore not used in the landscape policy forming. The method also reveals a substantial disparity between the assumed threshold of city and countryside in the Rotterdam region, and the one that has resulted from this study. The distribution of hybrid landscape types also shows that patterns of dispersion, diffusion, periphery and fragmentation have exceeded what is considered the peri-urban area of Rotterdam in administrative and planning circles.
Dispersed urban regions are characterized by blurred boundaries between urban and rural areas res... more Dispersed urban regions are characterized by blurred boundaries between urban and rural areas resulting in complex new configurations of urban tissue and landscape space. These new hybrid landscapes challenge existing tools for landscape characterization, which are based on a traditional separation of urban and non-urban realms. This paper presents the results of the elaboration and testing of the method for character assessment using continuity and land-use for the study of the morphology of the metropolitan region of Rotterdam.
Urban Forestry & Urban Greening
DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals - DOAJ, Jun 1, 2018
PART 4 Conclusions, Reflection & Outlook 9 Conclusions 301 9.1 Landscape Architecture as Multidim... more PART 4 Conclusions, Reflection & Outlook 9 Conclusions 301 9.1 Landscape Architecture as Multidimensional Praxis 301 9.1.1 Garden & Territory, Park Design & Landscape Architecture 302 9.1.2 Site, Process & Form 302 9.1.3 Recovering & Expanding the Notion of Composition 303 9.2 Revising Compositional Praxis 303 9.2.1 Revisions to Compositional Praxis as a process of Ecdysis 304 9.2.2 Importance of Contextual Factors 304 9.2.3 Ecdysis of Basic Form as Procedure 306 9.2.4 Ecdysis of Spatial Form as Procedure 308 9.2.5 Ecdysis of Programme Form as Procedure 310 9.2.6 Ecdysis of Image Form as Procedure 313 10 Reflection & Outlook 317 10.1 Transformation in Composition, Composition in Transformation 317 10.2 The Agency of the Brownfield Park 318 10.3 From the Mire of Modernity to the Age of the Anthropocene 321 10.4 Towards an (Landscape) Atlas of Brownfields 324 Summary 327 Samenvatting 329 References 331 List of figures 341 Biography 349 TOC 20
IOS Press, 2014
Since the late post-war period the relationship between park and city has significantly altered. ... more Since the late post-war period the relationship between park and city has significantly altered. Parks established between 1980 and 2000 in Paris - in particular Parc de La Villette – exemplify developments in park design and the park-city relationship in this period and form precedents for many subsequent parks worldwide. Park designation in this period was related to the reform of public (open) space policy by urban administrations in many European cities in the early 1980s. Parc de La Villette was also seen as a tool for spatial, economic and social urban regeneration, and as a vehicle for political expression. Developments in the park-city relationship at Parc de La Villette were influenced by its location on a former industrial site; an obsolete urban territory designated for green space, nature and landscape and necessitating the translation of urban artifacts into landscape space. With little ‘former’ landscape to work with, the importance of the natural and cultural landscape as a basis for place-making diminished. At the same time layers of urban history were integrated into designs. La Villette demonstrates a new and extensive interrelationship between park and city on a spatial-morphological level with the integration of infrastructure and built form in the design. The result is an extensive blurring of the distinction between city and park both within the park and its threshold areas. By contrast, the alignment of the folie grid and galeries to the geometry of the Canal de l’Ourcq and the La Villette basin is a clear integration of city and countryside via the axial organization of space.
When the city disintegrates into an archipelago of fragments a new role is imposed on the landsca... more When the city disintegrates into an archipelago of fragments a new role is imposed on the landscape as a carrier of topographical characterizations, cohesion and continuity. Patterns such as transportation corridors, settlement areas and landscape voids can be regarded as latent macro-landscape forms of the metropolitan territory. In the staging of the metropolis these forms need to be embedded in a compositional structure that addresses fragmentation and disorientation, without relapsing into utopian forms of the traditional city that have proven inadequate for the metropolitan condition. The potential basis to inform this structure is the landscape itself: permanent, neutral and ubiquitous. The underlying landscape also contains an annotated catalogue of situations, in which the genius loci is recorded and secured. These latent compositional elements are transformed into landscape architectural ‘narratives’ within the topography of the emerging metropolis. The enlargement and dist...
Technologies collecting location-based data in the real world have advantages over traditional me... more Technologies collecting location-based data in the real world have advantages over traditional methods for landscape perception research. The possibility to relate geo-referenced responses of inhabitants to the physical and social data in expert GIS databases can lead to new insights into the difference between laymen and expert opinions and may result in adjustments of policy forming. To date, the use of Social Sensing in Landscape perception and valuing is limited. This research presents the set of requirements for a mobile application for landscape and urban planning, discusses some of the main challenges, and concludes that a number of evaluated existing mobile applications just partly meet those requirements. _______________________________________________________ A. Tisma (Corresponding author) • R. van der Velde Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Email: A.Tisma-1@tudelft.nl M.M. de Weerdt • B. van Riemsdijk Faculty of Electrical Engineeri...
When the city disintegrates into an archipelago of fragments a new role is imposed on the landsca... more When the city disintegrates into an archipelago of fragments a new role is imposed on the landscape as a carrier of topographical characterizations, cohesion and continuity. Patterns such as transportation corridors, settlement areas and landscape voids can be regarded as latent macro-landscape forms of the metropolitan territory. In the staging of the metropolis these forms need to be embedded in a compositional structure that addresses fragmentation and disorientation, without relapsing into utopian forms of the traditional city that have proven inadequate for the metropolitan condition. The potential basis to inform this structure is the landscape itself: permanent, neutral and ubiquitous. The underlying landscape also contains an annotated catalogue of situations, in which the genius loci is recorded and secured. These latent compositional elements are transformed into landscape architectural ‘narratives’ within the topography of the emerging metropolis. The enlargement and dist...
The multi-dimensionality of BwN calls for the incorporation of ‘designerly ways of knowing and do... more The multi-dimensionality of BwN calls for the incorporation of ‘designerly ways of knowing and doing’ from other fields involved in this new trans-disciplinary approach. The transition out of a focus on rational design paradigms towards reflective design paradigms such as those employed in the spatial design disciplines may be a first step in this process. By extension, the knowledge base and design methodologies of BwN may be critically expanded by drawing on ways of knowing and doing in spatial design disciplines such as landscape architecture, which elaborates the agency of the term ‘landscape’ as counterpart to the term ‘nature’. Operative perspectives and related methodologies in this discipline such as perception, anamnesis, multi-scalar thinking, and process design resonate with specific themes in the BwN approach such as design of/with natural processes, integration of functions or layers in the territory and the connection of engineering works to human-social contexts. A se...
Journal of Architecture and Built Environment, 2014
This paper presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a comprehensive landscape char... more This paper presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a comprehensive landscape characterization, focussing on the largest and most complex urban realm: the metropolitan region. Landscape character has in recent years emerged as a new paradigm to understand, monitor and evaluate cultural landscapes undergoing change. The scope of characterization methods however, is by and large limited to the non-urban realm. In physical terms, the border between the urban and non-urban realms is becoming increasingly diffuse, particularly in metropolitan regions. Metropolitan regions thus conceptually challenge the scope of landscape characterization, as cities can also be understood to be in and of themselves a form of cultural landscape. Moreover, territories where urban and rural realms merge, result in new ‘hybrid’ types of space that fall outside existing characterization methods. The method developed and presented in this paper is aimed at producing a comprehensive landscape cha...
A+BE: Architecture and the Built Environment, 2018
This study enlarges on the notion of composition in landscape architecture. It builds upon the ‘D... more This study enlarges on the notion of composition in landscape architecture. It builds upon the ‘Delft method’, which elaborates composition as a methodological framework from its sister discipline architecture. At the same time takes a critical stance in respect to this framework, informed by recent epistemological developments in landscape architecture such as the site-specificity and process discourses. The notion of composition is examined from a historical and theoretical perspective, before turning to an examination of the brownfield park project realised in the period 1975-2015. These projects emerge as an important laboratory and catalyst for developments in landscape architecture, whereby contextual, process, and formal-aesthetic aspects emerge as central themes. The thesis of this research is that a major theoretical and methodological expansion of the notion of composition can be distilled from the brownfield park project, in which seemingly irreconcilable paradigms such a...
Research in Urbanism Series, Apr 27, 2015
Since the late post-war period the relationship between park and city has significantly altered. ... more Since the late post-war period the relationship between park and city has significantly altered. Parks established between 1980 and 2000 in Paris - in particular Parc de La Villette – exemplify developments in park design and the park-city relationship in this period and form precedents for many subsequent parks worldwide. Park designation in this period was related to the reform of public (open) space policy by urban administrations in many European cities in the early 1980s. Parc de La Villette was also seen as a tool for spatial, economic and social urban regeneration, and as a vehicle for political expression. Developments in the park-city relationship at Parc de La Villette were influenced by its location on a former industrial site; an obsolete urban territory designated for green space, nature and landscape and necessitating the translation of urban artifacts into landscape space. With little ‘former’ landscape to work with, the importance of the natural and cultural landscape as a basis for place-making diminished. At the same time layers of urban history were integrated into designs. La Villette demonstrates a new and extensive interrelationship between park and city on a spatial-morphological level with the integration of infrastructure and built form in the design. The result is an extensive blurring of the distinction between city and park both within the park and its threshold areas. By contrast, the alignment of the folie grid and galeries to the geometry of the Canal de l’Ourcq and the La Villette basin is a clear integration of city and countryside via the axial organization of space.
The appreciation of green infrastructures as ‘nature’ by urban communities presents a critical ch... more The appreciation of green infrastructures as ‘nature’ by urban communities presents a critical challenge for the green infrastructure concept. While many green infrastructures focus on functional considerations, their refinement as places where concepts of nature are represented and where nature can be
experienced and understood, has received little attention in research and praxis. Contemporary urban societies entertain varied and distinctive ideas on nature and their relationship to it, themes explored in contemporary urban park and garden design. These projects can provide insights into the representation, comprehension and experience of nature in green infrastructures. This article expands on contemporary conceptions of nature in urban parks and urban gardens such as those realised in Paris between 1980 and 2000. The projects
all display articulated expressions of conceptions of nature, reflecting both a return to the classical garden tradition, as well as elaborations of nature via the sensorial, ‘abundant nature’ and nature as process. These conceptions can be positioned within the theoretical framework of three forms of nature –
first nature (wilderness), second nature (cultural landscape) and third nature (garden). In Paris, contemporary parks and gardens not only express new forms of nature, they also form part of a green infrastructure network in their own right. As a series of precise moments connected by rivers and canals,
this network differs markedly from prevailing green infrastructure models. The network of parks and gardens in Paris represents a green infrastructural network made up of a layering of historical and contemporary elements connected in compound ways. The completeness of representations and
elaborations of nature – gathered in the three natures – can be dissected and spread out over different constructed landscapes in the city, and it is up to the green infrastructure to unite them.
This paper presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a comprehensive landscape char... more This paper presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a comprehensive landscape characterization, focussing on the largest and most complex urban realm: the metropolitan region. Landscape character has in recent years emerged as a new paradigm to understand, monitor and evaluate cultural landscapes undergoing change. The scope of characterization methods however, is by and large limited to the non-urban realm. In physical terms, the border between the urban and non-urban realms is becoming increasingly diffuse, particularly in metropolitan regions. Metropolitan regions thus conceptually challenge the scope of landscape characterization, as cities can also be understood to be in and of themselves a form of cultural landscape. Moreover, territories where urban and rural realms merge, result in new ‘hybrid’ types of space that fall outside existing characterization methods.
The method developed and presented in this paper is aimed at producing a comprehensive landscape characterization tool for metropolitan regions in order to understand, evaluate and monitor their spatial form. The method developed combines elements from conventional landscape character assessment with urban morphology, mapping, and cluster analyses. The first version of the method was tested using the metropolitan region of Rotterdam and resulted in a preliminary categorization of thirty-six metropolitan landscape types. Twenty- four of the thirty-six types are defined as ‘hybrid’ or mixed landscape types, which occupy approximately 30% of the territory. Their make-up is determined by formal varying densities of topographic elements, land use categories, and heights. The hybrid landscape types that have emerged as a result of applying this method are of particular interest, as they were not recognized as a specific category by other classification methods. The extent and character of these landscapes is not yet fully understood and therefore not used in the landscape policy forming. The method also reveals a substantial disparity between the assumed threshold of city and countryside in the Rotterdam region, and the one that has resulted from this study. The distribution of hybrid landscape types also shows that patterns of dispersion, diffusion, periphery and fragmentation have exceeded what is considered the peri-urban area of Rotterdam in administrative and planning circles.
Dispersed urban regions are characterized by blurred boundaries between urban and rural areas res... more Dispersed urban regions are characterized by blurred boundaries between urban and rural areas resulting in complex new configurations of urban tissue and landscape space. These new hybrid landscapes challenge existing tools for landscape characterization, which are based on a traditional separation of urban and non-urban realms. This paper presents the results of the elaboration and testing of the method for character assessment using continuity and land-use for the study of the morphology of the metropolitan region of Rotterdam.