The Landscape Form of the Metropolis (original) (raw)
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ACE: Architecture, City and Environment, 2020
For several decades, the notion of landscape has been instrumentalised by various fields of study and with the most diverse views and interests. This is a notion that brings together all the features of liminal spaces, areas characterised by their mediating nature. The success and rapid extension of the concept of landscape, however, has not yet seen a similar development in the methodological field nor is it achieving sufficient consensus to be applied to the administrative scope. In this contribution we will adjust our reflection around the idea of historic urban landscapes, highlighting the need to address the “change management” approach demanded by 21st-century cities. To this end, we shall delve into some new urban management initiatives, in which the “prosumer citizenship” is beginning to be a key element in the construction of the identity of the spaces inhabited. In the same vein, the scope and content of the emerging discipline of tactical urbanism will also be discussed, paying special attention to the limitations of “design thinking” in historic city centres; areas affected by environments that are frequently problematic, where the complex regulations of individual or collectivetutelage that cultural assets require come into play.
Capturing particularities in the metropolitan landscape
Journal of Architecture and Built Environment, 2016
Since its first issue, SPOOL has used the term ‘landscape metropolis’ to address urban formations beyond the traditional city that – despite their increasing ubiquity - still lack in-depth attention from the perspective of aesthetic appreciation, designerly concepts of development, guidelines for planning and governance, and design theoretical apprehension. The prefix ‘landscape’ is used to describe attention to these topics through the lens of landscape architecture, and offers, we feel, some novel potentials: in considering the metropolis as a cultural phenomenon that is constructed mentally as well as physically and socially; which relies on human as well as on natural driving forces; and which contains, somewhere in the cracks of the mosaic, in the ‘in-between’, places with distinguishable qualities – particular places.
Metropolitan Landscapes? Grappling with the urban in landscape design
SPOOL: Criticising Practice – Practicing criticism, 2018
On January 2016, a joint consortium of the Flemish and Brussels Chief Architects published Metropolitan Landscapes. Espaces ouvert, base de développement urbain/Open ruimte als basis voor stedelijke ontwikkeling. Based on the assumption that open spaces have the potential to spur and structure future urban development and surpass administrative boundaries, Metropolitan Landscapes presents research by design, authored by four prominent design firms with the intention of jumpstarting conversations about a shared spatial vision for the fragmented territory of Brussels and its periphery. In this article, we examine the methodology and definitions put forth by Bureau Bas Smets & List, explore the historical context that has rendered the landscape approach so promising in Brussels, and perform a thematic and critical reading of the four projects and their underlying rationale. These projects demonstrate the potential of landscape to engender novel territorial solutions. However, by choosing to ignore competing spatial claims and tending towards a techno-managerial rationale based on infrastructural and ecological systems, these designs raise questions as to the capacity of the landscape approach to deal with ever-present socio-political concerns in Brussels.
Landscape as a Founding Element of the Contemporary Urban
Built Environment, 2018
This paper discusses how landscape transformations and uses redefine the features of urban and non-urban (sub-extra-urban, or rural) contexts in collective imaginaries, and their role as a key element in planning policies. More specifically, the study investigates landscape transformation processes by discussing changes in the perception of the territory among inhabitants and visitors. As argued in this paper, due to its use as a cultural, economic, and political tool, landscape strongly in fluences territorial marketing strategies and individual living choices, contributing to the rise of new issues on the urban question. This argument is based on research into the social perception of landscape in the mountain area of Montagnoli, near Madonna di Campiglio, in the Trentino Province (Northern Italy), where a project for a water storage basin for artificial snowmaking caused significant material and cultural changes to the territory. Using this case study, the paper discusses the role of nature in the evolution of the founding myths of an urban environment.
The landscape in urbanism - a historical view into the future
In common literature the relationship between urban planning and landscape architecture has retrospectively often been described as an antagonistic one. The impression can be gained that only recent projects re-discover the importance of existing natural features as guiding design themes, and that earlier generations ignored them in favor of grand urban schemes. Architectural hardware against green software. Tabula rasa against incremental change. Starting from this hypothetical premise of two contradicting philosophies, the authors decided to dwell deeper into the historic context and to investigate how existing landscape systems have had a major impact on masterplan principles, informing a built reality that could otherwise have taken a different form and turn.
2011
This urban thesis represents a body of work which spans eight years. Presented within its pages is a ‘PhD-Thesis-Atlas’ related to the questions of how to read the urban structure for the contemporary urban landscape. It embodies first and foremost the academic explorations of what specific questions, problems and issues present themselves within the debate of urban morphology and, specifically, typomorphology which centres its activity around the study of the physical [building] and spatial [open] forms of the cities. The Thesis-Atlas simultaneously traces the effects of the typomorphological debate through the visual and empirical explorations of urban form and structure. Documented here, is a theoretical underpinning for the debate, as well as a proposal on how to empirically reflect on urban form and place formations. The document is divided into 4 parts. Parts 1 to 3 contain the core text and theoretical elaborations within the debate, and explore the possible methods of how to examine the city empirically. A total of 10 chapters, each with a specific focus and questions, complete part 1 to 3. Each chapter has visual markers to indicate which images relate to specific issues mentioned in the text. Part 4 represents the visual narrative of the thesis. It contains all graphic material, either sourced or original, in photographic, mapped and diagrammatic formats. It is hoped that the 500 images shown in this thesis will help guide the reader through the periods and types of development which has not only been instrumental in the historical development of the debate surrounding city structure, but also to act as a stimulus for future work.
ACE Architecture, City and Environment, 2020
Abstract e-ISSN 1886-4805 For several decades, the notion of landscape has been instrumentalised by various fields of study and with the most diverse views and interests. This is a notion that brings together all the features of liminal spaces, areas characterised by their mediating nature. The success and rapid extension of the concept of landscape, however, has not yet seen a similar development in the methodological field nor is it achieving sufficient consensus to be applied to the administrative scope. In this contribution we will adjust our reflection around the idea of historic urban landscapes, highlighting the need to address the “change management” approach demanded by 21st-century cities. To this end, we shall delve into some new urban management initiatives, in which the “prosumer citizenship” is beginning to be a key element in the construction of the identity of the spaces inhabited. In the same vein, the scope and content of the emerging discipline of tactical urbanism will also be discussed, paying special attention to the limitations of “design thinking” in historic city centres; areas affected by environments that are frequently problematic, where the complex regulations of individual or collective tutelage that cultural assets require come into play. Keywords: Historic Urban Landscapes; Prosumer Citizenship; Tactical Urbanism; City Prosperity Initiative (CPI)