Landscape + Urbanism

Patrick Geddes

Sir Patrick Geddes FRSE (2 October 1854 17 April 1932) was a ScoHsh biologist, sociologist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovaPve thinking in the elds of urban planning and sociology.

He introduced the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and coined the term "conurbaPon.

The "observaPonal technique Drawing on the scienPc method, Geddes encouraged close observaPon as the way to discover and work with the relaPonships among place, work and folk. In 1892, to allow the general public an opportunity to observe these relaPonships, Geddes opened a sociological laboratory called the Outlook Tower that documented and visualized the regional landscape. In keeping with scienPc process and using new technologies, Geddes developed an Index Museum to categorise his physical observaPons and maintained Encyclopedia Graphicato, which uPlised a camera obscura to provide an opportunity for the general public to observe their own landscape to witness the relaPonships among units of society. The Outlook Tower was built in Edinburgh's Old Town and conPnues to be used as a museum.

The regional plan In 1909, Geddes developed a regional planning model called the "Valley SecPon

This model illustrated the complex interacPons among biogeography, geomorphology and human systems and aaempted to demonstrate how "natural occupaPons" such as hunPng, mining, or shing are supported by physical geographies that in turn determine paaerns of human sealement. The point of this model was to make clear the complex and interrelated relaPonships between humans and their environment, and to encourage regional planning models that would be responsive to these condiPons.

The "civic survey Geddes advocated the civic survey as indispensable to urban planning: his moao was "diagnosis before treatment". Such a survey should include, at a minimum, the geology, the geography, the climate, the economic life, and the social insPtuPons of the city and region. His early work surveying the city of Edinburgh became a model for later surveys.

He was parPcularly criPcal of that form of planning which relied overmuch on design and eect, neglecPng to consider "the surrounding quarter and constructed without reference to local needs or potenPaliPes. Geddes encouraged instead exploraPon and consideraPon of the "whole set of exisPng condiPons", studying the "place as it stands, seeking out how it has grown to be what it is, and recognising alike its advantages, its diculPes and its defects":

"This school strives to adapt itself to meet the wants and needs, the ideas and ideals of the place and persons concerned. It seeks to undo as liale as possible, while planning to increase the well-being of the people at all levels, from the humblest to the highest.

In this sense he can be viewed as preguring the work of seminal urban thinkers such as Jane Jacobs, and region-specic planning movements such as New Urbanism, encouraging the planner to consider the situaPon, inherent virtue and potenPal in a given site, rather than "an abstract ideal that could be imposed by authority or force from the outside.

Ian L. McHarg Ian L. McHarg was a ScoHsh landscape architect and a renowned writer on regional planning using natural systems. He was the founder of the department of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. His 1969 book Design with Nature pioneered the concept of ecological planning. It conPnues to be one of the most widely celebrated books on landscape architecture and land-use planning. In this book, he set forth the basic concepts that were to develop later in Geographic informaPon systems.

Design with Nature Design with Nature, is essenPally a book of step-by-step instrucPons on how to break down a region into its appropriate uses . He promoted an ecological view, in which the designer becomes very familiar with the area through analysis of soil, climate, hydrology, etc. Design With Nature was the rst work of its kind "to dene the problems of modern development and present a methodology or process prescribing compaPble soluPons. The book also had an impact on a variety of elds and ideas. Frederick R. Steiner tells us that "environmental impact assessment, new community development, coastal zone management, brownelds restoraPon, zoo design, river corridor planning, and ideas about sustainability and regeneraPve design all display the inuence of Design with Nature]

Landscape Urbanism Landscape Urbanism is a theory of urban planning arguing that the best way to organize ciPes is through the design of the city's landscape, rather than the design of its buildings. The phrase 'Landscape Urbanism' rst appeared in the mid 1990s. Since this Pme, the phrase 'Landscape Urbanism' has taken on many dierent uses, but is most olen cited as a Postmodernist or Post-postmodernist response to the failings of New Urbanism and the shil away from the comprehensive visions, and demands, for Modern architecture and Urban planning.

From the late 1990s, the phrase 'landscape urbanism' was used by landscape architects in the United States to refer to the re-organisaPon of declining post-industrial ciPes, such as Detroit. From the 2000s, it was used in Europe by architects to mean a highly exible way of integraPng large-scale infrastructure, housing and open space. By the late 2000s, the phrase became associated with highly commercialised, mulP-phase urban parks, such as Olympic park design.

The rst major event to do with 'landscape urbanism' was the Landscape Urbanism conference sponsored by the Graham FoundaPon in Chicago in April 1997. Speakers included Charles Waldheim, Mohsen Mostafavi, James Corner of James Corner/Field OperaPons, Alex Wall, and Adriaan Geuze of the rm West 8, among others. The formaPve period of Landscape Urbanism can be traced back to RMIT University and University of Pennsylvania in the late 1980s, at a Pme when Peter Connolly, Richard Weller, James Corner, Mohsen Mostafavi, and others were exploring the arPcial boundaries of Landscape Architecture, Urban Design and Architecture, searching for beaer ways to deal with complex urban projects. However, their texts cite and synthesize the ideas of inuenPal modernist methods, programmes and manifestoes that appeared in the early twenPeth century. Charles Waldheim, Anu Mathur, Alan Berger, Chris Reed, amongst others, were students at the University of Pennsylvania during this formaPve period for Landscape Urbanism. Aler the Chicago conference, European design schools and North American design insPtuPons formed academic programs and began to formalize a eld of Landscape Urbanism studies, including the University of Toronto, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Oslo School of Architecture], Massachuseas InsPtute of Technology , Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium , the University of Illinois at Chicago and London's Architectural AssociaPon.

James Corner James Corner is a landscape architect and theorist whose works exhibit a focus on "developing innovaPve approaches toward landscape architectural design and urbanism." His designs of note include Fresh Kills Park on Staten Island and the High Line in Manhaaan, both in New York City. Corner is a professionally registered landscape architect and the principal of James Corner Field OperaPons, a landscape architecture and urban design pracPce based in New York City.

Corner began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in 1988 where he taught courses in media and theory, as well as design studios. He was elected Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department in 2000. As a professor, Corner's landscape design and environmental research and teaching interests are based upon "developing innovaPve approaches toward landscape architectural design and urbanism. Corner's pracPce, Field OperaPons, was iniPally formed in collaboraPon with architect Stan Allen, but the partners chose to focus on their individual pracPces in 2005. The rm is at the forefront of the landscape urbanism movement, an interdisciplinary approach that, in theory, amalgamates a wide range of disciplines including landscape architecture, urban design, landscape ecology, and engineering, among other subjects. Corner argues that it is an approach that focuses on process rather than a style and that it marks a producPve aHtude toward indeterminacy, open-endedness, inter-mixing, and cross-disciplinarity.

Ecological urbanism The ecological urbanism project draws from ecology to inspire an urbanism that is more socially inclusive and sensiPve to the environment, as well as less ideologically driven, than green urbanism or sustainable urbanism. In many ways, ecological urbanism is an evoluPon of, and a criPque of, Landscape Urbanism arguing for a more holisPc approach to the design and management of ciPes.

Arguing for a "new ethics and aesthePcs of the urban," the 656-page Ecological Urbanism book, edited by Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty, was published in May 2010 by Lars Mller Publishers. The book follows the conference, and exhibiPon, held at the GSD in 2009. The book has a long list of contributors, including Rem Koolhaas, Homi K. Bhabha, Mitchell Joachim, Andrea Branzi, and about 130 others. According to Architecture Today, the book is "one of the few books that recognises and arPculates how, if this systems-based approach is to be successful, it needs to design, integrate and express complex systems and social processes in ways that are fundamentally humane.