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.