Grounding Landscape Urbanism… your definition.

My totally blind interpretation of ‘landscape urbanism’ is the integration of ecological systems and natural features in the design and planning of communties–letting landscape drive the organization of habitable space, both public and private.

I might argue that this is precisely what landscape architects have been trying to do for decades,however somewhat unsuccessfully, particularly with residential subdivision planning.

The term “cities of resilience” sounds as if it’s the “man vs nature” school of thought dating back to Genesis. Why not use a term like “adaptive cities” or “considerate cities” or “cities of mindful modification”? While there were some great sources sited, and I found those excerpts to be the most informative, I’m not sure what one is supposed to take away from the paper itself… maybe it was too broad for my taste. It seemed that the whole point of the paper was to sell the idea that everyone should rally around the term “cities of resilience” and that term will unite the various disciplines of LU (urban designers, sociologist and ecologists). It comes across as an ego driven solution (we have the terminology to lead the way) that I’m not sure is a solution at all. Yes, the professions of LU need to use a common vocabulary but “cities of resilience” is not going to be the keystone…

I don’t know why it’s so complicated… OK, first of all, very little “ecology” is going to exist in a 99% compacted environment. So that leaves us with green roofs and open space. Cities tend to develop around water (drinking/transportation). Cities also tend to destroy the very aquatic systems they rely on by building too close to them, dumping waste into them and modifying them to prevent flooding and erosion. Solution: give the water ways some damn space (not dam space). By giving waterways large buffers (1/2mi+) you naturally create parks, non-motorized transportation corridors and aquatic-terrestrial transitions that filter/process urban run-off. In my humble opinion that is the single greatest thing you could do for “urban ecology”.

Water is the big picture… then you can zoom in and integrate other open space into the city, address site specific storm water issues, decrease heatsinks, refine transportation systems, etc. etc. If a city’s water is not healthy, the city won’t be healthy.

Landscape Urbanism is a contradiction of terms. Humans destroy habitat. That’s what we do. We need to minimize our impacts on the environment and create a higher quality of life in our cities but I doubt anybody would propose turning NY, Chicago or SF back into the swamps, er, excuse me, wetlands, from which they came. In the purest of ecological pursuits, that’s what we’d do… That is not realistic, nor desirable, so what’s the objective? What’s the goal? How do we measure the health of our cities?

Water. If a cities water ways are healthy, there is a good chance the city is healthy. If the water ways are not capable of supporting life, it is doubtful the city is either… no matter how resilient it is…

Are you saying that The GSD is a fad or that the terminology coming out of the program is a fad? I’m fine with the term landscape urbanism. It’s all of the “soft”, wordy, dribble that loosely defines the term that I take issue with. It’s as good as saying nothing at all, which actually, might be better.

It seems that many of these buzz words are attempts to stay relevant. You see the same thing happen in consumer goods. Companies slightly tweak an aspect of a product (color, shape, material) and give it a flashy new name. The product is essentially the same.

Once you’ve been in an industry for a while, you catch on. I saw this phenomenon happen year after year in the bicycle industry. It seems that many of us in L.A. are hip to the idea that many of the terms we use are just rebranding. My thought or question is; How effective is this approach when applied to landscape architecture? Does it gain new “consumers” or are we hurting ourselves? In a profession that is supposed to embrace long-range thinking, is it in our best interest to be constantly reinventing the wheel? It seems to me, that we may actually be losing credibility and further fragmenting the profession by creating a new “image” for ourselves every few years.

What do you think the chances are, that we could develop a succinct mission statement or “jingle” that would represent and guide the profession? Something like, Landscape Architecture: Designing spaces for people and the planet. Landscape Architecture: The art and science of place. Landscape Architecture: It’s everywhere you look. Landscape Architecture: Step outside, into a new world.

OK, I’m starting to get pretty out there… but you get the idea. I could even see billboards created with these slogans, with great Land Arch images and ASLA contact info “Find your local Landscape Architect at ASLA.org or 1-800-Land-Arch… Why are we not seeing anything like this from the ASLA in major metropolitan areas?

and I have to add, how or why is landscape urbanism’ different that Landscape Architecture, as it has been practiced for 100 years, with some very gorgeous examples..How is it different than landscape architecture in any way, as Nick Aceto pointed out?

why do we need these words at all?

Fairly annoying – sort of like ‘meme’ – everything is a ‘meme”…Actually ‘meme’ is almost over..
Words for people who must talk.
McHarg learned landscape from his father taking him to a bluff in Scotland and saying nothing..

“What do you read, my lord?
Words, words, words..”
Hamlet

Better to study how to combat the Barry Lopez theory that ancient cultures treated the earth as “I – Thou”, while we are all “I – mine”..
How can we get back to “I – Thou”, in preceiving our place in the world..There is only “I-mine”, in human societies today..

lets use another overused phrase to describe it…jumped the shark. Yes, even “jumped the shark” has, well, jumped the shark.