Landscape urbanism has come to stand as an alternative within the broad base of urban design historically defined. Incorporating continuity with the aspirations of an ecologically informed planning practice, landscape urbanism has been equally informed by high design culture, contemporary modes of urban development, and the complexity of public-private partnerships. While it may be true, as has been recently argued, that the urban form proposed by landscape urbanism has not yet fully formed, it would be equally fair to say that landscape urbanism remains the most promising alternative available to urban design’s formation for the coming decades. This is in no small part due to the fact that landscape urbanism offers a culturally leavened, ecologically literate, and economically viable model for contemporary urbanization as an alternative to urban design’s ongoing nostalgia for traditional urban forms. Evidence of this is found in the number of internationally prominent landscape architects who have been retained as lead designers of large-scale urban development proposals in which landscape offers ecological function, cultural authority, and brand identity.
Further evidence is found in the fact that many promising young urbanists have explicitly embraced a landscape urbanist agenda. This increasingly global recognition reveals landscape urbanism’s impact on a generation of professionals shaped by the tenets of an adjectivally modified urbanism, be it landscape urbanism, ecological urbanism, or whatever supersedes those two. Read more:
http://landscapeurbanism.com/article/topos-landscape-urbanism/
Interesting enough, I find that "landscape urbanism" is something that most young adults are or want to be a part of. However, they may not understand what it is. Anymore, as young adults are realizing the world and its environment is changing, they feel they can stand out from the rest by joining this new fad, and be a part of the "cultural authority". My only hope is that we can exponentially increase the awareness of the landscape urbanism movement and make it very conventional in our dialogue so people of all ages can promote it.
ReplyDeleteThe challenge for landscape urbanism remains its permanence within the shifting land use patterns. More often landscapes are considered soft uses which succumb to redevelopment pressures. How can we build an ecological resilience when parts or limbs are severed before they can become ecologically complex? Ecological function increases over time. Look at the loss of great works of recent landscape architects such as Paul Freiberg, and Dan Kiley. If these important works of art can be eliminated from of urban landscape their public value is little recognized. How do we expect to build on an ecological urban context when the primary function of these spaces is parking lots for future architectural monuments for corporate utility?
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