Landscape Urbanism – ‘Terra Fluxus’

Landscape Urbanism describes a disciplinary shift currently underway in which landscape substitutes architecture as the foundations of contemporary urbanism. For many, landscape has develop into both the lens through which the contemporary city is symbolised and the method through which it is created.[1]

James Corner’s ‘Terra Fluxus’ advocates that it is necessary and that we should maintain a ‘paradoxical separateness’ of landscape from urbanism. As neither term is fully fused into the other.[2]

He substantiate this belief through empirical authentication and ethical sponsorship, by stating that the failure of earlier urban design and locally scaled schemes, Modernist tendencies, where oversimplified, a reduction of the unique prosperities of physical life. Corner suggests, it was a neglect of the intimacy and an understanding with the things that characterises ‘rich urban experience’.[3] Corner moral focus is on the experiential body and its relationship, not with, or to, but between an event based urban environment/atmosphere.

To achieve this closeness with the urban, Corner suggests that ‘a good designer’ must be capable of weaving the schema and the approach in relationship to the physical and the poetic. In other words, it is a part to whole relationship, where the coming together of landscape with urbanism assures innovative ‘relational’ and ‘systemic’ mechanism across varying territories. While at the same time, the split of landscape from urbanism acknowledges a level of material physicality, of ‘intimacy’ and ‘difference’, that is always intrinsic within the larger ‘matrix or field’.[4] Corner establishes a speculative dichotomy; to realise a rich urban experience, Landscape Urbanism is to be both union and separateness.

If Landscape Urbanist are to succeed in creating new ecologies in the urban environment, Corner reflects that they must not ignore the essential nature of ‘being and becoming’, of difference, both ‘permanent and transient’, between all ‘matters and events’ that occur in situated moments. As this is the ever-diversifying basis of human ‘enrichment and creativity.’[5]

Essential, this is at the core of satisfying the human condition, the sense of belonging-security, and becoming-stimulation, which bringing us to the cliché word of happiness, that which is good in life, establishing a moral imperative for landscape urbanism. It is this rationale of creative humane urban forms, places for people, that warrants long lasting sustainable effects for people, communities, and societies, to flourish. As Jane Jacobs states in the Death and Life of Great American Cities.

“Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon….Decaying cites, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental”.[6]

Emphasising the importance and influence that the urban and the landscape contribute to our psyche and way of life.

Further more, as theoretical tools for understanding the meaning and use of urban space, where the notions of being and the becoming is reflected in the works of: Deleuze and Guattari’s-smooth and striated space, Franks and Steven’s-loose space, and Kim Dovey’s Becoming Places, which all suggest that it is not one or the other but both, a sort of de-centralisation of things, which connects to Corner’s paradoxical separateness.

How then can this reflect on Dissertation two? What are the possibilities of ‘what if’? How can I utilise the Landscape Urbanist lens to propose propositions, which are not object focused in the sense of the physicality of wallness, the architectural lens? Propositions for becoming spaces.

References

Corner, J 2006, ‘Terra Fluxus’, in C Waldheim, (ed.), The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp 21-33

Deleuze, G 1993, The Fold, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Dovey, K 2010, Becoming Places: Urbanism/Architecture/Identity/Power, Routledge, London.

Franck, K and Stevens, Q 2007, Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London.

Jacobs, J 1961, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Modern Library, New York.

Waldheim, C (eds) 2006, The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York

Waldheim, C 2006, ‘The Landscape Urbanism’, in Waldheim, C (ed.), The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

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[1] Waldheim, C (eds) 2006, The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 11

[2] Corner, J 2006, ‘Terra Fluxus’, in C Waldheim, (ed.), The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 32.

[3] Corner, J 2006, ‘Terra Fluxus’, in C Waldheim, (ed.), The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 32.

[4] Corner, J 2006, ‘Terra Fluxus’, in C Waldheim, (ed.), The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 33

[5] Corner, J 2006, ‘Terra Fluxus’, in C Waldheim, (ed.), The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 33

[6] Jacobs, J 1961, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Modern Library, New York.

Thesis Direction review - How can spaces be becoming.

The present discourse is flawed as it is seen through an architectural lens. To be truly ethical we need to examine beyond the existing urbanism approach, particularly if we are bring the site [public spaces] up into the building which is one, architectural, way. What is the other way of doing it?

To further the notion of the present approach we are seeing the built form as an architectural object and the site [place] secondarily. This is an architectural reading of site. So we need to look at another way of reading the site and not to let the architecture dominate. To be truly generous and ethical we need to examine place which is not through the architectural lens. To seek alternate approaches of seeing place even if we do not physically adhere to it.

New urbanism is flaw for this very reason, it attempts to be a social reading but fails as it is seen through the architectural lens. A reinvestigation of traditional/nostalgic, ways of living that cannot be replicated in contemporary society with in a digital culture. Reflecting modernist tendency, a prescriptive model, which is imposed and does not allow for speculation and growth.

Consult Jen Smit as this is her Phd research concentration; urban design from a non architectural, cultural and site perspective.

Architecture is secondary, architecture is an event, a temporal activity. The event transcends the walls, the physical. Event presumes no containment, specific activity or temporal constraint.

Thus there is an opportunity to brake down the physicality of the architectural object, for instance: permeability of the physical wall floors ceiling/roof in terms of transparency and digital/technological capabilities. To further this notion the membrane is more important than wall or wallness, which has a more organic or human connotations than the archetypal wall. The membrane can then be operated over ground/planar levels.

Thesis Direction – [challenging the existing theories]

· We can now afford to be more exploratory in the thesis,

· Formulate personal philosophical/architectural speculation of Deleuze and Guattari’s distinctions [smooth and striated space] and Kim Dovey’s [becoming places]. Which are only theoretical tool to articulate the use and meaning of urban space.

· Research alternative ways of seeing space.

Production of Space - Henri Lefebvre,

Landscape Urbanism Reader – Charles Waldheim

· With the foundation of this framework we can now suggest and speculate notions of ‘becoming spaces, opportunity and potentiality of event spaces’ through alternative propositions via models [virtual and actual], diagrams, and scenarios of ‘what if’. In other words the ‘doing’ – Dissertation two, and Honours, articulation of the doing, ‘thinking’ and writing heaps....

Dissertation 1 Design Question

Design Question - ‘How can architectural space stimulate societal awareness and incite participation and appropriation’.

The subsequent theories and theorists have been identified to extrapolate this assertion.

Alexander’s (1965) prose: “A City is Not a Tree” illustrates how the liveliness of urban life can be killed by rigid, hierarchical, tree-like thinking, where the fluxes and dynamics of urban life are removed.1 As a tool for rethinking urban space the implication of Deleuze and Guattari’s distinction between “smooth” and “striated” space articulates a framework to further understand the use and meaning of urban space.

The formation of ‘smoothness’ focuses attention on the movements of use, on the areas between categories and on the relationship between ‘rhizomatic practices’ of everyday life and hierarchical schemes of spatial influence.3 The key Characteristic is instability: the uniqueness of place can be defined by its looseness, fluidity of forms, practices and meanings, 4. Dovey furthers the Deleuzian rhetoric in ‘Becoming Places’ through his articulation of place/power issues; linking phenomenology and spatial analysis.5

‘Loose space’ enables people, with ingenuity and purpose, to appropriate public space, to meet their own requirements and desires. Francks and Stevens suggest that these activities that make space loose; Impulsive or premeditated, temporary or long-lasting gives city life intensity and vitality.6

Appropriation of spaces is further contextualized through Innovation, which often arises in informal contexts, however, it is formal contexts that normally ensure long-lasting, sustainable effects. Given the research by Urban Catalyst where formal procedures of planning, and management are examined critically and an attempt has been made to de-formalise and de-institutionalise existing practices. Adapting them to more informal approaches opens new perspectives for participatory models giving citizens an influential role on how and by whom the city is used.7

This notion of flexible space is spatially analysed in Gehl’s ‘Life Between Buildings’, which draw conclusions in the human condition, the desire to interact with other people and the relationship, of not with but, between the person and the built environment.8

Through these theories I intend to enhance societal consciousnesses and consequential underpin the connectivity between people place and program.

1 Alexander, C 1965, The City Is Not a Tree, Architectural Forum, 122(1): 58-62

2 Deleuze, G 1993, The Fold, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

3 Dovey, K and Polakit, K 2007, ‘Urban Slippage: Smooth and Striated Streetscapes in Bangkok’, in Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London, pp.113.

4. Dovey, K and Polakit, K 2007, ‘Urban Slippage: Smooth and Striated Streetscapes in Bangkok’, in Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London, pp.117.

5. Dovey, K 2010, Becoming Places: Urbanism/Architecture/Identity/Power, Routledge, London, pp. 13

6. Franck, K and Stevens, Q 2007, Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London, pp.2.

7. Oswalt, P Misselwitz, P and Overmeyer, K 2007, ‘Patterns of the Unplanned: Urban catalyst’, in Loose Space: Possibilities and Diversity in Urban Life, Routledge, London, pp.28

8. Gehl, J 2001, Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.

Conceptualising Ethics and Becoming of Public Space

The following is an interview with Prof Steven Loo regarding Honours.

The notion of the good needs be dealt with in the forefront of the thesis. The question of the good is not just subjective idea that needs to be transparent up front. There is a philosophical conundrum of what is good.

The question of 'what is good public space'? This question of the good comes up also as being in contention, and that in many way the methodology by undertaking this research, would also define how the good is conceptualised. This is an ethical position.

The notion of good, and the many others that have described it, is a 'moral imperative'. There is a prejudgement of pre-qualifier of what is good and what is bad. Good in the literal sense that lots of people use it, therefore it is good, spaces that have multiple activities in it that enriches, and generates and economical income, then it is good. Moral conditions are based on pre conditions of judgement, this is a Kantian issue.

What work from Deleuze and Ettel do is that it comes up with another conceptualisation of ethics which does not full rely on precondition/prejudgement of what good is, but good relies upon a continuing becoming, which is the continuing of becoming of making place.

Place is not static, it is always a temporal duration aspect to place and that if the process of the place ‘becoming’ that perhaps give qualifications of what that good is. Then we do not have to define what good is, but we have to define that there is a kind of ongoing 'immanent motility of movement in that space'.

That then allows you to look at a particular urban condition, like the threshold, like a type of public space. Rather than imposing a moral imperative of the good, that is predefined and prejudged that we need criteria for qualification. We can then look at the ethics of that particular space that does not rely on that, but relies on the fact of a different type of aesthetic and an aesthetic that comes out from being immersed in a space that is continually becoming. Or the space of becoming is imbricated in the becoming of the public citizen of that space.

If motility, movement and durationality is important to place as a concept of it taking place that there is no know pre-shape of place, but what ever comes of that place is the thing that has that ethical position. Jeff Malpas will argue that it allow human beings to be, and to be in space and possibilities of life. Then those spaces can be considered as having an ethically imperative. There is no judgement where it is good or bad, but it is ethical.

So, if we then put that in relation to sustainability, which always has pre- qualifications, it needs to be then what determines sustainability as a concept with in this other model of ethics.

Dealing with a pure idea of becoming of place. Public and private notion of space are stable conditions of the human psyche. We can not say that space are not full stable or unstable, but it needs the meta stability, which is very important in Deleuzian philosophy, it is not completely de-territorialised, it is metastable that has the constant possibility of re-territorialisation, re-abstraction. It is a circular structure and there is no end.

The methodology needs to be qualified up front. From a Deleuzian perspective, as there seems to be a problem with defining space in this particular way, and that some how we need to come to terms with space …. Quote Dovey etc. It seems like that the space in a public space is always spacing, it is a verb not a noun, and if that is so we can not ask that particular question that is always asked ‘what is good public space’. You can say ‘how is public space good’, meaning where is the ethics of public space. How does an ethics get conceptualised in public space? Because it is an understanding that public space that is always becoming, it is always taking place so that human beings can take place in tandem with them,

We have to get over the hung up that we have to put space first, because that is where the answers are. Spatiality, in terms of bounded space by urban material, architectural material is one conception of spatiality with in public space. The concept of space and the spacing of human beings is one concept of space does not just occur in physical space. If we examine the thresholds and lines of desire are not completely concrete in the spatial sense. These could be environmental, economic, cultural and social…transportational spaces that are rhizomic with in that crisscross, these are real spaces that crisscross that public concrete spaces, and these rhizomic patterns need to mapped, to understand the transition that occur, that continuously shape that concrete public space.

Look at the crisscross line of desires of force as say, the way in which that space is taken place is because of these slightly indeterminate conjunction of these desire lines, and if we read it with that particular lens you get the power of the particular space, you read that history of that space, and the different combination of that positionality of that public space. Those two things, one is not better than the other. They are just different and they some how follow in sequence, and some times they do not. Planning regimes come in height restrictions, blocking of the sun are part of an understanding of that space. It is that mapping and diagramming of a space, that Dovey does.

How then do you then take that and say - This is a demonstration of taking place of a particular type of place, and with in that would be the kind of possibilities for the public to engage with and therefore express a kind of existence or evoke a kind of existence.

Meaning – it’s the possibility of allowing an alternative set of conditions or possibilities of life for the human to emerge from that condition.

For example if a business man is confronted with graffiti that then leads to a desire line which shoots out from that, that connects the economic structure of the city.

It is ok to look at the city, but we need talk about the city.

For Instance, QV, city and history, what traces of affect that still crisscross that site. The traces of the hospital; Kirsten Thompson was the only one amongst the other architects [the big boys in town] that gave a particular contextual reverence to place making, the whole ideation about messaging, that semiotics, would have for the rest of city of Melbourne.

Further more [Place making by David Colb] how to be a neo traditionalist in a non traditionalists places. What else can we rehabilitate from the traditional that is positive, as opposed to something that restricts our thinking, our practice of life?

Thus, the thesis structure examines the conventional structures/methodologies of ethics, ‘good urban space/place making’ in contrast to theoretical impetus of ‘becoming places’. Which highlights the conundrum. We can not marry the two together, (ethics of preconditions of good urban space and Deleuzian ideation of becoming), as they do not appear to be on the same epistemological platform of structures of knowledge patterns. Therefore, the condition of the good needs to be scrutinised before proceeding. The thesis Discussion [Results and Overview of the Findings] can then analysis how we can make use of conceptualising in this way, and what the public good is, by utilising this particular ethical structure.

Act of Entry - Kevin Low

Kevin Low

Act of entrance is a spatial event, a threshold, moving from one condition to another (smooth loose supple space) every point and sub-condition. Every threshold, point, and sub-condition has tangible architectural elements, ie how much light, accessibility, what do you feel, (affect and effect notions), right down to the detail (macro to micro). It is the narrative which informs the act of the entrance?

Steven Loo

It is a interesting exercise where the idea of microcosm relating to the Macrocosm of the design. That is not to say that there is not a possibility of a complete representation of the whole macro idea of the design in the detail. But the detail of the microcosm should be able to narrate, to be a kind of narrative of what the design research question is. In the design there is a series of thresholds that one.

Kevin Low

Ceridwen had an interesting point that a lot of designs happen as a Top down approach you have a form, and you start to refining it. But some of the better work that I’ve seen is a dialogue. The design happens as a Vibration between the concept and the detail at all levels. The deep one goes down the rabbit hole the deep the ideas, the more profound and interesting your ideas will

The entry/entrance/threshold is the divide between the inside and outside or the object and the void, from one condition to another, or sub-condition.

Macrocosm and microcosm is a Neo-Platonic schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level). "Macro-" and μικρο- "Micro-", which are Greek respectively for "large" and "small", and the word κόσμος kósmos which means "order" as well as "world" or "ordered world."

Reference

Kevin Low web site http://www.small-projects.com/index.html

Republic, Plato, trans. By B. Jowett M.A., Vintage Books, NY. 435, pg 151

Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy, G. P. Conger, NY, 1922, which includes a survey of critical discussions up to 1922.

Places are Assemblages - Kim Dovey

ArchiForum Tuesday 27 July

Kim Dovey is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne. He has published widely on social issues in architecture, urban design and planning. Books include ‘Framing Places’ (Routledge, 2008), ‘Fluid City’ (UNSW Press 2005) and ‘Becoming Places’ (Routledge 2009). He is engaged on research projects on transit-oriented development, creative cities and informal settlements.

Places are Assemblages
This lecture sketches a theory of ‘place’ as a dynamic ‘assemblage’ of desires, territories, senses and intensities. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, assemblage theory holds potential to incorporate phenomenological, materialist and post-structuralist approaches; resisting any reduction of place to essence, subjectivity, objectivity or discourse. The prospect is to replace the Heideggerian ontology of being-in-the-world with a more Deleuzian notion of becoming-in-the-world. This implies a break with static, fixed, closed and dangerously essentialist notions of place, but preserves a provisional ontology of place-as-becoming.

Professor Kim Dovey
Kim Dovey is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne. He has published widely on social issues in architecture and urban design.

Image source: http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/researcher/person13169.html

The Flaneur

Image source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3149/3112057786_d1b12f855b_b.jpg

Baudelaire’s Paris was a city of narrow streets, labyrinthine alleys, squares, parks, cafes, windows. Thresholds, and tantalizing glimpses. This was the city of the flaneur - the leisured stroller among the crowds, who inspects the curiosities of the emerging modern metropolis with a cool and ironic eye. Unlike shoppers, commuters, and tourists with guidebooks, the flaneur did not have a definite goal, a discursive walk per se: he was driven by whim and momentary curiosity , and he was always open to diversion. The inner life of a changing city was revealed to him - so he hoped, at least-through chance encounters and unexpected details.

Extract taken from William J Mitchell, "Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City" MIT Press, London, p 155.