Representations of Space

Space is not an inert, neutral, and pre-existing given, but rather, an on-going production of spatial relations.

This concept, written as such in various publications and attributed to Henri Lefebvre, serves as a foundation for the analysis of the representation of space in urban design.  To define space as a relationship rather than a fixed area in time and space changes the way we may look at representations of conceived space.

 

Though this concept does not provide parameters for what urban design projects may look like, it does help to define the ultimate goal for such projects.  Representations of space are not merely pretty pictures drawn to attract support for a given project, but good representations tell a story that is much larger than a physical setting.

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Example 1:

Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon, had a long and interesting history throughout its transformations.  Situated in the downtown retail core of the city, the space that came to be known as “Portland’s living room,” was a result of active urban planning intervention to “fulfill cultural, recreational, open space and shelter needs for downtown populations” (Gragg, 2014).  To accomplish this, the Portland Development Commission held a competition in 1980, which was won by a team led by Will Martin.  His ideological framework was thus:

Let the space be ambiguous, fragmented and eternally changing, rich in local symbols and metaphor reflecting Portland’s history as well as bring meaning to citzens of all categories.  We hope to bring together many different meanings to be enjoyed and understood by varying tastes. . .hoping to stimulate discourse between different and often opposed taste groupings with meanings that add up and work together in the deepest combination.  (Will Martin diary, 1980, from Gragg, 2014)

https://aaa.uoregon.edu/100stories/alumni/willard-k-martin

(Gragg, 2014)

 The above drawings are from Martin’s diary with notes discussing his thoughts and process.  While these were personal references, I was attracted to the hand-drawn representations for the warmth and intimate feeling they emanate.  It brings visual storytelling back to its original form and its power cannot be overlooked.  While technology has enabled us to create lifelike representations of our concepts, the hand-drawn image provides meaning that is instantly relatable.

(Gragg, 2014)

This last image shows Martin’s design as he painted it upon the 40,000 square foot parking lot to further solidify public support—a rather creative and ingenious representation of the soon-to-be space.

Example 2:

The following is a block study by urban designer Jacob Dibble for a central neighborhood in Glasgow, Scotland, where a major motorway acted as a division through the community.  This was an academic project with the goal of reconnecting and reintegrating the urban form while keeping true to the historical urban fabric.

http://www.jacobdibble.com/?p=777

The first assessment compares block structure from the past, present and the proposed future.  The next diagram shows the structure form at present and for the proposed future.  The last diagram represents block size, comparing present and proposed block size as well as block size of a bordering neighborhood that functions well.

Together these representations serve to analyze the existing structure of the neighborhood while presenting a proposed solution.  The first two diagrams are easily understood and effective.  Without knowing the neighborhood, one can understand its past and present.  The diagram for the future correlates with the area’s history visually while adding modernity.  The third diagram was conceived mathematically and though visually appealing and indicative of much information, it is hard to understand on initial and second studies.  Dibble’s goal was to highlight the changes the proposed project would induce in the urban tissue.

Example 3:

The last example drew me in by the beauty of its images.  A graduate project by Shelley Long at the University of Toronto, her aim is to reimagine the national park system of Canada by way of the Trans-Canada Highway to include the human experience.  Her framework for analysis is Lefebvre’s “The Production of Space,” applied as follows:

The conceived space of designers delineates what is a city, park, or significant landform; the perceived space of imagination contains perceptions of pristine wilderness or idyllic agricultural settings; and the lived or experienced space of users operates at the scale and speed of the highway. These spaces are drawn respectively as layers of measured line drawings, postcards, and aerial/experiential imagery (Long, n.d.).

http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/wilderness-and-exodus-the-production-of-a-national-landscape/#.WA-wR4WcGUn

The representations take the viewer through the historical, natural, and human lived experience of the land.  The concept begins with a broad picture, continues with conceptual background, narrows down to specific sites for design, then returns to the larger area as a reinvented scheme.  The sheer scale of her design is further supported by the spaces left empty on the design sheets.  Conversely, the included snapshots of postcards work to bring the philosophical concept to a generally comprehensible scale.

It is unfortunate that the webpage format does not allow for full understanding because the images are undersized.  With that consideration, and perhaps regardless, the accompanying text (see site link) is necessary.  With a plan based on more abstract thinking, representations supported by description are crucial.

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These three examples demonstrate different aspects and methods of visual storytelling.  My goal was to explore a broad scope of samplings rather than comparable cases.  The commonality exists in that all exhibit space as a relationship: a historic, situated, pragmatic, evolving concept.  They identify transformations of the past and/or recognize that there are changes yet to come.  As differing as the above examples are, aspects of each help to paint a picture: from age-old pen and paper to scientific digital applications to representational modeling of the land and its metamorphosis.  Each conception creates understanding of a complex system of relationships—which is ultimately the goal of all representations of space in urban design.

If space is a product, our knowledge of it must be expected to reproduce and expound the process of production.  The ‘object’ of interest must be expected to shift from things in space to the actual production of space. . .Thus production process and product present themselves as two inseparable aspects, not as two separable ideas (Lefebvre, 1991).

"Block Study - Jacob Dibble Urban Design." Jacob Dibble Urban Design Block Study Comments. N.p., 2016. http://www.jacobdibble.com/?p=777  Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

Gragg, Randy, and Audrey Alverson. Pioneering the Square. Portland, OR: Portland Spaces, 2014. PDF.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford, OX, UK: Blackwell, 1991. Print.

Long, Shelley. "Wilderness and Exodus: The Production of a National Landscape." World Landscape Architect. N.p., n.d. http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/wilderness-and-exodus-the-production-of-a-national-landscape/#.WA-wR4WcGUn Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

"School of Architecture and Allied Arts." Willard K. Martin. N.p., n.d. https://aaa.uoregon.edu/100stories/alumni/willard-k-martin Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

Design, Nature and Influence: Ian McHarg

Ian McHarg

In the introduction to Design with Nature, a book Ian McHarg self-described as his “most powerful identification” (McHarg, 1996, p. 206), Lewis Mumford succinctly sums up the philosophy of his friend and colleague:  “. . . McHarg’s emphasis is not on either design or nature by itself, but upon the preposition with, which implies human cooperation and biological partnership.” (McHarg, 1969, p. viii)

Ian McHarg was not a typical landscape architect, especially for his time.  He was an animated interdisciplinary thinker who was unconcerned about who he might offend.  His way of thinking was guided by a deeply felt connection to nature and an explicit mistrust in human motivations. 

Our failure is that of the Western World and lies in prevailing values.  Show me a man-oriented society in which it is believed that reality exists only because man can perceive it, that the cosmos is a structure erected to support man on its pinnacle, that man exclusively is divine and given dominion over all things, indeed that God is made in the image of man, and I will predict the nature of its cities and their landscapes.  I need not look far for we have seen them—the hot-dog stands, the neon shill, the ticky-tacky houses, dysgenic city and mined landscapes.  This is the image of the anthropomorphic, anthropocentric man; he seeks not unity with nature but conquest.  Yet unity he finally finds, but only when his arrogance and ignorance are stilled and he lies dead under the greensward.  We need this unity to survive (McHarg, 1969, p. 24).

Born in 1920 in Clydebank, Scotland, outside of the industrial city of Glasgow, McHarg grew up viewing the city during the depression era.  Though he describes his home of 18 years as one of “no distinction whatsoever” (McHarg, 1996, p. 14), he emphasizes the distinctive landscape: one which lies on the threshold between town and country.  The years of discovering the beauty of nature juxtaposed with the grimness of the city would influence the rest of his life, and consequently the design profession.

McHarg voluntarily joined the British Army in 1938 and after a distinguished 7-year career as a paratrooper in World War II, the resulting self-confident Major invited Harvard to admit him into the graduate program for Landscape Architecture—an invitation which was accepted.

Obtaining degrees in landscape architecture and city planning after 4 years at Harvard, McHarg returned to Scotland, but was drawn back to the United States in another 4 years.  It was at this time, in 1954, that he accepted a position as founder and chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts.  Besides architects, landscape architects and city planners, the faculty McHarg brought into his department included a geologist, an ethnographer, an anthropologist, a medical anthropologist, a geochemist, a hydrologist, a soil scientist, a plant ecologist, a limnologist and a resource economist (Holden, 1977, pp. 379-380).  In addition to teaching, he also founded a private firm later known as Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd (WMRT) which designed projects in both the United States and internationally.

WMRT plan for the Valleys (Greenspring & Worthington Valleys, MD), 1964, 

http://www.wrtdesign.com/projects/detail/plan-for-the-valleys/316

WMRT plan for the Woodlands, TX, located about 28 miles North of Houston.  McHarg was sought out for this project to protect the hydrological system and the woodlands, 1970, http://ladprofile.weebly.com/ian-mcharg-1920-2001.html

It is his book, Design with Nature, that brought him to the forefront of his profession and best describes for what he aspires.  His ecological based planning methods applied to design by superimposing layers of geographical data to reveal relationships which become apparent at spatial intersections to determine suitability for development.  His theories were based on the idea “that nature is a single interacting system and that changes to any part will affect the operation of the whole” (McHarg, 1969, p. 56).  Applying these methods, one can determine that “the lands that best preform work for man in a natural condition will not be those that are most suitable for urbanization. . . . (I)f one selects eight natural features, and ranks them in order of value to the operation of natural process, then that group reversed will constitute a gross order of suitability for urbanization.  These are: surface water, floodplains, marshes, aquifer recharge areas, aquifers, steep slopes, forests and woodlands, unforested land” (McHarg, 1969, p. 154).  While overlaid maps had been used by designers and planners before McHarg, he was the first to use ecology as the organizing structure.  Accordingly, McHarg’s planning methodology is credited with creating the intellectual framework for GIS technology and application (Steiner, 2008, p. 147).

© Ian McHarg, 1969, pp. 105-111.  Staten Island study

Till his death in 2001, McHarg pushed to increase the base of knowledge from which landscape architecture and urban planning drew.  He deplored design for design sake and the transformation of natural systems into artificial systems due to careless urbanization.  In part due to the innovative ideas of McHarg, the concept of designing with nature is no longer new; this is why Ian McHarg is among the most influential urban design thinkers.

“We are of nature, we live in nature.  The appropriate response is to understand its ways and behave accordingly” (McHarg, 1996, p.6).  

Holden, C. (1977). Ian McHarg: Champion for Design with Nature. Science, 195(4276), 379-382. Retrieved October 04, 2016, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1743286.

McHarg, I. L. (1969). Design with nature. Garden City, NY: Published for the American Museum of Natural History the Natural History Press.

McHarg, I. L. (1996). A quest for life: An autobiography. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Steiner, F. R. (2008). The Ghost of Ian McHarg. Log, 13(14), 147-151. Retrieved October 04, 2016, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41765241.

Visions of Place

Palm Desert, Google Earth, 2016

I once spent a few days in what could be considered my personal Hell.  Leaving from Los Angeles, another level of Hell, I drove over the dry and vacant San Jacinto Mountains on Highway 74.  Upon cresting the mountain and winding down the steep hill, a lush artificial landscape comes into view that spills across the Coachella Valley.  There is no visible center of activity, just a myriad of tightly packed houses designed around countless golf courses, each with their own wall to either keep the insiders in or the outsiders out or maybe both.  Welcome to Palm Desert.

This city did not arise haphazardly; it was carefully designed and developed, one vision of Utopia.  It provides security, entertainment, privacy and community—at least I imagine that’s the thought.  It is also an ecological disaster, a mind-numbing bore, and a Placeless escape for rich retirees who live elsewhere.  Neither sustainable nor useful in the sense of societal gains, Palm Desert is an example of why Utopian visions are not ideal models. 

But what is?

At one time we thought it was the suburbs, a less extreme and arguably more functional form than the Palm Desert example.  As our automobile society developed and our cities deteriorated, families flocked beyond city edges.  Greater city areas sprawled across acres and miles, each person getting their own patch of lawn, paved driveway and three bedroom two bath house to maintain.  Never mind the commute to work, the drive to the grocery store, the additional time to take the kids to daycare and school—not to mention our disappearing rural landscape.  While the suburbs did provide each family with space, the tradeoff was often in the loss of Place.

Innovatively explored by Edward Relph in Place and Placelessness (1976), this concept has come to be a driving factor in designing areas that promote connection to people, community and place.  Simple in concept but complicated in implementation, theories of creating Place abound.

One common feature amongst theories to effect successful design in regard to Place is through participatory efforts.  Design that involves the communities which it affects not only empowers the community but results in outcomes that are reflective of the specific, unique area.  Two designers come to mind:  Randolph T. Hester and Randall Arendt. 

©Rudolph Hester: Map of Sacred Places

In Design for Ecological Democracy (2006), Hester employs a myriad of different concepts to reach a model for design.  He explores ideas of sacredness, diversity, adaptability, naturalness, stewardship, status seeking, among others, in a participatory involved way.  “The ability to judge what is true, right, or the best course of action for one’s community is a rare talent.  Wisdom comes with experience, dwelling in a place over a long time, being especially attuned to and able to empathize with people and landscape, suffering, and having the capacity to separate the nonsense from visionary insight” (p. 338).

©Randall Arendt: Traditional v Conservation Subdivision

Arendt follows a very democratic process to change policy and affect economic outcomes of changes in design.  In his book, Rural by Design (1994), Arendt describes the process by which communities can preserve their character and open space by reconfiguring density, all while increasing economic potential for developers.  Again, the interaction with the affected community ensures a unified vision for the future, and accounts for the unique sense of Place.  This speaks not only to the phenomenological side of design, but also gains approval through a more top-down involvement. 

So what does this all have to do with the city and Urban Design?  Rural character, sprawl, retreats from the urban—these are all affected by what is done in the city, by design that enables or alienates.  The theories that apply outside the city are relevant within the city and vice versa.  Though no formula can exist due to the incredible uniqueness of each community, we can draw from examples that work and take lessons from those that do not.  The form the city and its surrounds take will influence our future.  Regardless of the approach we take, whether we follow a New Urbanist model to rein in sprawl or perhaps look to condition society through smart design to accept increasing densities within the city core, it is imperative that we employ intelligent, intentional, and conscious design.

“Form matters to ecological democracy.  City form influences our daily lives.  City form concretizes our values and reflects them back to us.  City form can make us a more resilient society and more fulfilled individuals.” (Hester, 2006, p. 7)

Arendt, R., Brabec, E. A., Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Environmental Law Foundation (Montpelier, Vt.), & University of Massachusetts at Amherst. (1994). Rural by design: Maintaining small town character. Chicago, Ill: Planners Press, American Planning Association.

Hester, R. T. (2006). Design for ecological democracy. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Relph, E. C. (1976). Place and placelessness. London: Pion.

Considering My Place to Create Place

http://www.urbandynamics.co.za/urban-design.html

Working through the concepts presented on Urban Design, I can’t help but relate all that I read to my studies in Landscape Architecture.  What is it that defines Urban Design as a separate study from that of Landscape Architecture? 

I imagine that many of you were doing the same from your own perspectives and fields of study.  As designers, we are all asked to take in the broader picture: to not only consider aesthetics and flow, function and form, but to incorporate those things into the fabric of what is there.  That includes being intimately knowledgeable about the social connections, historical background, natural processes and the local perceptions surrounding all of these things to define a particular place.  These ideas are not new to us, but perhaps the separation of the Urban Design field is.

I think there is a tendency amongst designers/creators/builders to believe we can proficiently accomplish the skills of one another.  Part of this assumption may arise from the fact that those who create, as a necessity, must have a high level of confidence and assuredness to present their ideas as the best possible solution.  The other aspect of this pompous inclination is the natural overlapping of our skills and professions.  As we read, Urban Design falls at the intersection of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Planning and Engineering. 

Urban Design did not just arise as a profession to exclude the layman like, say, realtors or lawyers.  (No offense to any of you who may practice or know people who practice—I’m kidding, mostly.)  It arose in response to conditions that were not being addressed during a time of rapid development.  Landscape Architecture was concerned with greenspaces, Architecture with buildings, Planning with economic and social efficiency, and Engineering with, you know, that technical stuff. 

The work of Jane Jacobs, both written and in the public realm, cannot be understated about its influence in bringing up the issues that provide the basis for Urban Design.  Succinctly stated by Robert A.M. Stern in Ric Burns’ PBS documentary Jane Jacobs vs. Robert Moses: Urban Fight of the Century, “. . .she went through the litany of what Le Corbusier and other ideologues had imagined what a city should be as opposed to what a city really was” (emphasis added).  He went on to say, “. . . it returned discussion of what urbanism should be about. . . from big land games to individuals, shops, streets, cars, crosswalks, networks of people, people rich and poor living more closely together, less concerned with the elevator to the 35^th floor and more concerned with the life of the 5-storey walk-up.”

Today, these ideas of Urban Design have gained validity and acceptance, if not significantly applied.  In our training as designers, we know we need look past just the aesthetic.  As a Landscape Architect, I can work at both small and large scales, from a back yard to the layout of a neighborhood or larger.  I will admit, though, that the buildings in my plans remain colored blocks.  Similarly in an Architect’s plan, the landscape may be green and indicate trees, but the details will be lacking.  The Planner develops the zones and lots; the Engineer makes sure it is all structurally sound.  And the Urban Designer marries it all, along with the people encompassed within the plan and those that enact it.

Urban Design is not a separate field just as the streets cannot be separated from the people who use them and the landscape cannot exist without the natural processes that maintain it.  Urban Design is part of the fabric that makes up all of our design professions, an interwoven element inseparable from the larger tapestry of our cities and towns.