2012 ‘ Green Dream’ for Chinese Landscape Architecture 2012 中国风景园林‘绿之梦“
The CCTV Spring Festival Night Gathering is the most well-known program in China, and I was very glad to see this wonderful view during the whole program. This stage has been decorated by a number of green elements which related Landscape architecture profession visually: Green Roofs, Green Walls and various Green Spaces. Although I am not keen on modern music and can not understand the female singer’s song, this green stage makes me excited.
Some Problems caused by ’not Green’.
The below picture is a map of a Chinese great city-Tianjin ( Central Area). It is well planned and designed but it does not look as nice as the photo above at all. Why? Thousands of times, when someone has asked me to find my hometown from googlemap I could feel embarrassed at once, One of the reason is that IT IS NOT GREEN ENOUGH. Before the urban planning decision were made, green space planning had not been given enough thought. 
‘I just ‘green it’!
In 2009, I was asked to give a plan for a university in Guangdong Province, China. The president of the University drove me around their campus and told me that as they spent most of the money on architectures design and build, so far, all the landscape design idea all comes from him for free. His main idea is : ‘just green it!’ This amused me but I admire his idea. Comparing the two illustrations above, shows he was actually right.
I agree and, thinking about the blog post below, I could say that China has been building iCities instead of cCities (=Chinese cities).
Also, I agree with your solution: landscape planning should take place BEFORE urban planning (“open space first in city planning”). This seems to be what happened in ancient China. Feng shui was a way of inter-relating man and landscape. It was a great idea. It should have been followed in the twentieth century. It should be followed in the twenty-first century – though it also needs to be re-interpreted for the circumstances of the present. Cities are not consumer ‘products’, like iPhones, which can be produced in the same way for every market. So, apart from the Feng Shui principle, what can be learned from ancient Chinese cities about the planning of new Chinese cities? What would a cCity look like? How would its public open spaces be planned?
Sorry to say this, but the Googlemap of Tianjin makes it look as though it had just suffered a B52 bombing raid! Was it taken on a ‘bad air day’, or does the city have an air pollution problem? [the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer had Buffy saying"I'm fine but you're obviously having a bad hair day."]
Comment by Tom Turner — January 29, 2012 @ 6:55 am
Your comments about B52 make me amused. Yes, the air pollution is there, but but but, it is said to be a very important business opportunities for the UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ56phGoP7s
And it is extremely beautiful in the night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0z6XVsJtQ0&feature=related
Whether it is sustainable in the future, hehe, nobody knows, that is almost a new city. The easy way to plan the POS will be. ‘Soft’ the riverside, natural, natural and natural. Then, rebuild the Haihe River and Jinwan Square into ‘ Parks’ with facilities, food… then make it busy. Also, move Tianjin Eye to the central of Tianjin.
Comment by Jerry — January 31, 2012 @ 10:52 pm
Your comments about B52 makes me amused. Yes, the air pollution is there, but but but, it is said to be a very important business opportunities for the UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ56phGoP7s
And it is extremely beautiful in the night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0z6XVsJtQ0&feature=related
Whether it is sustainable in the future, hehe, nobody knows, that is almost a new city. The easy way to plan the POS will be. ‘Soft’ the riverside, natural, natural and natural. Then, rebuild the Haihe River and Jinwan Square into ‘ Parks’ with facilities, food… then make it busy. Also, move Tianjin Eye to the central of Tianjin.
Comment by Jerry — February 2, 2012 @ 11:10 am
There is a Cinderella quality to Chinese history over the last 24 years. The progress from ‘rags to riches’ has been so fast that one wonders if it is real and if, when the clock striked midnight, something dramatic will happen. Of course it won’t, but one still wonders!
Comment by Tom Turner — February 3, 2012 @ 3:11 pm
Sorry to hear that Cinderella story has been misunderstood. it is not the progress from ‘rags to riches’. the aim of the story is to say that virtuous people will have good result in later life.So it is a fairy tale which teaches people to be kind.
Comment by Jerry — February 3, 2012 @ 7:26 pm
Wiki has a Chinese version of the Cinderella story:
‘Another version of the story, Ye Xian, appeared in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang by Tuan Ch’eng-Shih around 860. Here, the hardworking and lovely girl befriends a fish, the reincarnation of her mother, who was killed by her stepmother. Ye Xian saves the bones, which are magic, and they help her dress appropriately for a festival. When she loses her slipper after a fast exit, the king finds her slipper and falls in love with her (eventually rescuing her from her cruel stepmother).’
An optimist could see northern nomads as the wicked stepmother of Chinese history and Cinderella as the true spirit of Chinese culture.
Comment by Tom Turner — February 4, 2012 @ 6:05 am
In the 21 century, perhaps, the old fairy tales could be rewrite. After a while, Cinderella found that the king actually also does the same thing to other girls and has had lots other ladies in life. Also, he can go on making more girlfriends online, because IT is developed very much these days. Then, Cinderella realizes that she has been fooled by him.
Comment by Jerry — February 4, 2012 @ 7:12 pm
Oh gosh. Maybe my post on Red Cliff will help here – it is about the invasion of the southern kingdoms during the 2nd century AD by the north – supposedly endly the Han dynasty. Its difficult to be Western and to try and communicate how highly you think of Eastern things while in the East they are copying the West! (Perhaps there is too much mutual admiration going on?)
Comment by Christine — February 7, 2012 @ 5:01 am
Thank you – I will look out for the Red Cliff. Have you seen the 1970s Water Margin TV series? – I liked it then and I like it now. The best parts are the comments from the Ancient Sages eg ‘If you fight evil with evil, then evil wins’.
Comment by Tom Turner — February 7, 2012 @ 6:55 pm
I haven’t seen 1970s Water Margin TV series. It doesn’t seem as if the production values in this version (and therefore the aesthetics and drama) are as good as Red Cliff. [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZgqlolNRCY ] Hmmm, maybe the 2011 version is the one to watch?
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jv5twB3dmQ&feature=related ]
Yes there are very many wise sayings by the Ancient Sages from the hundred schools of thought period. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Schools_of_Thought ]
Comment by Christine — February 8, 2012 @ 4:45 am
The production values of the Water Margin were low by current standards but the Ancient Sages made up for everything and cast the modern films into the shade: ‘The way to glory is through the palace, to riches is through the market places, but to virtue is through the desert’. ‘He who walks with virtue walks without fear’. ‘He who knows he has enough is rich’. ‘Yield to overcome’. ‘Bend to become straight’. ‘Have little and gain’. ‘Have much and you will only be confused’. ‘Therefore fully wise men embrace the Dao and all may take example from them’. ‘Be really whole and all things must come to you’. The idea about becoming whole will make urban designers think of Christopher Alexander.
Comment by Tom Turner — February 8, 2012 @ 6:32 am
Are you thinking of Christopher Alexander’s ‘A City is not a Tree?’ and his classic statement:
“When people are faced with complex organization, they reorganize natural overlap into non-overlapping units.”
Comment by Christine — February 9, 2012 @ 4:46 am
More of his current series on The Nature of Order, though I only have a skimmers acquaintance with the books.
Comment by Tom Turner — February 9, 2012 @ 10:24 am
Thankyou. There is an interesting skimmers guide on this blog. [ http://blog.rvburke.com/2006/09/22/christopher-alexander-on-architecture-and-science/ ] It would be interesting to try out Christopher Alexander’s list by way of experimenting.
The comment about the increasing value of science in architecture needs to be treated with caution: since modernism architecture has felt the claims of science very strongly, such that the idea that architecture is an art has been backgrounded. If architecture is going to deal with the science, it needs to do so as an art. Going back to Alexander perhaps art and science in architecture and landscape are one of those instances of natural overlap?
Comment by Christine — February 11, 2012 @ 4:36 am
The boundaries between pure science, applied science, pure technology and applied technology are all FUZZY. And the location of architecture, and landscape architecture, on the continium is variable. Many of Alexander’s ideas are social science and inherently testable. For example, his idea on the comparative merits of ‘positive space’ and ‘negative space’could easily be tested. Here are some interesting applications of the ideas to garden design. They are not experimental tests but they are pointing in that direction!
Comment by Tom Turner — February 11, 2012 @ 6:07 am
Glenn Murcutt is the master of the object in the landscape rather than the object within a garden space.[ http://www.butterpaper.com/assets/images/glenn_murcutt_marika.jpg ] The example shown is the Marika Alderton House.
It is interesting because the design relies on minimal ideas of enclosure both as an object and as an object within space.
Urban examples however are usually highly bounded with architects often taking the site boundaries as the limits rather than the physical conditions which exist as differing boundary conditions and even as landscape architecture offers as linked objects within spaces with fuzzy boundaries.
Strangely enough it was difficult to find a really good illustration of the concept…this one is actually peri-urban and more a ruin…but has good object/space relationships! (It is in China somewhere – Lawrence would love to have this project to work on – perhaps to transform into a boutique hotel!) [ http://farm1.static.flickr.com/192/478180544_7673e9a06e.jpg ] and [ http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/fuling/Interesting ]
This one, one of the Meteroa monasteries, Tom has landscape, architecture (as complex object) and garden! [ http://blog.hotelclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/meteora2.jpg ]
Tom this conceptual design for the urban Los Angeles is the other extreme – object as landscape! [ http://www.finalarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/urban-concept-los-angeles-architecture.jpg ]
Perhaps this is my best find for an urban environment which demonstrates object to object relationships and linking spaces…[ http://www.freshousedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Beautiful-Architecture-Design-by-Caramel-Architects.jpg ]…although the boundaries aren’t as physically blurred as they might be.
Comment by Christine — February 14, 2012 @ 6:46 am
ps. Another attempt at the Los Angeles concept photo link… [ http://www.finalarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/urban-concept-los-angeles-architecture.jpg ]
Comment by Christine — February 14, 2012 @ 6:52 am
Yes, the Marika Alderton House is good landscape architecture combined with an amazing absence of garden design.
I had a curious experience at Meteora. The ascent was enthralling. But, when inside the building, a dense mist arrived and the return was rather scary. Slipping into the mist was OK but finding our way back to the village was very difficult.
In America, I believe, making an enclosed garden is regarded as bad manners, like drawing your curtains in Holland. It makes people think ‘Heck, have those people got something to hide?’. In England, it is considered as natural has having a front door to your house.
Comment by Tom Turner — February 15, 2012 @ 6:48 am
The culture of gardens is a very interesting topic. Although my gardening skills are rather lacking my appreciation and love of gardens is not. In gardens in the form of front and backyards are an essential part of the Australian Dream of the quarter acre plot.
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Dream ]
Should the Australian Dream become endangered by ideas of sustainability or is it an essential part of the identity of Australians as the American Dream is of Americans?
Comment by Christine — February 26, 2012 @ 11:30 pm
Home ownership and gardening-as-a-hobby are much stronger England than in nearby parts of Europe (Holland, Denmark, Normandy etc).
Compared to the US, home ownership is probably much the same but gardening is much stronger in England
Is the Australian Dream more like the English Dream (‘a small house in a large garden’) or more like the American Dream?
My guess is that, for climatic reasons, the enthusiasm for gardening is less-strong in the US and Oz than in England.
Geography always beats history!
Comment by Tom Turner — February 27, 2012 @ 6:30 am