Author Archives: Tom Turner

Urban agriculture in Korea and in English public open spaces and parks

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If the above open space was in England it would surely be managed as vacant gark-land, for two reasons (1) views of grassland are thought to have public health benefits, because it was once believed that dirty air (rather than dirty water) was the cause of infectious disease (2) because it is believed that any food which is not fenced-in will be harvested by marauding gangs of theiving youths. So England has hectare-upon-hectare of mown-but-scarcely-used urban grass land – and Korea, like Japan and other SE Asian countries, has agriculture which still prospers in urban areas. The photograph does not have the beauty so often seen in agricultural landscapes – but this would surely be achievable. I would not want London’s parks to be any less functional or any less beautiful. But I would like to see producing food and am sure it could be healthier and tastier than shop food which has been over-irrigated, over-fed and over-treated with pesticides. Does anyone know of any good examples ‘beautiful urban food’ to inspire Londons park designers and planners?

Image courtesy Steph L

Video on rooftop farming in New York City NYC:

Recent Waterscapes by Herbert Dreiseitl – book review

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Lewis Mumford, in his introduction to Ian McHarg‘s Design with Nature, wrote that ‘It is in this mixture of scientific insight and constructive environmental design, that this book makes its unique contribution’. It was a perceptive remark and I would like to pay a similar comment to the books which Herbert Dreiseitl has published with the title Waterscapes: Herbert Dreiseitl combines scientific insight with an ethical concern for sustainability and an enthusiasm for artistic creation. See Herbert Dreiseitl biography & cv. Waterscapes is already on our list of 100 best books on landscape architecture and in 2009 Dreiseitl published Recent Waterscapes.
Dreiseitl has the scientific insight to understand the water cycle and the negative impacts upon it from poorly conceived urbanisation. He also practices constructive environmental design and he makes a unique contribution. Landscape architecture would be a far stronger profession if more designers were able, simultaneously, to make the world more sustainable and more beautiful. But is it art? and, indeed, What is art? Leo Tolstoy asked this question and, in the Wiki summary: ‘According to Tolstoy, art must create a specific emotional link between artist and audience, one that “infects” the viewer.’ The Wiki entry on Art, begins as follows: ‘Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses, emotions, and/or intellect. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings.’ I think Dreiseitl passes these tests but I also remember Tracey Emin‘s declaration that one of her works was art ‘because I say it is art’. Dreiseitl could pass this test – and I think he should have a go at it, with a better explanation than Emin. He could say that he has analysed the nature of the world’s watery aspect and found a way of expressing his view in a 3-dimensional and visually dramatic way which depends upon the exercise of hard-won skills. His water sculptures are made in a studio at a 1:1 scale and then cut in granite. Similarly, Rodin worked in clay and had his sculptures cut in marble or cast in bronze. Rodin’s interest was sex; Drieseitl’s is also concerned with the future of life on earth. But my account of his work will not do: Dreiseitl needs to pen an account of ‘why I am an artist’ – and he should exhibit sculptural work in galleries so that it appears in catalogues and passes the commercial test for a work of art.
My favourite projects from Herbert Dreiseitl’s Recent Waterscapes, from left to right, below are:
The Nuremberg Prisma, Hannoversch Munden, Town Square in Gummersbach, Tanner Springs Park in Portland,

There is one problem with Dreiseitl’s projects: the vegetation is often managed on a habitat-creation basis and this tends to look ragged in the early years. In the fullness of time, they may well become beautiful semi-natural habitats. But one wonders if there is a way of making them more beautiful in the early years. The example below is a rainwater retention scheme on the Kronsberg in Hanover, Germany.

Densification of urban landscapes

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Good urban densification requires good urban landscape design

Jonathan Solomon tells a CNN inverviewer that ‘Dense cities use less energy per person than more dispersed suburban equivalents. When you consider a city in relation to its larger region, the ecological footprint per person in a city may be significantly smaller than rural inhabitation’. Similarly, public transport systems use less land than private cars. So it is likely that if we must make our cities more sustainable then we must adopt densification policies. The main possibilities include: make more use of airspace (eg by building higher); make more use of underground space (eg for transport and parking); make more use of waterspace (eg with houseboats, tunnels etc); make better use of roofspace (eg for parks and gardens); make better use of ‘space between buildings’ (eg with new structures, cantilevers, balconies etc). In comparison with Tokyo, London is a very low density capital, and profligate with its use of transport space. The urban density in London (5,000/km2) is one eigth of the density of Manila.
OK, but all these measures require ingenuity and design imagination. They require studies from urban designers and landscape architects to discover how densification can take place in conjunction with improvements to the quality of life in cities. And we should remember the sceptics, like Jan Gehl, who argue that low density cities are more sustainable. My instinct is that there is no ‘one right answer’: cities need high density nodes with lower density peripheries.

Above image courtesy Jake Hirsch-Allen

Will we live to see the End of Suburbia?

Gardening on the dole: workfare, punishment or pleasure?

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The Daily Mail reports that under a UK government policy announced yesterday ‘the feckless unemployed will be forced to take part in a punishing US-style ‘workfare’ scheme involving gardening, clearing litter and other menial tasks’. It is a bad account of what could be a good policy. Giving people money for doing something is better than giving them money for doing nothing. Work is not a punishment; it is what the world does. But gardens already suffer from a skill shortage and gardening is not a ‘menial task’ and it should not be assumed that the unemployed are feckless or unskilled. Many over 40s know about gardening and lose their jobs because of market conditions or bad management. Surely it is healthier and more pleasurable to work as gardeners, or to help for elderly people living at home, or similar, than to get the dole and watch TV.

The definition of landscape urbanism

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Landscape urbanism in Safavid Isfahan - with hills on the horizon and a recent water feature

A previous post considered landscape urbanism and led to this definition:
LANDSCAPE URBANISM is an approach to urban design in which the elements of cities (water, landform, vegetation, vertical structures and horizontal structures) are composed (visually, functionally and technically) with regard to human use and the landscape context.
I am content with this definition for the time being but would like to give a little more explanation.
(1) The idea of ‘compositional elements’ comes from the history of garden design. It is a field in which water, landform, vegetation, buildings and paving have been composed, for at least 5,000 years – and it has always been done with regard to exiting landscapes and specific human uses. This has often made garden design a crucible for urban design, with the famous examples of Late-Renaissance Rome, Safavid Isfahan, Yuan and Ming Beijing, Georgian London, Late-Baroque Paris, even-later Baroque Washington DC and the Garden Cities of the twentieth century.
(2) The classification of design objectives (functional, technical, visual) is based on Vitruvius: Commodity, Firmness and Delight.

Under landscape urbanist programming, the design of urban space begins with the design of urban space. Buildings are then arranged and designed to surround and contain the urban space. Designing the buildings before the space will almost always diminish the potential quality of the urban space: visually, socially and ecologically.

Above image courtesy François Bouchet

History of Isfahan urban landscape from maidan market to western park (photos 1737, c1930, c2000)

History of Isfahan urban landscape from maidan market to western park (photos 1737, c1930, c2000)

Who should we blame for Nottingham's urban landscape architecture?

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Whodunnit? A wordsmith writes of ‘Poor torn-up Nottingham, with its smell of saturated fats and the ubiquitous roar of passing cars circling its city centre like Apaches in a cowboy movie’. But who did it? And what can be done about it? The Sunday Times art critic (Waldemar Januszczak, 31.10.10) also says this mess is ‘fully representative of Britain today’. Should we blame the town council? the city engineers? the planners? the architects? central government? immigrants? the landscape architects? All of them? Diagnosis comes before treatment, so the question needs to be answered. Could an Oberbaudirektor have prevented the mess? Or would he have contributed to the stench of saturated fat?

Image courtesy Maddy Lou