In the paper ‘Developing a city skyline for Hong Kong Using GIS and Urban Design Guidelines’ [ http://downloads2.esri.com/campus/uploads/library/pdfs/119148.pdf ] the authors use the term “city skyline” refers to a profile of buildings that forms the cityscape in daytime and the silhouette at night (Lim and Heath 1993).

Bill Lim and Tom Heath, and their work at the Queensland University of Technology, are both well known to me. They have usually taken a science based approach to the topic of the skyline and to design in general.

The authors continue the “City skyline registers unique characteristics of a city’s landscape shaped by planning controls, topographical conditions,commercial considerations, building design parameters, and environmental concerns.” They thus make a link with the landscape and the skyline – saying the skyline is reflective of the city’s landscape considerations.

This seems to me to be a fair point. However, there is also a methodology that is sometimes used in considering the contribution of an individual project to the skyline called a ‘Visual Landscape Assessment’.

The West Australian Government’s introduction to their manual says this:
“The protection of landscape values is now expected by communities. Proposals which pass
other tests, such as economic development and environmental management, are no longer
accepted if they mar the view or impair highly valued landscapes. Yet there is no formal
planning policy at a state or local level on visual impact and little in the way of guidance in setting objectives and undertaking assessments of impacts on the visual landscape.”

The intention of this methodology is not so much assessing the value of what is contributed as to assessing or limiting its negative impact on the existing qualities.

So I am thinking that the sky and land connection and importance needs to be more effectively emphasised. I am not sure that the skyline has the same phenomenological place making aspect as the ground plane at human scale. But it does have an incredibly important visual impact particularly in arrival, departure and pathfinding and landmarking.

Yes, ‘no to toasters’ in London. I have added a note about Rem Koolhaas to the above post – he has a dispassionate wisdom re London’s skyline. I have lived in Greenwich since the construction of Canary Wharf began – and regard it as a dramatic improvement to London’s skyline – and one which only happened through central government intervention in the planning process (ie by permitting a cluster of high buildings).
‘Skyscape’ would be OK as a term, except that it is not the sky which is being designed. So I think ‘Landscape’ is a better term and that the aesthetic considerations involved can well be developed through landscape painting and sketching. When the word ‘landscape’ first became linked with ‘painting’ is was NOT to describe the subsequent art of representing real places with near-photographic accuracy: it was to describe the art of representing ideal places. But if these ‘ideal places’ are to be built then the landscape artist needs to think about society and ecology – and also about past, present and future. I completely agree about the need to consider the ‘collective of buildings’.

And this wish is not because the London Eye isn’t brilliant and a worthy contribution to the skyline, but rather that like the Sydney Opera House, some things are better as originals.

Yes, there does need to be a Skyscape policy of the London skyline. What is a Skyscape Policy? It is indeed probably a Landscape Policy (please define Tom) but it is probably a little broader than that too?

Individual buildings are important – but so are the collective of buildings which make up the skyline. That is there is a relationship between the individual building and the skyline into which it is inserted and to which it makes a contribution.