Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

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124 Great Ideas in Landscapes Seen and Known: towards a more robust discussion on the sentient attributes of perception Kevin Thompson Department of Landscape Architecture, College of Design, Construction & Planning, University of Florida, PO Box 115704, Gainesville, Florida, 32611-5704 (e-mail: gday@ufl.edu) Abstract Landscapes are replete with meaning, and understanding that meaning may require more than simply seeing. Seeing implies a casual observation, knowing suggests a deeper understanding, one that may only come from a more intimate contact. A large part of what we understand about a landscape develops through the systematic investigation of biogeographic, climatic and socio-politic forces that bear their influence. However, how we perceive a landscape is greatly influenced by how we experience it and is further influenced by both our cultural conditioning and professional training. While our perception of landscape includes nearly all the human senses, our training has focused almost exclusively on the visual. Other sentient qualities are nearly always relegated to the periphery of concern where they are seen as subtle nuance and therefore disregarded. Nevertheless, these attributes are essential to how we perceive landscapes. Has our conventional training focused on visual attributes because we have historically had limited capacity to interpret, analyze and communicate the other sentient qualities of landscape? This paper suggests that new and emerging tools and methods may provide opportunities to increase both our understanding and our ability to talk about more of the qualities that form the total experience of the landscapes we perceive. By examining the motivations for needing to study landscapes, opportunities are identified for using digital video, a medium that is now readily available and easy to use. By itself, video cannot entirely compensate for all of the shortcomings that arise from our obsession with the visual. However, it does provide measured improvements in the ways we come to perceive and understand the Great Ideas of landscape. Great Ideas Landscapes go beyond the physical to express narratives of human endeavor; they tell stories (Spirn, A. W. 1998; Lewis, P. 1979). Great Ideas are found in the landscapes we interpret, design and occupy. These Great Ideas emerge by focusing on one or more perspectives that motivate understanding of the stories that landscapes tell. Great Ideas can be the design genius whose medium is landscape (Corner, J. 1999). With an enlightened vision and the necessary requisite skills, the designer or artist alters the land to either foster or nurture both an understanding of and a connection to place. Great Ideas can also be the recognition of the co-dependent and inter-related processes of natural systems at play in the landscape. By recognizing the harmony of these forces, we develop a deeper, more sensitive and meaningful dialogue with a specific landscape. We also begin to understand the power of these forces and their affect on other landscapes more broadly. Finally, Great Ideas can be the inherent associations bound-up in the thickly-layered histories of human occupation. Landscape serves as a sacred, place-specific repository of human experience, carrying Great Ideas forward, motivating energies to protect and to preserve, not just landscape as a medium, but landscape as the very basis and foundation of human identity. Depths of Understanding There are different depths of understanding. Landscapes can be “seen” (at the shallow end) and “known” (at the deepest end). Both seeing and knowing represent some level of understanding a landscape and begin to suggest a level of association and connection between humans and place. A casual observation, seeing is usually our first perception (or interaction) with landscape; it’s where we begin to understand the landscape (Cosgrove, D. 2003, 1984; Holdsworth, D. 1997). At first, seeing enables us to recognize the landscape’s form and scale. Looking closer at a landscape or seeing it in greater detail enables us to better understand its elements and the constitution of those elements. As textures reveal themselves and as Figure 1: landscape seen 1: Green Cay, Florida. 2009. Key Words Landscape video, landscape perception, spatial attribution, landscape interpretation, design communication, landscape visualization
125 we begin to recognize and make sense of the composition of the colors that are reflected off stone and earth, our understanding both broadens and deepens (Riley, R. 1997). We reach a deeper understanding of landscape when we identify the recognizable, characteristic elements it possesses (Howett, C. 1997; Meinig, D. W. 1979; Norton, W. 1989). Characteristic elements are cues that tap specific memories and compel us to recall the individual and collective experiences we have with the landscape. Drawing from these memories and experiences, we establish a baseline for comprehending landscapes that are otherwise unfamiliar to us. As our understanding of a landscape deepens and as the unfamiliar becomes the familiar, we are led to contest the assumptions of our initial inference and adjust our perceptions accordingly. This process requires that we must continually make judgments regarding the relative significance of landscape detail before disregarding it as insignificant. The judgments we make about the significance of detail and nuance deepens the connections we have to a landscape. When a landscape resonates within us, or compels instinctive reaction, impulse or emotive responses, our connection to landscape is strong and our understanding of such a landscape becomes deep. Motivations for Understanding Just as there are varying depths of understanding the Great Ideas of landscape, there are varying motivations for understanding these ideas; with each motivation comes a different set of tools and methods to be used. To illustrate the methods and means essential in building understanding, I have identified three distinct categories of motivations: Alteration, Restoration and Conservation. Alteration Designing a landscape requires that we understand its unique physical attributes, what natural systems play upon it and the social policies that control its habitation and use. Restoration Healing a landscape requires that we understand the causes of the environmental stresses upon it in order to choose the appropriate methods of relieving those stresses and restoring its natural functions. Conservation Preserving a landscape requires that we comprehend the close human connections to landscape and that the meanings of that process are documented and interpreted for others. Expectedly, there is considerable overlap of the tools and methods used for each of these motivations. Subtle differences in the combinations of tools and how they are used can result in distinctly different perspectives that have varying levels of relevance depending on the objectives of their initial motivation. Figure 2: landscape seen 2, Green Cay, Florida. Categorization of Landscape Attributes We must also recognize the differences in the types of attributes being assessed. These include: Physical (biological and geological) The scale, form and texture of a landscape, and the geological composition, vegetation, hydrology, topography and climatic forces that play upon it. Aesthetics (sensorial: visual & aural inclusively) Referential – what a landscape image suggests about the place of the observer Scenic – landscape as the subject of aesthetic concern Socio-political (societal & cultural) Cultural identity associated with landscape and the policies that govern how humans interact with it Historical Historical uses of a landscape and the events that transpired in, around or in regard to it Tools for Understanding Training has provided us with the methods and skills needed in our study of landscape, but not all the tools we have been trained to use are singularly adequate for understanding all landscape attributes. We have learned to draw from a collection of tools and to adapt methods to suit varying objectives. These tools are broadly identified as: • Surveys & mapping • Site & landscape inventories • Geo-data & computer modeling • Photographic archives & surveys • Artistic renderings (sketches & measured drawings) • Written records (notes & written narrative) • Oral histories • Film & video documents Papers
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University of Natural Resources and
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Authors of the papers are fully res
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3 Day 2 Thursday, April 30, 2009 Se
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6 The “Landscape-Infrastructure
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10 Endnotes [1] Bernetti, Casini, M
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12 Urban landscapes need great idea
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14 the term “overall expression
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16 Fig. 2: Initial overall pictures
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18 Evaluation of Open Space Form an
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22 Type of activity: • Exercise/p
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24 Landscaped, Modern, or Social? T
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26 Fig. 2: Rose and Perennial Show
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28 Herbert Bayer’s Megastructures
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30 a large extent the Japanese deve
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32 A Fertile Wilderness: The CPR’
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34 Fig.3 as their destination. The
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36 The Method of Structuralist Land
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38 Fig. 2: SLA implements gender eq
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40 Landscape Evaluation Process. A
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42 systematic application of certai
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44 holders (as Piemonte Region, Riv
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46 Frameworks - Preparing rural lan
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48 The issues are organized into fa
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50 Do Landscape Architects make the
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52 within the larger landscape piec
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54 Landscape as Urban Structure: th
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56 city extension area but also in
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58 housing neighborhoods. Construct
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60 “massive change, required - ni
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62 architecture’s ability to conc
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64 cape Journal 6 (1): 4-12 Jackson
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66 Green Idea/Grey Reality Carl Smi
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68 argument was put forward for omi
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70 Green Streets Potential for Down
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72 size of rain garden through the
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Page 88 and 89: 86 Endnotes [1] Anyone interested i
Page 90 and 91: 88 Urban imageability & open space
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Page 94 and 95: 92 How to balance the multiple role
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Page 98 and 99: 96 public spaces in the HBA, and by
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Page 110 and 111: 108 Exploring a New Mode of Sustain
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Page 114 and 115: 112 Structuring the Concept of Land
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Page 130 and 131: 128 The traditions of landscape sch
Page 132 and 133: 130 Landscape Insertions: Operation
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Page 148 and 149: 146 Fig. 4 architectonical work“
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