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

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2.
3.
the role of evaluation in defining different types of
landscape values: a) consolidated; b) regulative;
c) to be implemented;
consideration of the assessment actions that can
be summed up in the following features which
should be understood as strictly interrelated (Alexander,
2006; Brunetta and Peano, 2003; Brunetta,
2006; Fusco Girard, 1998):
• assessment should be considered a gradual learning
process, as a way of steering assessment
and transformation actions;
• assessment is not only a technical procedure but
also a simultaneous dialogue between institutions
and between institutions and citizens in order to
construct socially shared policies;
• therefore, assessment must not be seen as static
analysis but as a steadily evolving process;
• assessment is not merely an analysis but is oriented
towards the construction of policies in order to
promote sustainable development.
2.The values involved in landscape evaluation
According to the discussion in Brunetta and Voghera
(2008), this methodological perspective complies more
effectively with the aim of determining the value of landscape
resources. Value should be considered a variable
trait that may change over time and assume different meanings.
The role of assessment is to reveal the meanings
and positions that each party attaches to each landscape
resource.
We must assume, of course, that values change
over time but, here, we propose a definition for current
trends that, hopefully, will prove useful for the evaluation
process of landscapes. In fact, some values acquire an
“intrinsic” value, i.e. a value that does not depend on
anything but itself and cannot be related to any other
value and which is therefore independent of the meaning
acquired case by case by other values. Cultural resources
are examples of this type of value. On the other
hand, there are other values that have an “extrinsic”
value.
This distinction between these two types of values is
useful for our discussion from the ELC perspective of
promoting the planning of new ‘landscapes’. In particular,
we should examine the process of definition of “extrinsic
values”, i.e. those that tend to sway decisions regarding
the conservation, rehabilitation, enhancement and transformation
of various landscapes in a territory and which
can be distinguished in the following types (Brunetta and
Voghera, 2007):
• consolidated values refer to the collective identity,
representing the expectations of quality and selfrecognition
of a community of individuals with a
shared conception of life (cultural values, values
of belonging) (Kaplan R., Kaplan, Brown, 1989);
• regulative values originate in the restrictions that
certain elements may impose on certain sites and/
or areas;
• values to be implemented are values that identify
opportunities for landscape improvement as a driving
force for development based on the specificity
of each landscape organization. From this point
of view, the process of legitimizing these types
of “extrinsic” values becomes an indispensable
step in the landscape planning decision-making
process. This process is a public process of
debate that reinforces and strengthens the feeling
of belonging of the parties involved and therefore
the “opportunities” and “interactions” in and of
the landscape. The actions involved in defining
landscape values perform the task of reinforcing
the “bonds” and feeling of belonging among the
various parties. Their aim is to reveal the positions
of the various parties regarding each landscape
resource, to attribute new values to each resource,
to define their positions about each resource
and, at the same time, to broaden each party’s
scope of action and commitment (Jakle, 1987; Higuchi,
1989) However, this act of public identification
of values can be sustained only if assessment
is perceived as a learning process inserted in a
decision-making process (Gorgeu Y., Jenkins C.,
1995). During the assessment, values take shape,
emerge, are made more specific and are defined
in relation to other values.
From this point of view, it is necessary to emphasize
the process of social identification of values before we
can begin to formulate “activist policies” able to blend
the integrated goals of conservation and enhancement.
Without this process, there is no landscape identification
or assessment. For this reason, the value evaluation process
is an essential feature of new landscape planning
approaches.
The ELC implemented a process whereby methods
were to be innovated and advantageous practices were
to be deployed with regard to identifying the quality and
the identities of landscapes. Despite this, we propose a
method for defining articulated development programs for
all landscapes based on the legitimization of “values”.
This is the only way in which such programs can become
engines of sustainable landscape growth and the
growth of territories.
3. The proposal methodology
In the perspective described our proposal methodology is
characterised by integration of the extrinsic values identified
by the research (i.e. consolidated and regulative
values and values to be implemented) and the various
methods of landscape acknowledgement (identification,
interpretation and social legitimization) stemming from
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