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

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Fig 2: Integrative Design Approach
(S E E …Society, Environment, Economics)
of identification for and with the community? How can
processes of identification be initiated? Which design elements
encourage social interaction? Within the dimension
‘environment’ - What guiding theme can be deducted
from the natural qualities of the site and transferred into
design? How can the design activate the ecological potential
of the site? How can natural cycles be integrated
into the design concept? Within the dimension ‘economy’
- At what rate are maintenance and usage? How can the
maintenance be minimized by designing the details?
The elaboration of the answers – ideally by combining
goals – ensure the required protection of the ‘substantial
constituents’. Of course, this can lead to diametrically opposed
requirements. Design approaches deal with these
opposing requirements or conflicts differently.
The Integrative Design Approach
The practical realization, meaning the examination of
the goals and the answering of the questions, asks for
a combination of the goals of all three dimensions. By a
reductive design approach, the single goals limit each
other and the lowest common denominator is the result.
An integrative design approach exploring these limits and
restrictions is more promising. The role of the landscape
architect in an integrative design approach is not only to
manage these boundaries but also to look for synergies
between the goals and to develop intelligent design solutions.
An ‘intelligent design solution’ provides an added value.
park had to be integrated into the town’s public green
network. The designers developed a concept based on
the natural qualities of the former flood plain in the lowest
part of the park. A subterranean canal was opened, it
supplies two new ponds with water and in case of floods,
the ponds secure water retention. The new wetland is
connected to the river system. Instead of focusing purely
on ecological improvements, the designers decided to
have a major pedestrian access across this area. The design
of the two footpaths, bridges and sitting areas offer
the visitors different views of the wetland and its vegetation.
By modeling the shore, they partly provided access
to the water but also prohibited access to some parts of
the shoreline. From an economic point of view, it has to
be mentioned that the water is also used for irrigating
the elevated parts of the park. A second example also
deduces the design concept from the location of the park
at a river bank with possible floods.
Deducing design concepts from natural qualities of the
site seems to be a common starting point. The degree of
integrating goals from other dimensions and their connection
through design is extensible and depends very
much on the creativity of the landscape architects and
their search for possible synergies.
Conclusions
The production of public space is intensively embedded
into the social structure of a community in a complex and
manifold way. Every strategy, thus, to enhance the quality
of public space in a community has its starting point
here. The specification of the goals by elaborating the
questions is an intensive negotiation process between
many actors who are involved in the planning process.
The result of this negotiation process is a solid profile of
requirements for the design of a park. This profile of requirements
already complies with the concept of sustainability
because ideally, all decisions have been made by
Fig. 3: New pond and park access
Sustainability, as discussed in this paper, was not a project
requirement of the sites under investigation. Nevertheless,
some aspects or parts of projects can be useful
to illustrate the search for synergies between competing
goals of the three dimensions and the elaborated design
solution. In one example, a former private and walled