A Journey in Space and Time

Embarking on a workshop with the aim of exploring the narrative potential of the myth and the site, I set out with the assumption that the myth of Troy would overrule everything in Çanakkale. However, it is not so straightforward to say anything conclusive about the impact of the myth of Troy on the city of Çanakkale, separated by 30 kilometres and 3000 years. There is no singular, large story that bridges the gap between Troy and Çanakkale, that can clear the mists of fiction, myth, and fable. In the workshop and the ensuing paper I documented a collection of micro-stories, and it is only through their messy heterogeneity that we can see possible connections and relations shimmering through…Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Landscape Architectur

The garden and the layered landscape: landscape urbanism through the lens of garden design

In the era of globalization, also landscape architects and urban designers have learnt to think big–in large scales and far-reaching visions. Landscape is called upon as the model and the medium of urbanism, feeding into a grand narrative of saving the day when architecture as the ordering principle of the city has become obsolete or inadequate. The horizontality, large scale organisational techniques, and landscape processes associated with landscape are called upon to provide a new understanding of urbanism, able to solve the problems where the classical architectural repertoire falls short. (Waldheim 2016, p. 3; Corner 2006, p. 23) Understanding the fluid or changing nature of any environment and the processes that effect change over time, landscape urbanism is concerned with a working surface over time–a type of urbanism that anticipates change, openendedness and negotiation. This suggests shifting attention from the object qualities of spaces to the systems that condition the distribution and density of urban form. In this vision however, landscape is indeed the carrier of urban developments but has no independent formal status. (Steenbergen and Reh 2011, pp. 428-430)On the other hand, we can observe tendencies to think small again: design interventions on the neighbourhood level, transformations of unused spaces through low-cost, bottom-up actions, awareness rising and community building projects that shape space temporarily. Unfortunately, the tendency to involve users and actors in the design, is associated with a crumbling attention to spatial design and the associated notions of place, space, and form.Space does not emerge naturally when social and landscape processes and a sustainable programme are addressed, so aren’t we thus letting go of the specific spatial and experiential qualities of the landscape and of the architectonic culture in which these landscape qualities can manifest and develop? Of the associated notions of place, space, and form that a landscape architectural lens, rather than a landscape lens, could provide?The garden has always been a place where urbanism, architecture and landscape are seamlessly intertwined. It is also a small and defined object with a formal, spatial design, which does not appear to deserve a place in the definition of landscape urbanism. If we were to give it a place, what could that be, and what can landscape urbanism learn from the design of gardens?Landscape Architectur

Sensory landscape experience: Stepping outside the visual landscape of the motorway in the Garden of Birds

Gardens and motorways represent inherently different ways of perceiving the landscape: while the motorway is a purely visual experience, seen through the windshield, distanced from the perceiver in his climatized cocoon, the small, tactile scale of a garden offers a multisensory experience. With motorways getting more and more separated from their landscapes, can a garden be the opportune resource to address the motorway landscape? A place that appears to be doing this is the Garden of Birds, a small circular space as the pivot point of a rest area along the A837 motorway in south-western France. Fifteen years after implementation it now appears more like a garden than might have ever been intended, providing a sensory landscape experience. Drawing and describing this situation_including its intentional and unintentional changes resulting from manmade and natural interventions and processes_as if it were a designed composition, exposes a spatial elaboration that facilitates the multisensory perception of landscape. The garden experience entices the motorist to look at the surrounding landscape with fresh eyes.Accepted Author ManuscriptLandscape Architectur

Imagining Dialogues with the Voiceless

Landscape Architectur

Suburbs and super-nature: How the Wasserkrater exposes an invisible landscape

What bearing can the expression of ‘place’ have on the ‘placeless geography’ of the suburban metropolis? Unravelling the design of the Wasserkrater garden, designed by Agence Ter between 1997 and 2000, points towards a possible reconnection between suburban metropolis and genius loci, the essence of the place.urbanismArchitecture and The Built Environmen

Green Galaxies; An Interstitial Strategy for Restorative Spaces

While most people prefer visual, physical and conceptual open space where nature can be experienced, relating to the possibilities these spaces offer for psychological restoration. Since access to ‘restorative’ natural spaces decreases with growing urbanization, we need to create urban spaces that provide opportunities for restoration as part of everyday life. Small-scale alternatives are likely to become more important as settings for restoration. A strategy to deal with the pressure on open space caused by ongoing urbanization, is to exploit existing fallow lots, leftover spaces in the interstices of the urban tissue, temporary or permanent. Such a strategy could create a constellation, a non-hierarchical pattern so ubiquitous that each unit would be both special and ordinary. Its internal logic, determined by situation, dependent on time, coincidence and circumstance is derived from the inbetween and coincidental character of the interstices, simultaneously autonomous and situational. This paper presents Paley Park (Robert Zion, 1967) as a case study of an interstitial garden, to discover several landscape architectural translations of the different aspects of a restorative setting.Architecture and The Built Environmen

The most beautiful green facade

Landscape Architectur

'metropolitan landscapes', 'new natures', 'paths' and 'ruderal ecologies'

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Landscape Architectur

Metropolitan gardens: Gardens in the interstices of the metropolitan tissue

The heterogeneity of the contemporary metropolitan landscape has led to a multiplicity of intermediate spaces, in between and within the different tissues of the metropolitan landscape. These interstices can provide favourable conditions to be transformed into gardens. What design instruments can be discovered for these gardens to address the characteristics of the interstice? And what is the value of doing so? In this essay three contemporary examples are compared, which explicitly address the different metropolitan landscapes in which they are located. Paley Park (New York, USA) is a transformation of an interstice within a dense urban tissue; the Crazannes Garden (Crazannes, FR) creates a point of contact between motorway and rural landscape, and the Reflection Garden (Seattle, USA) addresses the inclusion of what used to be the hinterland into the metropolitan realm, which has so little physical impact that the interstitial space between the urban fragments constitutes practically the entire surface. The gardens are compared focusing on the landscape, the metropolitan condition of their situation, and the formal, spatial and visual transformation of the context in the composition of the garden. From the case studies one can conclude that gardens can define specific places in a generic metropolitan landscape, employing several design tools: centring, enclosing and highlighting a specific selection of existing landscape qualities.UrbanismArchitecture and The Built Environmen

Ruderal ecologies

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care. Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Landscape Architectur