Metalogues on the thickened ground: landscape production and urban morphologies

Could we consider urban morphologies as figures that emerge as ‘horizontal phenomena’? Could we consider urban morphologies as embedded within the complex systems of the city rather than assume they demarcate the city through an overlay of lines? Could the urban form then be considered as an affect which emerges from a dynamic thickened ground, creating a new landscape? If landscapes are understood in terms of their connectability to the order of things in the universe (as, for example, in physics), where landscape’s connectability is a reciprocation of forces between itself and its context at all scales, then each connection is a shared force, a received and distributed force. If the order of the landscape is inherent in its process of transformations, to what extent does this order produce the city? This research aims to contribute to the discourse on Landscape Urbanism which is often positioned and grounded within the philosophical and scientific fields. However, it is argued that the ability to open up new possibilities, new ways of thinking and acting, lies in the act of design. This research, therefore, aimed to reveal these possibilities through a structured design process which linked the disciplinary fields of Landscape Architecture and Architecture

Identifying priority sites for whale shark ship collision management globally

The expansion of the world's merchant fleet poses a great threat to the ocean's biodiversity. Collisions between ships and marine megafauna can have population-level consequences for vulnerable species. The Endangered whale shark (Rhincodon typus) shares a circumglobal distribution with this expanding fleet and tracking of movement pathways has shown that large vessel collisions pose a major threat to the species. However, it is not yet known whether they are also at risk within aggregation sites, where up to 400 individuals can gather to feed on seasonal bursts of planktonic productivity. These "constellation" sites are of significant ecological, socio-economic and cultural value. Here, through expert elicitation, we gathered information from most known constellation sites for this species across the world (>50 constellations and >13,000 individual whale sharks). We defined the spatial boundaries of these sites and their overlap with shipping traffic. Sites were then ranked based on relative levels of potential collision danger posed to whale sharks in the area. Our results showed that researchers and resource managers may underestimate the threat posed by large ship collisions due to a lack of direct evidence, such as injuries or witness accounts, which are available for other, sub-lethal threat categories. We found that constellations in the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of California, and Southeast and East Asia, had the greatest level of collision threat. We also identified 39 sites where peaks in shipping activity coincided with peak seasonal occurrences of whale sharks, sometimes across several months. Simulated collision mitigation options estimated potentially minimal impact to industry, as most whale shark core habitat areas were small. Given the threat posed by vessel collisions, a coordinated, multi-national approach to mitigation is needed within priority whale shark habitats to ensure collision protection for the species

Conversation among conversations

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On the emergent line: complex systems and self regulating orders of the city

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Resonance: The problems of morphology as a changing phenomenon.

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The lie of the land

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Fate amenable to change

Terra Australis, 'the Imaginary Continent', or 'the Unknown Land of the South' was hypothesised to exist by Ptolemy as a balance to the lands of the Northern Hemisphere of the planet. The Spanish similarly believed in the existence of what was to be revealed as the largest landmass in Oceania as 'La Australia del Espíritu Santo', the 'Southern Land of the Holy Spirit'. These conceptual projections were, in time, proved to be true in what would become eventually known as Australia, the largest country in the world without land borders. However what remains unexplained, and yet is hinted at in this imagined state of being was not only that it was conceived into existence, but that it was also believed to exist to host an 'other'. Much like the Spanish description that included the 'Holy Spirit', cartographers would have described the region with 'here be dragons' to designate that which had not yet been mapped or documented. In the heart of the Australian continent exists a manifestation of this 'other'. Covering one-sixth of the continent, a 1,140,000 square kilometre internal drainage system, an area larger than that of France and Spain combined, brings into existence Lake Eyre, the largest ephemeral lake in the world. At 15m below sea level, it is the lowest point in Australia, and on the rare occasion that it fills, it is the largest lake in the country. The dynamic landscape that at times becomes Lake Eyre remains for the most part unmapped, defying the possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. This is an investigation of the sublime phenomenological landscape of the unknown, and perhaps the unknowable, and the potential of this condition to generate a new kind of material engagement and design thinking

Introduction

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Approaching Landscape: Practice based activities as dynamic models for student centered teaching and learning

This paper discusses how modes of practice found in landscape architecture were deployed as dynamic models for student centred teaching and learning for undergraduate and postgraduate students. This examination is conducted through three teaching and learning case studies that developed an approach to integrate design practice (techniques, tools and process) and projects within a theoretical framework and a historiographical and representational lineage. These three are 'the conference', 'the design laboratory' and 'the expedition' Each used the terms 'landscape' and 'architecture' as active descriptions of the acts of seeing and acting. The paper will position the active terms of 'Landscape' and 'architecture' as a key part of a within five distinct but contested areas of contribution; Landscape as Field, Landscape as Matter, Landscape as Figure-ground, Landscape as System and Landscape as Found, methodology of enquiry that expands critical questioning within a non-binary approach that gives agency to thinking and making within a spectrum of actions, connections and possible solutions. Evaluate these processes to explore what is required in a student-centred learning approach that has the ability to empower students to think and act critically whilst demonstrating that holding multiple, articulated positions leads to a productive discourse

Transiting cities: Mediating change for uncertain futures

Through the careful dissemination of our own work the paper explores how a landscape design approach is utilised to catalyse and enable change through transition in the urban fabric to inform long term strategic urban regeneration. This includes a change in design approach effecting policy, planning and identity that moves beyond the efficient and reduced risk of top-down urban design policy, and instead engages with the regional as a place for community with an inherent capacity for change.This work considers how cities are dynamic complex systems in a constant state of change resisting conventional modes of planning. The paper develops ideas of how productive social, economic and environmental dimensions can emerge from a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, and how a multiplicity of design actions across a range of physical and temporal scales in collaboration with numerous assorted agents, stakeholders and disciplines is an approach for stabilisation and reconnection whilst accepting the unpredictability of future scenarios. Transiting Cities: Mediating Change for Uncertain Futures urban regeneration | tactical urban actions | urban agency | interdisciplinary | landscape urbanism | urban resilience | intensify | re-use | re-purposeRegional Centres in Australia were historically developed as a network of productive hubs of industry and agriculture in service of the Metropolitan Centre. As such, these Regional Centres dominated by singular economies are in a state of massive change that is most often manifest as decline giving rise to social, economic, and ecological issues. Change has been driven by a range of factors, for example Globalisation as a process of international integration that has undermined the productive integrity of these centres primarily through shifts in the commodities and labour markets, and the privatization of traditionally Government operated industries and infrastructure significant to each Regional Centre. The result is that the relationship between the metropolis and the regional city has become disconnected, leaving regional areas to become stranded assets. At the regional and urban scales the productive heart as we knew it no longer contributes to the urban and social fabric as it once did, and simultaneously the Metropolis is no longer so dependent on the Regional Centres and has in many ways cut them adrift.In the face of this uncertain future possibilities emerge for the transition of these urban centres into something different that both celebrates and utilises their industrial heritage to develop into something new, offering firstly much need stability to the community, yet more importantly the tools and capacity for productive transition