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73 2010

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City Regeneration. Cities age too; they grow and transform, they are restructured and their landuses change. It is not always a harmonious process. Often inconsistency and dereliction precede a new burst of development that gets things going. The proposals and projects in this issue attest to the different forms that regeneration of urban spaces can take. Some are remodelled industrial sites, some require a long-term visionary concept.

City Regeneration

2010

10.01.2011

KCAP: REGENERATION TODAY ONE: NEW YORK 2110 REGENERATION BRISBANE

City Regeneration

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ISBN 978-3-7667-1892-1

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BECKER/VON BORRIES: BERLIN – LANDSCAPE STRATEGY

MVVA: LOWER DON LANDS TORONTO

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SJØWALL OFTEDAL/BERG: NATURBANIA IN DRAMMEN

XIAODI ZHENG: SHICHAHAI LAKE BEIJING

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SCOTT HAWKEN: CARBON OFFSET FORESTS

ALEX KRIEGER: BIG DIG BOSTON

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WYBE KUITERT: SEOUL AS LANDSCAPE SYSTEM

ESSAYS: JOSEPH BROWN: BE LEADERS!

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TERREFORM

ISABELLE MOUTAUD: ST. LOUIS CITY

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GINI LEE: SOUTH BANK

DIANA BALMORI: LANDSCAPE MANIFESTO

Cover: Robert Schäfer (photo)

48 The former site of the 1988 World Expo in Brisbane, Australia, now is a popular recreational landscape in the city centre. A beach and lake form the heart of the South

Jeroen Musch

South Bank Corporation

Bank Parklands.

28 The “Puentes Cascara” are part of the regeneration strategy Drammen Municipality

for a 120-hectare site in the Spanish capital Madrid. The mosaic in the dome-like structure shows people of the neighbourhood.

36 Drammen, Norway: Cleaning up sewers and pollution as well as improving the natural environment became an important tool to regenerate the town. The riverbanks became the central park lane in the Drammen Valley.

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CITY REGENERATION

MARKUS APPENZELLER, RUURD GIETEMA

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bgmr, Projektbüro Friedrich von Borries

CONTENTS

Lower Manhattan: A New Urban Ground New relationship between ecology and infrastructure

CHRISTIAN DOBRICK

MITCHELL JOACHIM

Madrid Rio, Spain

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Landscape architecture as a political means

Urbaneering Brooklyn, NY 2110 The sci-fi-based solution to climate change

JULIE SJØWALL OFTEDAL, HELLE BENEDICTE BERG

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OF

STEPHEN CASSELL, SUSANNAH DRAKE, ADAM YARINSKY

City Regeneration Today Urban design based on an evaluation of existing patterns

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TABLE

SCOTT HAWKEN

Naturbania: The Drammen Model

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Transformation of a Norwegian city

The Hundred Year Forest Carbon offset forests in the dispersed footprint of fossil fuel cities

42 Multi-coding determines the urban land-

CARLO W. BECKER, FRIEDRICH VON BORRIES

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scape strategy of Germany’s capital Berlin. The model is based on social developments.

Berlin Urban Landscape Strategy

DIANA BALMORI

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Germany: urban landscape development 2030 – 2050

A Landscape Manifesto Redefinition of landscape’s role as major task

GINI LEE

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Evolution of a City’s Identity Expo 88 site: a change landscape for Brisbane, Australia

JOSEPH E. BROWN

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Be Leaders with a Wide View Landscape architects in interdisciplinary practice

WYBE KUITERT

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Seoul as a Landscape System Design for resilience based on landscape analysis

SPECIAL

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On the occasion of the 48th IFLA World Congress in Zurich

XIAODI ZHENG

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Shichahai Lake in Beijing

MVVA

Large landscapes and the city

Currents

RACHEL GLEESON

62 A wetland park with the Don River at its

Landscape Architecture in Zürich – A Historical Timeline

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heart is the centre of the urban development

Toronto’s Lower Don Lands

Reports, Competitions, Awards, Projects, Reviews

Ecologically-based urban design in Canada

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ALEX KRIEGER

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Authors

127

Credits/Imprint

Chile reconstruction report

at the Lower Don Lands in Toronto, Canada.

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Boston’s Big Dig Linear parkland instead of an elevated road system

ISABELLE MOUTAUD

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St. Louis: Large Scale Inner City Regeneration

AECOM

USA: social and infrastructural transformation

68 Boston, USA: The Rose Kennedy Greenway with a system of road tunnels replaced an elevated freeway.

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CURRENTS

REPORTS

Teruyo Nishiya

Compared to the Nordic cousins – Sweden, Denmark and Norway – the number of landscape architects in Finland, 21 years after the start of a degree programme in the field, is still relatively low. The profession is, however, in a steady process of establishing itself.

For this reason MARK – the Finnish Association of Landscape Architects – organised the first ever Finnish Landscape Architecture Day at the beginning of September, with almost 190 participants, mostly landscape architects but also architects and students. The event was a tour de force for the 160-member strong MARK, run entirely on voluntary work. The aim of the seminar day was therefore not only to bring together different disciplines working with landscape but also to provide the wider audience with an image of the profession.

The main theme of the day, “What *** Landscape?” aimed to seek definitions of landscape. Professor Maunu Häyrynen of the University of Turku opened the programme by exploring basic concepts and the sometimes fuzzy or jargonised professional language. The following presentations showcased topical design issues, Finnish and international landscape architecture from different viewpoints and culminated in a multidisciplinary discussion. The economic risk of introducing a brand new event was worth taking. MARK aims to make the Landscape Architecture Day a biannual event. The next meeting is programmed for 2012, coinciding with the World Design Capital year in Helsinki.

The future for Finnish landscape architecture seems bright and interesting.

Jouni Heinänen

The first prize of the competition “best private plots” went to Landscape-Niwatan for “mori x hako” (above left). Second prize: Calonder Landscape Architects for a garden at Le Very (above right).

International competition for “best private plots 10”

Otto Karvonen

Finnish artist Otto Karvonen presented the sculpture/performance “Urban Space Occupation Kit” in his speech. The kit allows people to occupy their own private space in various public environments.

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Augusto Calonder

MARK: Landscape Architecture Day in Finland

There are not many forums to discuss the theme of private gardens at an international level. The competition and symposium on the “best private plots” provided such a forum for the fourth time.

After one year’s break the competition, held by the Austrian “Aktion Natur im Garten, Umweltschutzverein Bürger & Umwelt des Landes Niederösterreichs” was launched again in 2010.

The international jury awarded the first prize for the small Japanese project “mori x hako” by Landscape-Niwatan.

A dense “woodland” (mori) in a courtyard of a three-storey building (hako) in Fukuyama, closely connected interior and exterior spaces. The jury praised the interplay of architecture and landscape architecture as well as the quality of the open space in a small space, “The project is exem-

plary for the design of highquality open space despite extreme spatial limitations”.

The second prize went to Calonder Landscape Architects for a garden at Le Very in Ecoteaux, Switzerland. The scheme combines tradition with contemporary living, and deliberately emphasises its “low-tech” approach. “The garden responds sensitively and truthfully to the rural history of the estate and its landscape. However, it introduces new design elements and meets the demands of another, contemporary way of life”, the jury justified its decision.

Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, USA, received the third prize for Stone Edge Farm in Sonoma Valley, California. The jury was convinced by the atmosphere, choice of materials and the perfect craftsmanship.

Commendations were re-

REPORTS

Adi Branda

ceived by the “Wirbel Institute of feminist research and practice” from Austria for their neighbourhood garden in the Viennese Roda-Roda-Gasse and the Swift Company, USA, for their open space at Stone Quarry Bay Point House in Montana.

72 projects from four continents and 22 countries were submitted in total. Members of the jury included the Austrian landscape architect Andrea Cejka, the Austrian film scholar Judith WieserHuber, Neil Porter from the landscape practice Gustafson Porter in London, UK, Bart Brands from Karres en Brands in Hilversum, Netherlands, and Xavier Perrot from Designstudio Cao I Perrot in France and the USA. A catalogue illustrates 28 of the submitted projects. www.privateplots.at Peter Zöch

Farm in Sonoma Valley, California. Atmosphere, choice of materials and perfect craftsmanship convinced the jury.

Even ten years after the launch of the Biennial of Landscape Architecture in Barcelona interest shows no sign of diminishing. The 650 participants at the 6th Biennial from 30 September to 2 October are proof for this, alongside the 427 submissions for the Rosa Barba Prize from the whole of Europe. On the first day the finalists presented their work to the audience and the jury.

The range of projects on the shortlist illustrated the many different tasks for European landscape architecture and presented a challenge for the jury, who, despite the disparity, had to agree on a winner.

The projects ranged from large parks to cemeteries and design of beach promenades, from minimal poetic interventions to the conversion of a disused airport. For the first time the jury chose a project in Israel. The Rosa Barba Prize went to the redesign of public open spaces at Tel Aviv’s port

by Mayslits Kassif Architects from Tel Aviv (see Topos 67).

The curved timber deck, reminiscent of waves and sand dunes, attracts many visitors and gives impetus to the enhancement of the entire port area. The redevelopment turned a formerly neglected

area of Tel Aviv into a popular recreational destination.

Multi-functional asphalt surfaces with colourful ornamental patterns complement the timber deck. They are used as car parks and for markets or events. Not only the jury favoured the Tel Aviv project but it was also liked by the visitors. They were able to cast their vote and selected the port project for the Biennial Visitors’ Award.

The lectures on the second day were on the theme of “liquid landscapes”. In his introduction Alfred Fernández de la Reguera referred to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and his observations on modern “liquid” living conditions.

The subsequent speakers showed their mostly appealing and interesting projects. However, the choice of the “liquid landscapes” theme seemed arbitrary; nevertheless, the day was generally interesting.

The third day was devoted to China. Kongjian Yu from Turenscape and Sean Chiao from AECOM, amongst others, provided an insight into their diverse planning and design tasks. The China lectures were accompanied with an exhibition on current Chinese projects, albeit in a

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Daniela Orvin

Liquid Landscapes: 6th European Biennial of Landscape Architecture in Barcelona

Vicky Sambunaris

The third prize went to Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture for Stone Edge

CURRENTS

Mayslits Kassif Architects from Tel Aviv were awarded for the design of an open space in Tel Aviv’s port. A curved timber deck reminds of sand dunes and waves.

different location. Two items in the programme remembered Bet Figueras who died in April (see Topos 71). She should have chaired the jury for the 6th Rosa Barba Prize.

Lisa Diedrich highlighted the different aspects of the Catalan landscape architect’s work in her lecture. Excursions to several of her projects in and around Barcelona were laid on. On the occasion of the Biennial a biography was published about the second great Catalan landscape architect who died far too young, and after whom the Rosa Barba Prize was named.

Rosa Barba Casanovas. 1970 – 2000. Works and Words was published at Paisajismo, Asflor Ediciones in Barcelona.

Peter Zöch

Markus Appenzeller, Ruurd Gietema

CITY REGENERATION TODAY City regeneration is not about building cities that look old. A new Renaissance to overcome the “dark ages” of modernism is no sufficient answer to today’s urban challenges. Planning must be informed by nature, evolution, history and a critical evaluation of existing patterns.

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the use of space for human activity rather than the manipulation of stylised convention. ...........

Principle of ModernArchitecturalReSearch (MARS) co-led by Jane Drew

Regeneration and the desire to re-generate supposedly lost treasure is not new. Each and every generation re-generated and therefore regeneration is a concept at the roots of human culture and its development. Without knowing the old – the traditions and the established knowledge – progress is impossible since it would not have any reference. The decline of the Roman Empire for example was paralleled by a huge loss of knowledge. It took about 500 years to recover. The Renaissance was a period where knowledge, technologies and esthetic principles that had been lost were rediscovered – a massive regeneration process that led to the return of classicism in art, architecture and urban design.

Buildings and cities were built that were more ideal than the lost originals. In many cases the supposed reconstruction was the original since the rebuilt “original” never existed.

Great leap backward

HafenCity is the transformation of a former part of the port of Hamburg.The masterplan by KCAP and ASTOC is based on fixed principles and flexible rules.

Today we are facing similar trends. We again are building villages and cities that look as if they are dating back hundreds of years while they are brand new. But a city must not be treated as a work of art. Where architects and urbanists have done it and still do that, they are confusing visual order with a deeper, intrinsic kind of order. The order that people create around them every day when they form social spaces, creates small acts of ordering and solves small human problems. Instead these designers act as if no technological revolution has ever taken place and as if no societal changes have surfaced in the last 200 years.

Well – not exactly: At a closer look all these new old towns are contemporary in providing for the changes that have taken place. They provide parking and all buildings come with all amenities thinkable; they offer typologies that today’s market apparently is looking for. What looks old is just the façade. These places are modernist developments with a historicising – read history

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providing – wrapper for marketing purposes without any rooting in the here and now.We keep criticizing modernism for its finite image of man, its global sameness and the resulting mono-functional environments it created. These developments apart from their pastiche and placement under the heading of regeneration are no different. Both in their content and their appearance, they are a great leap backward.

How to overcome global sameness What was once the driving force behind regeneration, the search for the genius loci, has mutated into concepts applicable universally. The omnipresent harbour crane in every waterfront renewal often is imported from elsewhere, and is not original to the place. Local architectural styles are quoted giving an area a false history and aged appearance. This approach ignores the uninterruptable nature of history and evolution. From the small acts of ordering that continuously take place, larger urban patterns have emerged and evolved, forming clusters of re-usable information. Those are the patterns of the traditional city.

They are not mere stylistic contrivances, but evolutionary adaptations to the transcendent needs of human beings – they form the genius loci.

But what does this mean to regeneration? One should simply give “generation” the weight it has in the word regeneration – the creation of something genuinely new but with an understanding of the collective genius that makes a specific condition. For urbanists, the patterns that have emerged can be re-used in a useful way today under the right adaptive conditions. They should not be eschewed simply because they have been used in the past yet should not blindly and uncritically be applied. But how can we rediscover and combine with the contemporary challenges and universal progress? What happens to the genius?

History can tell us a lot about how to approach this. Many historic cities have shown

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Christian Dobrick

Madrid Rio Landscape architecture as a political means

The masterplan for a 120-hectare site of a reclaimed river bank and a new urban area in the Spanish capital is based on a trilogy of key areas that provide the basic structure: a riverwalk, a large park and a project to rebuild an urban ensemble.The interventions are to restore the urban fabric.

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The paving pattern of the reconstructed Plataforma del Rey (left) and of the Avendia de Portugal (right) reminds of cherry blossom petals. 700 cherry trees grow in the raised lawn along the avenue, which was opened in 2007.

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Rachel Gleeson

Toronto’s Lower Don Lands The Lower Don Lands project in the Canadian metropolis sets forth an ambitious agenda for a comprehensive, ecologically-based urban design built around a landscape framework of big and small parks, multi-modal connections and newly established wildlife habitat.

At the time of the earliest English settlements that eventually became Toronto, the Don River emptied into Ashbridges Marsh, a vast 500 hectare wetland created by interactions between the river and Lake Ontario. Analysis of the gradual transformation of this landscape of shoals, rushes, sandbars, and mudflats into Toronto’s industrial Port Lands reveals a fundamental underlying tension between the dynamism of the geofluvial formations and the immense scale of human-made construction imposed over this natural system.

The natural sediment formation was used as the framework for a massive filling program undertaken in 1912, with the intention of eventually developing the entirety of Asbridges Marsh. The Port Lands development required the construction of 12,300 meters of marine dock walls to channelize and control the hydrologic interactions that had been absorbed in the wetland. Transportation systems, including rail lines and highways, that were developed to support the Port Lands also served to isolate the site from the city. The commercial promise of

the facility was never realized, and the Port Lands neighbourhood has become a strangely quiet zone within one of North America’s densest and most active cities.

The Lower Don Lands plan Reintegrating Toronto’s formerly industrial Lower Don Lands into the city structure will require the resolution of complex environmental, social and economic challenges. Adopting the metaphor of an estuary as a place of interchange and balance between two contiguous systems, the MVVA project team reconsidered the relationship between city and environment.

The result: a comprehensive, ecologically-based urban design built around a landscape framework of big and small parks, multi-modal connections and newly established wildlife habitat.

MVVA’s commission to design the Lower Don Lands evolved from an international competition held in 2007. The scheme distinguished itself by the degree to which landscape systems were employed as the primary engine of urban

transformation. Through its ongoing development, the master plan for the Lower Don Lands explores a diverse range of landscape-based remediation and preservation approaches that operate on an infrastructural scale.

The existing 280-acre site (113 hectares) is largely devoid of natural features, public infrastructure, and neighbourhood amenities. Due to the loss of its marshlands and the limitations of the Keating Channel, which is currently the major outlet for the river, Toronto communities adjacent to the Don are vulnerable to flooding.

Silt deposition, exacerbated by the channel’s abrubt 90 degree turn, also posed an ongoing problem, requiring periodic dredging.

The competition brief suggested naturalising the current Keating Channel outfall, an idea that the team rejected based on hydrologic modeling. Restoring the original natural condition was also not an option due to the fact that the project site is only a fraction of the size of Ashbridges Marsh and therefore cannot effectively perform the same ecological function. Instead, the team proposed a naturalised

The diagrams highlight different key components of the comprehensive urban design for the Lower Don Lands. Systems are mutually supportive, for instance, the recreational opportunities of the large park are made possible by the new flood control measures introduced as a part of the naturalized river mouth.

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