MA Landscape Architecture Dissertation by Lesley Maria Perez

Tending into space

Landscape as Choreographic Object

Abstract

Embodied cognition is a growing area of contemporary architecture discourse, exploring the role that the physical body plays in shaping much of the meaning we take from everyday experiences. This frames both architecture and landscape architecture as ‘body-in-space’ practices that acknowledge the ways in which our bodies read environments. This essay suggests that engagement with other ‘body-in-space’ practices such as dance can help designers deepen their understanding of embodied cognition. Dance is of particular relevance since it is based on movement, which is the body’s most primary way of interacting with space. Dance theories relating to space and the body’s experience of it such as those by Rudolph Laban illustrate the importance of movement in enhancing perception and awareness. It is argued that a choreographic approach to movement in public spaces

could inform designs that seek to foster lasting connections between people and place. Building on William Forsythe’s Choreographic Objects concept, Brooklyn Bridge Park by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates is explored as a case study of a richly experiential landscape that employs some tactics of choreographic design. If a more thorough consideration of movement is to be integrated in design processes, alternative modes of architectural drawing relying less on pictorial representation will need to be considered. Existing systems of movement notation including Labanotation and Motation are critiqued as examples that could inform future body-in-space designers.

The essay concludes by reasserting the value of a choreographic approach to landscape architecture as a way of activating our instinctive embodied learning sense to create deep-rooted comprehension.

A Master’s Dissertation by Lesley M Perez

Tending into Space: Landscape as Choreograhic Object A Master’s Dissertation by Lesley M Perez University of Greenwich MA Landscape Architecture London, February 2016 ID 00857506–1

Contents

Part 1

The Body in Space Introduction . . . . . 07 Dance, space and the body . . . . . 08 Corporeal knowledge . . . . . 09 Applied choreography . . . . . 10

Part 2

Brooklyn Bridge ParkÂ as ChoreographicÂ Object Introduction . . . . . 14 Activating the kinestetic sense . . . . . 15 Scale/Theatricality . . . . . 18 Sensuality and the felt body . . . . . 20

Part 3

Choreographic futures Introduction . . . . . 23 Notation systems . . . . . 23 Conclusion . . . . . 26

Bibliography . . . . . 31 List of Illustrations . . . . . 33

(Total word count: 4566)

Tending into Space

Lesley M Perez

Tending into Space

Part 1: The Body in Space

In the planning of public space in the postmodern age, a commonly voiced goal is that of encouraging deep-rooted connections between people and environment. These connections are deemed essential to creating highly ‘valued’ landscapes that successfully fuse communities with a sense of place. At the same time, there has been much discourse in architecture and related fields on the role of embodied cognition in shaping everyday meaning and experience. If our bodies indeed ‘supplement and define’ the experience of the city as Pallasmaa states, then how can we consider this relationship more thoroughly as a catalyst for connection? One method must be through a deeper examination of the body in space by forging links with another body in space practice: dance. As an artform, dance possesses a unique type of knowledge of the human body borne primarily from the the body itself. Using a highly attuned physical awareness, or proprioception, developed over time, dancers are able to articulate space and create meaningful relationships through movement. Merleau-Ponty observes that “our bodily experience of movement is not a particular case of knowledge; it provides us with a way of access to the world and the object, with a ‘praktognosia’, which has to be recognised as original and perhaps as primary” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, 162). With movement as its core, dance can be said to possess a particularly intimate ‘praktognosia’ that is useful to consider in the quest for richer embodied relationships across other disciplines. This essay investigates embodiment, cognition and connection through body/space relationships as explored in dance theory. Informed by principles of somaesthetics and haptic perception, it proposes that a deeper consideration of movement in public landscapes can engage participants more corporeally thereby inviting more intuitive sense-making and connection to place. Finally, it explores ways in which landscape architects might invite movement through a choreographic approach to design. An analysis of Brooklyn Bridge Park by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates is provided as an example of an experientially rich urban landscape project that demonstrates a range of choreographic-style thinking for its visitors.

Tending into Space

Dance, space and the body A fundamental link between dance and architecture has to do with the structuring and manipulation of subjects in space. The starting point for both being how space itself is defined and created. Pioneering dance theorist Rudolph Laban was deeply absorbed by the question of space, viewing it as not simply constructed by geometry and form, but rather by “a superabundance of simultaneous movements” (Thornton, 1971, 28). Laban saw the study of movement as a way to “penetrate more deeply into the nature of space, and to give a living experience to its unity with time” (Laban, 1984, 36). The challenge being to overcome an understanding of space that was altogether too casual, linear and visual, and not rooted enough in the body and its interactions with the world. In their investigations in the links between dance and architecture, Bronet and Schumacher identify two types of space that build on Laban’s own criticisms: 1) the “readymade space of the eye”, and; 2) the “space in-the-making of the body” (Bronet & Schumacher, 1999, 97). Here visual, readymade space presents a tableau for consumption. It is not relational other than in the value of one item in the composition compared to the next. Space-in-the-making on the other hand is fully affiliative and participatory, challenging the hegemony of readymade space and forming new meanings (Fig 1). The two modes can also be interpreted as reading space vs. experiencing it. In the first instance, space at a distance proves deceptively legible, in the same way that de Certeau’s voyeur of the city is able to look down from on high and comprehend the order of it all. However there exists an entirely separate dimension of space that one can only access by contributing to its construction through movement.

A comparison (Bronet & Schumacher) space (of the eye)

Fig1. Bronet & Schumacher compare space (of the eye) and movement, pointing out that visual space tends to present a hegemony that can lead to patterning and habituation.

vs.

movement

political boundaries

natural boundaries

read-made status (arbitrary/conferred)

status-in-the making (between us as an order of movement)

primacy of the eye

primacy of the body

reading/viewing

eyes moving with the head

ready-made space

space-in-the making

For Laban, this reciprocal aspect of movement was of particular importance, for it fostered a relational type of understanding (to one’s own physicality), which encourages man to “apply the mind-body relationship beyond himself” (Thornton, 1971, 24). Through becoming more physically aware of movement one can also perceive the patterns and variations expressed by the people around him/her, expanding knowledge of space, of others and of one’s relation to the world in general.

Lesley M Perez

Corporeal knowledge Laban’s theories on space have been evolved and extended through more recent research into somaesthetics. Richard Shusterman defines somaesthetics as the study of “the living, sentient, purposive, perceptive intelligent body through which one perceives the world” (Shusterman, 2012, 2). He identifies bodily, sensory cognition as central to aesthetic appreciation, and argues that cultivating our somaesthetic sense can help to improve overall perception, awareness and action. The belief being that sense-making through the physical body enables one to gain a deeper, more intuitive understanding of the world than is possible through purely visual means. “The soma is thus what enables us to appreciate not only the visual effects and structural design features that rely on perceiving distance and depth, but also the multisensorial feelings of moving through space (with their kinaesthetic, tactile, proprioceptive qualities) that are crucial to the experience of living with, in, and through architecture” (Shusterman, 2012, 7). Somatic, corporeal knowledge relates body to place, imparting information on things like topography, exposure, position, and materiality based on the body’s responses to the environment it moves within. Importantly, this type of everyday physical interaction has also been shown to form long-lasting connections: “through unselfconscious knowledge registered in the physical body and in memory, we evolve a deep understanding of the identity of places and strengthen our emotional connections with them” (O’Neil, 2001, 4).

Tending into Space

Fig 2. Movement studies by Rudolph Laban. Laban understood movement as an elastic ‘cataract of forms’ that allows man to experience the multi-dimensionality of space. (Thornton, 1971)

Tending into Space

Applied choreography If true experiential space is realised primarily through bodily movement and participation, then modes of designing movement are essential to the development of rich landscape spaces. A significant concept is that of the “choreographic object”, as developed by dancer and choreographer William Forsythe. Recognising the potential for choreography to extend beyond the realm of dance, Forsythe’s approach specifically investigates applied choreographic thinking on sites other than the direct body. As in somaesthetics, a choreographic object first acknowledges the body as primary in reading and perceiving signals from its environment. Knowing this, it then utilises phenomena to project movement and instigate action from those that come into contact with it. “A choreographic object is not a substitute for the body, but rather an alternative site for the understanding of potential instigation and organization of action to reside” (Forsythe, 2011, 90). As a dancer, Forsythe makes an important differentiation between the choreographic act and object, with the former being wholly ephemeral and only existing in the moments of its performance. By registering the principles of choreographic practice the object allows choreography to persist in a more durable state that can in turn be received by numerous bodies over time. This choreographic implementation is by nature suggestive, as it elicits unique responses from each participant based on their own individually developed proprioceptive sense.

“Choreography elicits action upon action: an environment of grammatical rule governed by exception...” William Forsythe

Lesley M Perez

Tending into Space

Experiments with this approach can be seen across a series of installations and environmental projects Forsythe has realised over the past twenty years (Fig 3), including one example, ‘Aviariation’, that works with a familiar landscape material: trees. In this piece, the rustling branches of chestnut trees in a public square are artificially exaggerated in order to elicit attention and intensify the kinetic potential of the space.

Choreographic Objects (William Forsythe) Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time places dancers in a room of hanging pendulums with no instructions other than to explore the kinetic potentials of a moving space.

White Bouncy Castle aims for a ‘complete physical destabilisation’ of the body leading to physical and social euphoria. Everyone who enters the space becomes a participant.

Fig 3. Examples of Forsythe’s Choreographic Object installations. Additional projects can be seen at www.williamforsythe.de

Tending into Space

Starting in the 1950’s, Lawrence Halprin was one of the first landscape architects to explore movement as a primary function of space. Influenced especially by ongoing collaborations with his wife Anna, herself a pioneering modern dancer immersed in dance pedagogy, Halprin believed that man’s “movement is the purpose for space, and it should function to activate his kinesthetic experience” (Halprin, 1972, 197). With a keen desire to design spaces for motion and physical awareness, Halprin prioritised multi-sensory elements over compositional principles in his practice (Wasserman, 2012, 38). In his view, this approach was particularly important to landscape architecture as it must design using the complexities of nature, ecologies and time, which are all inherently at odds with the construction of readymade spaces.

Fig 4. Portland Open Space Sequence by Lawrence Halprin.

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Tending into Space

Fig 5. Dancers on Anna Halprin’s dance deck.

The project that perhaps best foreshadows Forsythe’s later investigations is the out-of-doors dance deck Halprin created in the 1970’s for his wife at their home in California (Fig 5). Notably, the deck was constructed of a irregular shape determined by the surrounding trees that overlooked it, with no enclosure. By breaking with traditional conventions of stage design and also being open to the changing phenomena of the surrounding environment, the deck was able to powerfully re-orientate the dancers that interacted with it: “‘Since there is an ever-changing form and texture and light around you, a certain drive develops towards constant experimentation and change in dance itself. In a sense one becomes less introverted, less dependent on sheer invention, and more out going and receptive to environmental change… Movement within a moving space, I have found, is different than movement within a static cube’” (quote from Anna Halprin in Wasserman, 2012, 37) Both Halprin and Forsythe recognised that sensory-rich environments have the ability to create immersive, highly kinetic spaces. Through their combined work we can begin to envisage another dimension of landscapes as large-scale ‘choreographic objects’ that activate a variety of individual actions in order to create places of reorientation, heightened engagement and experience.

Tending into Space

Part 2: Brooklyn Bridge Park as Choreographic Object

Since Haprin, there have been few landscape architects to investigate movement in their work in such a central way. However there are examples of designed landscapes that seem to prioritise experience over form, or where a more haptic understanding of experience seems to have been a generator of form. One such project is 85-acre waterfront that is Brooklyn Bridge Park by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. Van Valkenburgh has said of his firm’s approach: “we prefer designs that are more like collages of activity, seeking a mix of program and treating the ecological pieces as park program as well” (Green, 2014). Brooklyn Bridge Park is a prime example of this focus, being variously described as “a park of hundreds of carefully designed opportunities for providing pleasure” (Saunders, 33, 2013), “a landscape that you can almost get lost in” (Fodarero, 2015), and “exhilarating and a place to return to in different light and seasons” (Raver, 2014). The essential structure of the park is a long, linear space comprised of a sequence of large piers, each conceived as a distinct experience (Fig 6). There are spaces for various ball sports, for kayaking, picnicking, exploring nature, people-watching, children’s play, and for events such as outdoor cinema, art, yoga, and concerts.

Fig 6. Site plan, Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Lesley M Perez

Tending into Space

Fig 7. Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Various texural levels allow sequences of engagement with the water’s edge.

Van Valkenburg cites an important aspect in the park’s design genesis: “When we were planning Brooklyn Bridge Park, people kept telling us how much they wanted to be able to touch the water” (Amelar, 2011). This definitive moment in the park’s experience expands outward into a consideration of the many varied sequences that bring people and the water’s edge together. “The experience of the park is to be defined by shifting encounters with that edge. Visitors will always be negotiating it: the pathways will frame their views of the skyline and the bridges, and they’ll be constantly faced with a choice of paths to walk—close to the water, up on higher ground, or on bridges and piers somehow in between” (Blum, 2006). Although not explicitly utilising the full language of choreography, the project does seem to engage visitors corporeally as evidenced by the broad animation of the landscape visible on any given day. Its diverse variety of spaces creates a rich environment that manages to provide for both individual exploration and shared activity. Van Valkenbugh and others involved have expressed that a key design priority has been the creation of plentiful ‘experiences’ that serve to enrich time and place (Saunders, 2013). But what are the elements that help to characterise these experiences? From a choreographic perspective, what are some of the tactics can be said to contribute to various manifestations of activity?

Activating the kinesthetic sense Anna Halprin’s previously noted observations on her dance deck highlight the uniqueness of ‘movement within a moving space’ (Wasserman, 2012, 37). Activating a space through the rhythm of structural elements, the coordination of environmental phenomena, or through drawing attention to the movement patterns of others are several ways of inviting kinesthetic feedback. In Brooklyn Bridge park the lively surrounding water is a great asset in this regard, with the design manipulating the water’s edge so that natural hydrologic activity is amplified. The ability to interact with water through dip-downs and activities such as kayaking brings this activity into direct contact with the physical body. Introduced elements within the landscape also serve to highlight variations: “you can watch the tide rising and falling among exposed piles and moving up and down the boat ramp edged by a spiral of riprap, the big chunky stones that edge the shoreline” (Raver, 2014)

Tending into Space

Fig 8. Wooden piles punctuating the water’s edge on the south side of Pier 1.

(Fig 8). Legibility seems to be a key concern, with the design asking first and foremost for people to recognise the inherent dynamism of the site. Special consideration has been given to specific elements in order that they not interfere with the discernment of movement: “The lighting is all held back, so that when you are near the water’s edge at night, there isn’t this barrier of light between you and the experience of the water moving” (Shapiro, 2012). The other obvious way BBP seeks to activate spaces is through an emphasis on programme. Throughout the park, a multitude of planned recreational activities sit alongside more unstructured experiences suggested by the landscape itself (Fig 9). In many areas, the simple act of people-watching becomes a kinetic activity, with landscape features drawing attention to certain movements, putting them on a subtle stage for others to watch. The intent here being to “intermingle people, activities, and environment in ways that belie the division of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ park visitors” (Berritzbeita, 2009, 247). This has the effect of promoting shared experiences even when engaged in individual activity. From a Laban-esque point of view, it can be said to facilitate the type of relational understanding of space that helps a person become more aware of movement and their links to fellow man and the world in general.

Lesley M Perez

Tending into Space

Directing activity Brooklyn Bridge Park in t

e rm

ingling boating basin

fish-cleaning tables

sig

picnic area

in t

e rm

lin

ingling play lawn

fish-cleaning tables

play area

In certain areas of the park, programme is highly specified. Yet these are usually accompanied by more passive spaces such as lawns and beaches that look out onto the areas of recreation.

multi-purpose lawns

sightli

boating basin

bike lane habitat island

sightli

ne beach

The cable and plank construction of Pier 1’s Squibb Bridge allows it to bounce underfoot, reorientating ordinary movement and inviting play.

Fig 9.

Tending into Space

Scale / Theatricality Any dancer knows the difference between leaps on a small stage and those within a larger expanse; the ways in which spaces are delineated have a great effect on the intensity and extent of our movements. Inside Brooklyn Bridge Park, as in many of Van Valkenburgh’s landscapes, attention is given to “the importance of bigness” (Davis, 2010). Accents such as extra-tall lampposts have been specified to add to the sense of scale (Fig 10a), signalling to visitors that there is a lot of space to occupy. “Big moves orient and reorient you to river and city views. On Pier One’s landfill, a new 29-foot-high hill tilts toward the water. An amphitheater and a wide stair of rough-hewn granite blocks — salvaged from recently repaired or replaced New York City bridges — step down like raked theatrical seating opening to the panorama”

Fig 10. Theatricality at Brooklyn Bridge Park

(a) Overlooked by extra-tall lampposts, sunbathers seek out the curvature of the landscape.

(b) Ampitheatre-like steps put pedestrians and the river on show.

Lesley M Perez

Tending into Space

(Amelar, 2011) (Fig 10d). But the park’s design goes further through the element of contrast, playing expansive, area-defining gestures off smaller more complex spaces. It recognises the very human fact that we all bring fluctuating emotions to bear on our daily experience of landscape: “some days we want to go to the edge of the water and breathe in the harbor, and other times we want to be held and sheltered, and feel more private and introverted” (Shapiro, 2012). By ensuring different temperaments are provided for, the landscape also imparts multiple embodied readings. The resulting sense of space is grand in places and highly intimate in others. As such it allows movement activity to naturally vacillate between the public and the personal (Fig 10c, 10d).

(d) More intimate areas framed by backdrops of grandness have become natural stages.

Tending into Space

Sensuality and the felt body In his enquiry into choreographic objects, Forsythe highlights the essential role of external instigations that recognise the body as “wholly designed to persistently read every signal from its environment” (Forsythe, 2011, 91). In addition to receiving kinetic and scale-based signals, the body of course is also activated sensorily, through smell, sound and especially through touch. Van Valkenburgh has said of his overarching design philosophy: “the sensual aspects are what I care most deeply about in our medium. Materiality is therefore crucial to my firm’s work” (Green, 2014). Across Brooklyn Bridge Park details such as salvaged wood benches, recycled granite blocks and rugged wooden piles speak to the history of the site, while large area-defining boulders, loose stones for waves to crash noisily against, lush sloping lawns, intricately planted meadows and verdant, burgeoning borders create a richly tactile environment that develops a strong identity with exploration and repeated experience (Fig 11). One distinct method Van Valkenburgh Associates employ across their work to amplify the physical sensations of a landscape is something the practice terms ‘hyper-nature’. In their own words, an ‘exaggeration of naturalism’ helps to create “a sense of experiential drama that makes [a] place feel powerful while also belonging to where it is” (Green, 2014). Hypernature is manifest in Brooklyn Bridge Park most evidently through a dramatic manipulation of topography. The designers have rallied against the site’s original ‘tyranny of flatness’ by creating an artificially undulating terrain that shapes space as it moves visitors through the landscape (Fig 12). Principal designer Matthew Urbanski cites the creation of a dramatic 30-foot hill in the centre of Pier One as a way to draw visitors in to the centre of the vast space while also creating adjoining areas of distinctly different character

Fig 11. Kayakers step out with bare feet onto a rocky shore, while onlookers clamber over boulders and wide stone steps.

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Tending into Space

Fig 12. An undulating terrain shapes the experience of the park, carving out more intimate spaces and framing views.

(Davis, 2010). Of the significant large ridge built up along the eastern edge of the park, Van Valkenburgh points out that not only does it serve to buffer noise from the adjacent Brooklyn Queens Expressway, but it also acts as an important ‘landscape embrace’ for those walking along the park’s meandering paths (Van Valkenburgh, 2010). It is clear that such features were not drawn up on plan to contribute formal legibility to an overall design. Instead they reflect Van Valkenburgh’s desire for richness and experiential range drawn from an ongoing prioritisation of the felt body over geometric order.

Tending into Space

The tactics described herein are just a small sampling of methods for thinking about landscapes choreographically. If we accept Forsythe’s view of choreography as the practice of eliciting “action upon action” (Forsythe, 2011, 90), than almost any instigation becomes a relevant choreographic tool. I argue simply that these instigations should be primarily based on the body or soma as recipient, rather than the visual aesthetic field. Van Valkenburgh’s Brooklyn Bridge Park is useful in demonstrating a scattering of ways in which methods of somatic engagement are already being used by landscape architects across their work. However it is clear that while overall ‘experience’ may be highly considered by many, few if any contemporary practitioners are specifically investigating movement as generator of design. When Van Valkenburgh does explicitly speak of the ‘choreography of space’, he only goes so far as to reference the pedestrian practice of walking: “walks and stairs are the engines of design... the park’s main circuit of pathways forms a lopsided figure eight, with twists and turns like a dancer’s spin across a stage” (Dietz, 2011, 21) (Fig 13). For landscapes to have true potential as choreographic objects, designers will need to consider how our bodies read, respond to and shape space much more thoroughly. This may require new modes of conceptualising, and particularly an incorporation of design practices that place less emphasis on visual hierarchies and order.

Fig 13. Pier 1’s paths affect a sinuous experience of moving through space. However pathways are just one of many tools in a choreographer’s.

Lesley M Perez

Part 3: Choreographic futures

Tending into Space

Early in the 1960’s, Halprin did recognise that traditional architectural modes of drawing were limiting to the creative process of movement design, asserting that “in order to design for movement, a whole new system of conceptualizing must be undertaken” (Halprin, 1972, 208). His concerns presage those of James Corner, who in a 1999 essay also emphasizes the criticality of appropriate new imaging techniques and processes in terms of shifting conceptual landscape practice towards a future that places precedence on “performance and event… over appearance and sign” (Corner, 1999, 159).

Notation systems

leg body arm

step

Specifically in terms of imaging movement, different systems of notational representation have indeed been developed since Laban’s early investigations into movement theory. Tara Munjee points to three of these: Labanotation (Fig 14), Motif Writing, and Motation, the latter of which being the system Lawrence Halprin went onto create. Labanotation and Motif Writing both focus on describing gesture and quality of physical movement using a graphic notational score and (in the case of Motif Writing) accompanying words on a vertical track. In both systems marks describe a physical movement sequence, working on the presumption that that movement is occuring within in a relatively singular, non-moving space (Munjee, 2015) (Fig 15). In comparison to these, Motation is unique in addressing the effect of a changing environment on the experience of movement. Although utilising a similarly vertical, graphic score, the Motation system is directed at describing a route through a sequence of spaces and the features along that route as they relate to the person in motion, affecting one’s kinesthetic sense (Fig 16).

F LF

RB B

deep level

Fig 14. Basic Labanotation. Markings are based along a central axis (torso), with shading indicating weight levels. Notation runs along a vertical track that is read from bottom to top.

medium level

high level

time subdivision

start of movement starting position

directional markings

time markings

combined sequence

Tending into Space

Movement in a fixed space Labanotation + Motif Writing Fig 15. Comparison of notation in Labanotation and Motif Writing. Labanotation is a detailed method for recording movement, while Motif Writing is a more impressionistic language that aims to capture the general gist of a sequence.

do a scattering movement with the left arm

x pause

put the hands on the waist

x have a focused attitude

C x

Labanotation

change the body’s supporting body parts

begin in a centred, neutral position

Motif Writing

Despite this apparent breakthrough, Halprin’s system also reveals the shortcomings of his own movement practice in relation to the type of embodied, corporeal perception previously described. Motation was developed to record movement through space and as such its notations are made with regards to a single journey. Primary markings record ‘what is to be visually inventoried’ along the progression of one field of view, orientated ahead (Halprin, 1966, 28). As a dance artist, Munjee picks up on the fact that this sidesteps a consideration of how environmental stimuli then shape the body’s own experience of itself, and goes on to suggest that a combinatorial approach to notation might better suit the choreographer interested in both kinetic spatial sequences and somatic interpretation: “an urban designer or architect who creates plastic environments to facilitate human mobility may opt to use Motation as a base notation, and then add qualitative elements from Motif Writing to indicate significant ideas on bodily shaping” (Munjee, 2015, 140). In envisaging the potential of landscape as choreographic object, these qualitative possibilities are indeed of critical importance as they are directly related to how we build somaesthetic knowledge about our environments. But beyond qualitative interpretation, designers will also need to imagine both space and our kinesthetic sense as shaped by the shared performance

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Tending into Space

Movement in a moving space Motation Fig 16. Motation of a car journey. The basic form consists of two parallel tracks that are divided into sequential frames and read vertically. The ‘Horizontal Track’, (left) records the path of travel in an environment. The ‘Vertical Track’, (right) records items in the traveller’s field of vision.

of movement. Halprin’s system targets the relational effect of a moving environment, yet neglects to address the ways in which the many actions of others also activate space and have a significant impact on experience: “Mirror neurons mediate internal simulation of the observed action with the activation of the motor system, which resounds with movements and body states performed by other individuals and witnessed by the observer….This acknowledgement of the other’s action, makes us feel as if ‘we were the other’ when seeing them in a certain situation or executing a certain movement. Empathy is deeply rooted in the body experience–in the live body–and this experience is what enables us to recognise the others as people like us” (Ribeiro & Fonseca, 2011, 79). With landscape choreography encompassing a seasonal, changing environment of phenomenological instigations, the responsive body, and the layering of movements across groups and across time, a quest for any singular ideal representational method may be a misguided task. Rather, the notational methods examined herein are valuable reference points in an experimentation with non-pictorial design toolsets that assist iterative, exploratory processes relating physical design moves to their multiple embodied movement potentials.

Tending into Space

Conclusion Laban wrote that “All movement tends into space, both the space around us and the space within us” (Laban, 1984, 54). Movement makes us all spacemakers. It allows direct connection with the places we come into contact with through the accumulation and application of bodily knowledge. Employing the perceptive capacity of the moving body is key to creating experientially memorable places that invite interaction, cognition and empathy. Merleau-Ponty reminds us that “consciousness is being-towards-the-thing through the intermediary of the body... to move one’s body is to aim at things through it; it is to allow oneself to respond to their call, which is made upon it independently of any representation” (Merleau-Ponty, 159-60). The landscapes which most call upon our bodies are participatory places that open themselves up to being co-written by the many actions that take place on their terrain. By encouraging and conversing with these actions designers can engage our instinctive embodied learning sense and create places of ‘deep-rooted comprehension’ (O’Neil, 2001, 10). Landscape as choreographic object is a mindset that reorientates traditional architectural practice by asking designers to let the study of action over aesthetics guide form. Since choreography is essentially an investigation into how relationships unfold, it also facilitates a creative approach that moves beyond the absolute, accepting chance and interpretation as intrinsic to a project’s becoming. Through an ongoing engagement with other movement arts such as dance, landscape practice can learn much about ways of informing the physical body. This also include encouragement of the simple act of thinking like a dancer in the discernment of everyday movements, working towards the goal of nurturing the designer’s own proprioceptive sense. If bodily movement is the most direct way in which a person perceives space and time, then investigating movement experience as a formative design question can help create landscapes that put people at their core.

Lesley M Perez

Bibliography Barbacci, S. (2002). Labanotation: a universal movement notation language. Masters. ISAS. Berrizbeitia, A. (2009). Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: Reconstructing Urban Landscapes. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Blum, A. (2006). The Active Edge - Metropolis Magazine. [online] Metropolismag.com. Available at: http://www.metropolismag.com/ March-2006/The-Active-Edge/ [Accessed 1 Nov. 2015]. Bronet, F. & Schumacher, J. (1999). ‘Design in Movement: The Prospects of Interdisciplinary Design’, Journal Of Architectural Education, 53, 2, pp. 97-109. Brooklyn Bridge Park, (2008). Design and Phasing Presentation. Davis, B and Schaer J. (2010). ‘An Interview with Matthew Urbanski’, Places Journal, Available at: https://placesjournal.org/article/building-brooklynbridge-park-an-interview-with-matthew-urbanski/ [Accessed 12 Oct 2015]. Ersoy, Z. (2011). ‘’Building Dancing’: Dance within the Context of Architectural Design Pedagogy’, International Journal Of Art & Design Education, 30, 1, pp. 123–132. Forsythe, W. (2011). Choreographic Objects. In: S. Spier, ed., William Forsythe and the Practice of Choreography, 1st ed. Abingdon: Rutledge, pp.90–92. Foster, SL. (2002). ‘Walking and Other Choreographic Tactics: Danced Inventions of Theatricality and Performativity’, Substance: A Review Of Theory & Literary Criticism, 31, 2/3, pp. 125–146. Green, J. (2014). Interview with Michael Van Valkenburgh, FASLA. [online] Asla.org. Available at: http://www.asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=29648 [Accessed 1 Nov. 2015]. Halprin, L. (1972). Cities. Revised ed. Cambridge [Mass.]: M.I.T. Press. Hirsch, AB. (2011). ‘Scoring the Participatory City: Lawrence (& Anna) Halprin’s Take Part Process’, Journal Of Architectural Education, 64, 2, pp. 127–140. Khan, O. & Hannah, D. (2008). ‘Performance/Architecture’, Journal Of Architectural Education, 61, 4, pp. 52–58. Laban, R. and Ullmann, L. (1984). A Vision of Dynamic Space. London: Laban Archives in association with Falmer. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2005). Phenomenology of Perception. London; New York: Routledge.

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Merriman, P. (2010). ‘Architecture/dance: Choreographing and Inhabiting Spaces with Anna and Lawrence Halprin’, Cultural Geographies, 17, 4, pp. 427–449. Munjee, T. (2015). ‘Single or multiple? Looking at location in movement notation’, Research in Dance Education, 16, 2, pp. 128–141. O’Neill, ME. (2001). ‘Corporeal Experience: A Haptic Way of Knowing’, Journal of Architectural Education, 55, 1, pp. 3–12. Ouroussoff, N. (2010). Brooklyn Bridge Park Opens First Phase of Large Project. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: http://www.nytimes. com/2010/04/02/arts/design/02bridge.html [Accessed 12 Nov. 2015]. Pallasmaa, J. (2012). The Eyes of the Skin. Chichester, West Sussex [U.K.]: Wiley. Peterson, K, DeCato, L, & Kolb, D 2015, ‘Moving and Learning’, Journal Of Experiential Education, 38, 3, pp. 228–244. Raver, A. (2014). Hey, Mister, I’ve Got a Park I Can Sell You. [online] Nytimes. com. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/arts/design/heymister-ive-got-a-park-i-can-sell-you.html [Accessed 17 October 2015]. Ribeiro, M. & Fonseca, A. (2011). The Empathy and the Structuring Sharing Modes of Movement Sequences in the Improvisation of Contemporary Dance, Research in Dance Education, 12, 2, 71–85 Saunders, W. (2013). ‘The Urban Landscaper’, Harvard Magazine, 116, 2, pp. 32–36, 94–95. Shapiro, G. (2012). Emotional Landscapes: Interview with Landscape Architect Michael Van Valkenburgh - Guggenheim Blogs. [online] Guggenheim Blogs. Available at: http://blogs.guggenheim.org/lablog/emotional-landscapesinterview-with-landscape-architect-michael-van-valkenburgh/ [Accessed 1 November. 2015]. Thornton, S. (1971). A Movement Perspective of Rudolph Laban. London [U.K.]: MacDonald & Evans. Van Valkenburgh, M. (2012). Gardner Museum Landscape Lectures, Available at: http://www.gardnermuseum.org/landscape/lectures/past/michael_van_ valkenburgh [Accessed 6 November 2015]. Wasserman, J. (2012). ‘A World in Motion: The Creative Synergy of Lawrence and Anna Halprin’, Landscape Journal, 31, 1/2, pp. 33–52.

Lesley M Perez

Tending into Space

List of Illustrations Fig 1. A comparison of space and Movement (Bronet & Schumacher, 1999) . . . . . p8 Fig 2. Movement sketches by Rudolph Laban (Laban & Ullmann, 1984) . . . . . p9 Fig 3. Choreographic Objects by William Forsythe (www.williamforsythe.de) . . . . . p11 Fig 4. Portland Open Space Sequence (©The Halprin Landscape Conservancy) . . . . . p12–13 Fig 5. Anna Halprin’s dance deck (©The Halprin Archives) . . . . . p13 Fig 6. Site plan, Brooklyn Bridge Park (Adapted from [Brooklyn Bridge Park, 2008]) . . . . . p14 Fig 7. Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge (CC Image by of Eiwe Lingefors on Flickr) . . . . . p15 Fig 8. Pier 1 wooden piles (Image author’s own) . . . . . p16 Fig 9. Pier 3 activity diagram (adapted from [Brooklyn Bridge Park, 2008]) . . . . . p17 Squibb Bridge (©The New York Times) . . . . . p17 Fig 10. Pier 1 sunbathers (CC Image by Chris Brueckner on Flickr) . . . . . p18 The Granite Prospect (©Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce) . . . . . p18 Play fountains (CC Image by Shinya Suzuki on Flickr) . . . . . p19 Wedding ceremony under the bridge (©Curtain Up Events.) . . . . . p19 Fig 11. Kayak launch (CC Image by Charlie on Flickr) . . . . . p20 Fig 12. Pier 1 hills (CC Image by Chris Brueckner on Flickr) . . . . . p21 Fig 13. Pier 1 aerial photograph (©Toll Brothers and Starwood Capital Group) . . . . . p22 Fig 14. Basic Labanotation (Diagrams adapted from [Barbacci, 2002]) . . . . . p23 Fig 15. A comparison of Labanotation and Motif Writing (adapted from [Munjee, 2015]) . . . . . p24 Fig 16. Motation example (adapted from [Munjee, 2015]) . . . . . p25

“By considering the body in movement, we can see better how it inhabits space (and moreover, time) because movement is not limited to submitting passively to space and time, it actively assumes them, it takes them up in their basic significance which is obscured in the commonplaces of established situations.” —Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

A Master’s Dissertation by Lesley M Perez