Architecture as landscape by Marija Ant

author:

MARIJA ANTIKJ thesis relator: prof. SANDRO ROLLA

MASTER THESIS IN SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE OF MULTI- SCALE PROJECTS

MARIJA ANTIKJ thesis relator: prof. SANDRO ROLLA

POLITECNICO DI MILANO SCUOLA DI ARCHITETTURA E SOCIETA-SEDE DI PIACENZA LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN ARCHITETTURA A.C. 2014/2015

CONTENT

ABSTRACT / INTRODUCTION WORKING WITH LAND (LITERATURE REVIEW)

1 2 - 17

> landscape in the contemporary discourse > landscape as cultural phenomenon > landscape, architecture and infrastructure > landscape as process > landscape as form > conclusion

ANAMNESIS

19 - 25

STRATEGY

27- 37

> the island > the city > the site

> program infusion > urban strategy > architectural strategy

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MASTER THESIS IN SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE OF MULTI- SCALE PROJECTS

ARCHITECTURE AS LANDSCAPE STRATEGIES FOR PRESERVING THE IDENTITY OF LANDSCAPE IN URBAN CONTEXT

INTRODUCTION As global urbanization continues with a fast pace, territories are more often viewed as seamless artificial landscapes, with no physical boundaries. The distinction between urban and rural, between city and countryside becomes blurred and irrelevant in the discussions about the contemporary city. So the discourse of urbanism is widened. Besides the usual interest for the urban form it is taking into consideration landscapes, ecosystems, connections, networks, territories, infrastructures. Unlike the urban landscapes, the countryside is generally shaped neither by aesthetic nor symbolic aims, but by pragmatic considerations concerning its productivity. The capacity of people to shape the landscape is particularly evident in aerial views of the patchworks of intensively cultivated land. The vivid horticultural blocks against an organic texture of dry land is a profound view. And together with the natural and human made scarring of roadways, rivers, cutaways breaking the land's surface, make us aware of the process going on over a territory. This layering on the surface of different human activities creates a sort of palimpsest space. However, in quantitative terms of the contemporary world, agricultural land is undergoing a process of devaluation, due to the push for the competitive export- oriented farming and the development of agricultural biotechnology. Globally there has been a massive exodus from farmland as agriculture is further mechanized and the development of the society is no longer connected to the productivity of landscape. The centrifugal growth of cities relentlessly continues to consume once productive territory and agricultural land is slowly abandoned as a result of socio- economic factors such as immigration into areas where new economic opportunities are offered to rural people. Tourism and recreation rapidly replace agriculture as the main drive that was once used to create sustainable communities and landscape is slowly taken over by the urban sprawl. As the French theorist of urban landscape Sebastien Marot, who is exploring the changing role and revival of landscape states, the adaptation to new economies without the complete loss of "identity" demands innovation and convergence of agrarian peasantry and urban design. Marot identifies four steps in the study and projection of site-based landscapes: anamnesis, or recollection of previous history; preparation for and the staging of new conditions; three-dimensional sequencing; and relational structuring. "Anamnesis" views land and public space as an expression of ancient culture, or as a palimpsest that shows all of the unique

activities that contributed to the shaping of that particular landscape and no other; sites are inherited and eventual project bequests. Seeing the importance of any act taken over a landscape, it becomes important for the contemporary architecture, whose interest is broadening as fast as the urbanization discourse is changing and taking over the rural, to answer the questions such as how to intervene in particular landscapes that have been a result of layering of different programs over time and at the end abandoned; how can this continuity of layering enrich a space; how can a specific landscape take part in a public existence of the urban surrounding, once taken over, and still keep its identity and the identity of its context, without giving into the menace of the endless urban sprawl; how can landscape be used as a tool by architecture to retrieve memory, culturally enrich a place by developing new uses and activities but still keep the local characteristics and values. Tenerife Island is a volcanic island, whose variety of climates has produced a territory of many different landscapes and forms. The abundance of micro-climates and natural habitats is reflected in rich and varied vegetation found on the island. Tourism is the driving force behind the economy. Agriculture accounts for less than 10% of GDP, although it makes an important contribution to the island in that it generates incalculable benefits, related to sustaining the rural landscape and maintaining the cultural values of Tenerife. Bananas are the leading crop, with Tenerife being the leading producer of the Canary Islands. Annual production has stabilized around 150,000 metric tons in recent years, after peaking at 200,000 tons in 1986. Just over 90% of the crop goes to the Spanish domestic market. Banana plantations cover 4,200 ha of land. The aim of the thesis project would be to explore the ways to intervene in such particular landscape of Puerto de la Cruz, formed by different agricultural activities layered in time and now abandoned. This specific landscape is forming the identity of this city, so the subject of how to reuse this type of land is quite delicate. How to twist the direction of development of a city like Puerto de la Cruz from a typical touristic area affected by globalization, taken over by the urban sprawl and losing its particularly rich identity, into a self sufficient community, that is aware of the qualities that the land offers.

WORKING WITH LAND The thesis project is going to explore the multidisciplinary approach to architecture in which the landscape plays an important role. In what way could architecture work with the land without changing the landscape, with one particular goal, to fit the context and the cityscape and preserve the identity of cities whose development has been affected much by the topography and land. It's going to explore the role of architecture in preserving the particular ecosystems of a city and being an agent in enhancing the biodiversity. This short literature review is going to merge different approaches towards this team work of architecture and landscape in the history of landscape architecture and architecture theory and find some relevant points that would lead to the project.

LANDSCAPE IN THE CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSE In the introduction of Recovering Landscapes, James Corner tries to indicate the place of landscape in the contemporary metropolis. It is usually a counterpart of the modern-day economics, information, media technology and corporate and political initiatives. Landscape is viewed as the soothing antithesis of the technological urban life, in the eyes of the romantics and the gentle nature lovers, as Corner states. Few would share the view that the contemporary metropolis could be constructed as landscape. On the contrary of the common image of the landscape in the modern city, he says using technology and innovation, landscape can change the direction of development of the contemporary metropolis. Landscape projects may serve as means to critically intervene in cultural habits and conventions, he says. Landscape should not be a product of culture, but an agent producing and enriching culture. Regarding the form, Corner states that the recovering landscapes should be less a matter of appearances and aesthetic categories and more an issue of strategic instrumentality. The form should be a result of the specific issues it is trying to address and the effects it is trying to precipitate. What should a structure of place do for a community is that it should help it establish or keep collective identity and meaning, concludes Corner addressing the importance of respecting the phenomenal specificity of sites when working on landscape projects. James Corner in the same essay describes three ways of reclaiming sites: in terms of retrieval of memory and cultural enrichment of place and time, in terms of social program and utility as new uses and activities are developed and in terms of ecological diversification and succession. The project is going to try to address all three of these methods.

Presa di Coscienza Sulla Natura series, Mario Giacomelli 1975 - 1985 5

LANDSCAPE AS CULTURAL PHENOMENON In social and cultural life of urban areas, place identity is strongly linked to place attachment and sense of belonging. People intrinsically strive to establish a connection with a place, which is crucial for establishing and emotional bond which would lead to the sense of community. People interact with landscapes on daily basis, they act upon it and all these actions over a landscape are an evidence of the development of a community, but at the same time they become this bond between men and their surrounding, they become this place identity that according to the environmental psychology is a basic human need.

The cultural dimensions of landscape as well as it's palimpsestous nature is referred to in the 13th point of The Manifesto of the Canary Islands for the European Landscape Project by Javier Maderuelo. He says once we comprehend the landscape as a cultural phenomenon and not a mere product of nature, we can start conceptualizing and protecting it. And when we say culture it doesn't refer to it's aesthetic values that have impacted art and literature, but to the layers of human interventions over it that have been put one over another through time and are the witness of the development of a community. For in each era and region or country, characteristic forms of the relationship between man and territory developed that allowed the former to survive in the latter and to comprehend the world, and these forms have been manifested through the marks that the works of man have left on the territory.

He says, "When we gaze at a terraced vineyards or cattle pastures we are gazing at cultural monuments, anonymous works of art that summerize the history of the places, the customs and dietary habits of their inhabitants, the structure of their households, the state of their economies." And all these layers over the landscape is what proves its cultural dimension.

David Leatherbarrow in his essay Leveling the Land in Recovering Landscapes refers to this act upon landscape such as leveled land as the first and most fundamental of topographical construction. The meaning of the leveled land in the history of mankind and the relation between leveled, flat soil which is the shape and the water which is the shapeless category of landscape is what interests Leatherbarrow. Going through the semantic meaning of terrain and terraces, the shape of a terrace that has been affected by water flow and the meaning of leveled land as public place, Leatherbarrow explains the deeply engraved cultural dimension of landscape especially the one affected by the act of leveling. Leveling land in the history of mankind has been used as an agricultural method in different cultures. It is an artifact of architecture and landscape working together. The Incan archeological site of Moray (Cusco) in Peru is a perfect example of how this leveled land could be used for agricultural experimental purposes. It is an early experimental agriculture station the Inca created on a high plateau at about 3500 m and consisting of several enormous terraced circular

Giardini Panteschi, Pantelleria, Sicily 7

depressions, the largest of which is about 30m deep. The temperature varies between the different levels substantially (up to

C) between the center (warmer) and the exterior

(colder) and the site reproduces more than 20 ecological areas. This has led some researchers to theorize that Moray was an Inca agricultural site where experiments on crops were conducted. The use of water in the irrigation channels in Tipon is also a way to create various microclimates in this are which indicates that the whole complex was probably used as a laboratory of agricultural products. On a flat land, examples of using architecture to create microclimates could be found in Montreuil, France in the form of 2.7m high and 55cm wide walls enclosing long plots. These have been created to protect peach trees in this area with a typically cold climate. The walls have a big thermal inertia and the ability to store heat during the day and transmit it during the night, so the temperature inside the walls was

C higher than outside. A similar

technique but for creating a humid microclimate within was used in Pantelleria in Sicily in Italy for the citrus trees. Circular walls were built around the trees to protect them from winds. The top of the walls was inclined to collect rainwater. This means that since the origin of the Earth, each place registers a continuous superimposition of signs corresponding to the inclusion of functions where every process is identifiable as part of the history of a place. Every community and generation seeks to transform the territory in order to optimize its conditions of survival, comfort and safety and to maintain these conditions for the next generations. This is what Joao Nunes states in his essay Landscape.Architecture. That's why, he says, the processes of construction of landscape must be based on attentive reading of the existing landscape, its physical and physiographic charcteristics, its evolutionary history, the processes that have formed it over time and mechanisms which actively participate in its dynamic which will be part of any transformation we want to propose. LANDSCAPE, ARCHITECTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE Landscape, architecture and infrastructure amalgate to become one complex says Rem Koolhaas in his Generic City. Roads, buildings and nature, they coexist in flexible relationships. While in the traditional city the distinction between figure and ground is very strict, in the contemporary one, landscape, architecture and infrastructure they interweave and interact with each other. The city as an urban landscape evolves as a dynamic process.

Stan Allen in his essay Infrastructural Urbanism, writes about this returning of architecture towards its instrumentality and leaving it representational role behind. As it is a practice engaged with time and process, he says, it is not any longer devoted to creating autonomous objects, but to the production of fields in which program, event and activity can play themselves out. Thinking about architecture as a material practice means involving architecture in solving infrastructural problems such as territory, speed and communication. Material practices are concerned with

performance, rather than image and meaning. They are less concerned with what things look like, but what they can do. Infrastructure, he says, works not so much to propose a specific building on a site, but to construct the site itself. It is dividing, allocating and constructing surfaces. It is providing services to support future programs. It is establishing networks for movement, communication and exchange. Infrastructure is working with geography and this is where the three disciplines meet to create one uniting approach. LANDSCAPE AS PROCESS Time is always related to landscape. We move within the landscape, but the very landscape itself is shifting, changing, growing and modifying, says Renato Bocchi referring to the 11th point of The Manifesto of the Canary Islands for the European Landscape Project which is Landscape is process. Landscape is literally moulded by the movement of users and their perception. When referring on Michel Desvigne's projects, James Corner in Intermediate Natures says that the agricultural emphasis in his projects allows him to infuse his landscapes with capacity for growth, change and adaptation over time allowing for a loose flexibility rather than an overly deterministic regime. His landscapes allow for a looser, more open and porous matrix. This is the way Desvigne handles time in his landscape projects with his fascination of the unfinished. According to him, voiding and erasure might be just as valid as filling and adding. According to Tim Ingold, landscapes are not land, nature or space, they are considered to be storied which unfold over time. In this way, the landscape is an ongoing process of interaction between people and their surroundings. It integrates time, space and experiences. In his Temporality of landscape, Ingold tends to find a mode of understanding the landscape based on the engagement of the user with it. It is continual process in which all the components intertwine together in a set of relations. This sequencing of space in landscape is what is an important lesson for architecture to learn. Landscape is unfolding for the user, offering different ways of interaction. Moreover, the landscape is flexible and open to changes and to the effects of time. This engagement of the user that Ingold is concerned with is what makes the change an inherent characteristic of landscape, but this change could also lead to loss of diversity, coherence and identity of the landscape. This is the time when architecture's determinant character plays an important role, so it would put this change in a framework. On the other hand, architecture tends to be deterministic and presupposes scenarios. Resistance and change are both at work in landscape: the hardness of rocks and the fluid adaptability of living things, states Stan Allen. The project is where these two characteristics would meet.

Bunker archeology, Paul Virilio, 1975 11

LANDSCAPE AS FORM This is the point where architecture and landscape intertwine the most. Landscape is concerned with the form as much as architecture is. Landscapes are vast, expansive and working on horizontal axis, whilst buildings delimit space and stand over landscapes. This is the traditional approach towards to two disciplines. What is the form that landscape should take so that it inherits architectural characteristic and vice versa. Can architecture take the form of landscape so it acts on horizontal axis and be more open and flexible to change?

Stan Allen in his Landform building states that "the formal consistency of architecture is a necessary point of stability in a shifting urban landscape". He proposes this new model of landform building which rather than occupying a given landscape, works to construct the site itself. Architecture is always in the first instance a transformation of landscape, he says. Through sectional or topographic elaboration, a more complex relationship between interior and exterior can be developed. This search for the architecture that breaks this limit between interior and exterior, between horizontal and vertical surface, has been carried out by the French architects Claude Parent and his collaborator Paul Virilio in the 60s. Virilio's early work focused on the oblique function -- a proposed new urban order based on 'the end of the vertical as an axis of elevation, the end of the horizontal as permanent plane, in favour of the oblique axis and the inclined plane' (Virilio and Parent, 1996: v). This "habitable circulation" is their preposition of how post-industrial cities should develop in order to use the maximum potentials of the surface. The oblique is fundamentally interested in how a body physically experiences a space. The slope implies an effort to climb up and a speed to climb down; this way the body cannot abstract itself from the space and feel the degrees of inclination. An architecture that engages the body is what was their interest. They have been exploring the phenomenological aspect of architecture through their research on bunker archeology that afterwards they have used as a basis for the design of the Church Sainte Bernadette in Nevers which is an experiment of architecture of mass and oblique function. However, as Allen states in his essay The Megaform Revised, architects today are working more on hybrid landscapes and their work is based on adding new layers to the previous traces of human inhabitation rather than transforming an untouched landscape and in these cases the work is much more delicate. Another model that he proposes in his essay on Mat urbanism in Hashim Sarkis case study of Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital is the mat urbanism. In the mat configuration though, he says, the section is not a product of stacking layer, but of weaving, warping, folding, oozing, interlacing or knotting together. This model is what helps architecture to grow and change. As Alison Smithsons explains in her essay about Mat-buildings, it is where functions come to enrich a fabric and the individual gains new freedom of actions through a new and shuffled order, based on interconnection, close-knit patterns of association and possibilities for growth, diminution and change.

Since landscape has emerged as a model for urbanism and traditionally it has been defined as the art of organizing horizontal surfaces, it is in obvious relationship to the extended field of the contemporary city. However, the performative effects of the surface in landscape are a direct result of the material characteristics of the surface, states Allen. Slope, hardness or softness, permeability, depth or soil chemistry are all variables that influence the behavior of the surfaces. The tendency to shed or hold water, the ability to support traffic, events or plant life are all specific material characteristic of the landscape surfaces and by paying close attention to these conditions designers can activate space and produce urban effects without the models of traditional space making. Changes of level and slope smooth movement and vary the visual experience of a park, he says. So this difference in levels becomes important in experiencing a landscape and helps this interweaving with the context happen smoothly. Another important aspect of the landscape that Allen emphasizes in this essay is that it is not only a formal model for urbanism, but it is a model for process. Since the time is an important variable in the working with landscape they can never be designed and controlled in total. They are instead scripted as scenarios projected in the future allowed to grow and evolve over time. So this notion of constant change of landscape and its being a work in progress and the attention of the space between things of the mat building is what makes it more significant as an urban model than a model for individual building. It will result in architecture that creates a directed field for the occupation of a site over time: a kind of loose scaffold that supports the adaptive ecology of urban life. Concluding the essay on mat building Allen states that the modernity is turning its gaze off the thing itself, towards the space between things, their relations and their position in a contextual field. The attention today is more focused on the intervals - the sequence of parts and the space between things: silence in music, blankness in painting or architecture's empty spaces. The thesis project itself is focused on these spaces between things, the voids, the sequences that Stan Allen refers to. It works with the contrast of the vastness of landscape and the limited space in caves. The idea of creating spaces by subtracting instead of adding is an idea that has been researched also in some land-art projects, such as those of the Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida. His land-art projects as well as art works are as he states himself "a journey to discover space". He is exploring the space that has been created by carving out. The concept for the project in Fuertaventura in the mountain Tindaya came from Chillida's idea that "quarry workers take stone out of the mountain, but without realising it they fill it with space". His works are dealing with architecture, urbanism and landscape at the same time. He explores the relations between forms and their surroundings or the hermetic enclosure, thus exploring the ways a place is created. The dualities in architecture and landscape are what interest Chillida the most. Solid contrasting void and how an empty space could become a place.

Mount Tindaya, Fuertaventura, Eduardo Chillida, 1994 15

The concept of subtraction is also explored in the Double Negative of Michael Heizer. It is another land art project created by subtracting soil in the Nevada desert. "There is nothing and still it is a sculpture" says Heizer about this artwork, pointing out the ability of an artist to create an artwork without adding anything, but by taking out and creating a void. This duality of the void as being nothing and still existing as something, as a place is going to be explored furthermore in the thesis project. The oppositional interplay between the form of architecture and the formlessness of landscape is what would interest the project. The void instead of being nothing is something that is rich with imagination and possibility. This is the point where architecture can reach this existence as a flexible entity, but still remain deterministic to some extent. Concerning the void, the Chinese philosopher would say: 'Moulding clay into a vessel, we find the utility in its hollowness; Cutting doors and windows for a house, we find the utility in its empty space. Therefore the being of things is profitable, the non being of things is serviceable.'

CONCLUSION To conclude, preserving the identity of a place is an important issue in terms of cultural and social life of the community. The multidisciplinary approach of architecture that interweaves architecture, landscape and infrastructure is a method that would delicately change landscape in a way that it takes in itself new uses and interaction, suitable for the developing metropolis, adapts to the future changes of time and moulds accordingly, but keeps the previously attained identity of place and adds up to it. To do this, architecture and landscape should not merely interact as an object - surrounding relation or as figure - ground. The architecture should become landscape on its own and vice versa. The emptiness and vastness of landscape should be part of architecture and the delimitation of architecture should be present in the landscape. The layer of infrastructure is a constituent part of this system, which creates a holistic approach towards land.

Double Negative, Nevada, Michael Heizer, 1970 17

ANAMNESIS The anamnesis is usually readable in a set of strata. Each stratum is distinct sediment of a certain geological period, sometimes occurring at the place but often at times moved in the geological formation of landscape. Anamnesis is a term used both in geology for soil horizons and in archeology for layers of earth and rubble. This is why Marot uses this term for the first faze of a landscape project, which is the exploring the different layers an area in consisted of. THE ISLAND Tenerife Island is a volcanic island created seven million years ago among the six other Canarian Islands. This immense span of time in the existence of the island has created a specific topography which makes the island and impressive example of landscape. With a difference in level of almost 4000m, the rugged island terrain and the variety of climates has produced a territory of multiple landscapes and forms, from the Parque Nacional del Teide to the cliffs of Los Gigantes with its vertical walls, going through semi-desert areas with drought resistant plants in the south valleys with tropical and subtropical crops, areas of laurel forests in the Anaga and Teno and extensive pine forests above the laurel forests relicts of the Tertiary. The great climate and landscape diversity of Tenerife corresponds to a wealth of ecosystems, each with its characteristic flora and fauna. Furthermore, the different volcanic materials, cause a wide variety of soils. The combination of these various factors and determines the existence of varied habitats that are home to numerous communities of plants and animals. Despite its small size, 2034kmsq, the largest of all the Canary Island of Tenerife has a remarkable ecological diversity due to special environmental conditions, because the rugged terrain of the island locally modifies the general weather conditions, resulting in a rich variety of microclimates. This abundance of microclimates and therefore natural habitats, is clearly reflected in the island's vegetation consists of a rich and varied (1400 species of higher plants) flora, among which many Canarian endemics (200) and Tenerife (140 ).

By having this plant heritage of over 140 unique species, the island of Tenerife has the highest ratio of endemic flora of the entire Macaronesia. The vegetation of Tenerife is divided into 6 major ecosystems, directly related to altitude and NS orientation of the slopes of the island. The area 0-700m high is covered with cardonal - spurge. It is xerophytic scrub well adapted to drought, abundant sunshine and strong winds in the area. There are many endemic species such as tabaibas, cacti and cardoncillos. The thermophilic forests spread on 200-600m latitude. It is transition zone with rain and moderate temperatures and an are moslty degraded by human activity. Still numerous endemic species exist such as sabinas, dragon trees and palm trees.

Laurisilva is spread on 500 - 1000m. It is characteristic by the dense forest of large trees, descendants of the Tertiary Age flora, situated in area of fog and frequent rain. There is a variety of species with abundant undergrowth of shrubs, grasses and ferns. The latitude between 1000 1500 m, is good for the layer of fayal - brezal. It is drier forest and poor in species. The pine forest with the typical canarian pine exists on 800 - 2000m. The high mountain region over 2000m is specific for its dry climate, high insolation and temperature extremes. This is an area in which endemic species of great scientific importance and beauty exist such as tajinastes, broom and Teide violet. The island fauna is also interesting, with a high number of endemic species in invertebrates and unique species in terms of reptiles, birds and mammals.

The faunal inventory of Tenerife is estimated at 400 species of fish, 56 birds, 5 reptiles, 2 amphibians, 13 land mammals and several thousand invertebrates, plus some species of sea turtles and cetaceans.

The presence of water is also an important factor for the island, whether in a form of rainfall, different in different levels of the island, as barrancos - water channels leading the excess water from the top of the island to the sea, or as man-made water deposits around the island for irrigation purpose.

Due to all these natural factors in the precolonial period, the island was completely self-sufficient linked to livestock, agriculture and fisheries. The landscape has been adapted for agricultural purposes into terraced fields, which have become one important cultural layer over the land of the island. Once a colonial economy is set in the Canaries, with the conquest around the fifteenth century, comes monoculture export linked to the European market, exploiting natural resources, especially agriculture. Since then, until recently, every economy in the Canary Islands was linked to an agricultural monoculture export from the vine, sugar cane or cochineal, until the last of the twentieth century; tomato and banana. These agricultural monocultures with other common uses of the environment devastated intensely natural resources causing a drastic reduction of vegetation cover, which caused rapid degradation of the natural environment at this time, to say for example, that most of the islands owned channels of permanent water (ravines) and streams, lush laurel forests and nowadays hard to find byways of cornical and cactus, or tabaiba tolda.

At the moment tourism is the driving force behind the economy. Agriculture accounts for less than 10% of GDP, although it makes an important contribution to the island in that it generates incalculable benefits, related to sustaining the rural landscape and maintaining the cultural values of Tenerife. Bananas are the leading crop, with Tenerife being the leading producer of the Canary Islands. Tourism, while generating economic growth and prosperity, can equally produce an ever growing gap between the particularities of places and the commodity-oriented features of Considering such a tendency jeopardises not only sustainability dynamics at a local level but equally the sustainability of tourism itself.

Vegetation and soil strata in the island of Tenerife 21

THE CITY Puerto de la Cruz is a settlement on the northern part of the island of Tenerife, formed in the XVIth century for its specific location as a port city with activities mainly related to exporting sugar to European markets and importing manufactured goods from the mainland. This is when the historic core of the city is created by building a square and a church in its center. Later on, the trade interest turns from sugar to wine, but as the city is growing its economic interest is turning form commercial and maritime to agricultural and touristic. In the XIXth century the port activity is slowly withdrawing due to the yellow fever epidemic that struck the city and took the lives of 20% of the inhabitants and a flood that destroyed vineyards and wineries. In a span of 60 years the city happens to transform from a commercial and port enclave, to a predominantly agricultural core. Because of this process of ruralization an agreement was reached to expand the limits of the city outside of the historic core, since there was no land available for cultivation. From the start of the second half of the century it began to appreciate signs of recovery, due to the introduction of new crops such as bananas and cochineal. Moreover, since 1880, tourism also began to have an important role in the local economy, a fact highlighted by the construction of the Grand Hotel Taoro in recent years of the century, reaching to become the flagship of the in the

of the accommodation centers were created with the refurbishment

of old family homes. Demographic change follows the pulse of economic development of the city and reaches 5,000 inhabitants at the end of the century. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, the banana became the preferred crop though, from the early 30's, there comes a period of crisis where global depression restricts the export possibilities. However, it will be in the sixties, when tourism radically modifies the appearance and economic development of Puerto de la

hatch comes with the birth of all types of

accommodation establishments, which will detract prominence and space to banana cultivation. In the 70s' crisis winds arrive, causing the stoppage of construction to be reactivated in the 80s, though at a more measured

this period, one of the tourist city motives comes from the

So, in the past century banana plantations and tourism are the main drives of Puerto de la Cruz that have been shaping the city and fighting for dominance. The agricultural land has become the visual identity of the city inscribed in the shape of the land. On the other hand tourism has been leading the city into more globalised urban development, leading it into losing its agricultural identity. As the suburban structure is spreading it is taking over agricultural fields, leaving abandoned agricultural land inside the city and menacing to take it over. The different phases of the development of the city have lead to creating three different structures of land: urban dense fabric which has been the core of the city, suburban structure that has been spreading in the outskirts of Puerto de la Cruz in parallel with the agricultural land surrounding the city. On both sides of

de la Horca there are lines cutting the land, leading from the top of the

island to the sea side. The barrancos are the scars of the land of Puerto de la Cruz, which have

Crops and abandoned agricultural fields in the Orotava Valley 23

been repeatedly imprinted in the land over the years and have been part of the city ever since it has existed. Barranco de San Felipe is making a cut over the city on the western side and Barranco de Martianez and Barranco de Tafuriaste turning into Barranco Salina and combining into one on the eastern side. These barrancos are specific channels that are filled with water in certain times of the year. This is when they become dramatic and dangerous, while the rest of their existence is quiet and anonymous. They are just cuts through the land that reveal its layers to the city, rough edges that divide the land and that have made this importance of the edge to be so evident in Puerto de la Cruz. Seems like they have brought this necessity to define the edge in Puerto de la Cruz, whether with walls along the streets or by cutting through the land. THE SITE According to the report of the EU Commission regarding abandonment of the farmland in EU countries, some of the most important drives for abandonment are the alternative employment opportunities in other sectors, lack of training, information and advice for the farmers, as well as the accessibility of the farmland plots. The report suggests that many farmers do not have the skills necessary to take advantage of the potential of the new environment for innovation, provision of environmental services, diversification, and development of local services or bio-energy production. These shortcomings can increase the risk of land abandonment. An effective advisory system could lead to better farming strategies and higher managerial skills. In other words, it could contribute to the farm stability and its development on the mid and long term. Puerto de la Cruz is a city that has been shaped by agriculture through time, but feeling the effects of globalization, there are lots of farmlands inside and in the outskirts of the city, that have been abandoned due to the above mentioned reasons. The abandonment leads to undesirable changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services. The loss of small scale mosaics of land use also effects the biodiversity dependant on the extensively managed agricultural land. As people are abandoning the farmland and turning to tourism as a dominant economic drive, the urban sprawl is slowly taking over the leftover landscape. Puerto de la Cruz is slowly losing this identity of an agricultural place with a terraced landscape. The two barrancos on the eastern side of Puerto de la Cruz evidently divide a territory from the rest of the city that is consisted of different types of land with different uses and create a sort of island isolated from the rest of the city. It is consisted of suburban built structure, active agricultural fields and abandoned agricultural terraces. Its position is such that establishes a certain contact with all the important entities in the city: the sea, the dense urban core and the highway, but still remains cutaway from each of them. This "island" trapped between the two edges of the barrancos would be the subject of analysis of the following project and the project itself would try to refer these reasons of abandonment and give a motive for reducing this trend.

Soil stratification in Puerto de la Cruz 25

STRATEGY Using natural elements such as soil, water, light and vegetation architecture must root itself in the land, but not only with its foundations, but with its conglomerate of activities. It should carve the activities and movement in the ground, not just merely layer them over. Because this is the only way it can change the direction of development of these contemporary touristic cities like Puerto de la Cruz, by turning the attention to the natural resources that it holds. The proposal of the thesis project would be to transform this "island" isolated from the rest of the city. It would research the opportunities for architecture to learn from the ambiguity of nature and its changing through time. The aim would be to put together the unpredictability on one hand and planning and presupposing scenarios on the other. To explore the ways architecture could learn from landscape. How can the formal consistency of architecture and the shifting nature of urban landscape work together to create a new contemporary city? What would be the multidisciplinary approach in which architecture, technology and landscape could work together? This "island" in the middle of Puerto de la Cruz would be a proposed example of the direction in which the development of cities like Puerto de la Cruz should take. The project should try to re-establish the relationships between

the emerging

The intervention on the different types of land found on this "island" after reading all the previous layers that have been put one over another during the years, would mean adding other layers that would transform the land into functional areas that will work together in a system. These new layers would be new programs that will enrich the area with activities, would reactivate the city as an agrarian region by using new technologies of food production and would generate new urban environment. PROGRAM INFUSION > THE INFRASTRUCTURAL SPINE Introducing a touristic route that connects all the parts of the island and in broader scale, connects the outskirts of the city with the sea and the dense urban fabric area would be the infrastructural layer in a form of spine that goes through the "island" and creates a holistic system of all the elements of the project. This infrastructural system would contain means of public transport, bicycle paths and pedestrian walkways. At the section of this system with the existing barrancos small hydroenergy production nodes would be created that would use the occasional flow of water to create energy that would sustain the infrastructural system.

> THE AGRICULTURAL PARK One layer would be the productive landscape introduced as an agricultural park, that would transform the land into public area where the using of different productive technologies will allow 27

interaction with the landscape on different levels. Different technologies for producing food will be used for different purposes. One part of the land will be used for producing food for the locals and other for educational, experimental and research purposes. The proposed production activities would be traditional cultivation on open land, greenhouse production, permaculture, hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics and bioponics. > THE PUBLIC SQUARE and AGRICULTURAL CENTER For the purpose of transforming this "island" into a self-sustainable urban enclave, the project will include a public place as a focus of the system. The imprinting of a public square with an educational center will be another layer added to the landscape that would generate urban character of a place. These public features except for being the catalysts of public life on the "island" would also have a role in wastewater and storm - water management. The wastewater from the households in the residential zones as well as from the public buildings would be filtered and stored into reservoirs that would afterwards be used for irrigation of the agricultural fields. > THE SUBURBAN ACCELERATOR In order to transform an area into a sustainable one, a focus of transformation should be given to the existing residential structures with a suburban dispersed character. The proposed suburban accelerator would work as a catalyst of activities related to the residents' life and in this way create a direct connection between the two defragmented entities in the "island", the existing banana fields and the suburban residential areas. It would work as a machine that would give acceleration to the suburban life, and from passive and consumeristic element of the city, would thansform it into an active and productive one.

URBAN STRATEGY The aim of the project would be to create a coherent system out of all the defragmented elements. The spine in a form of a route would be the infrastructural element linking all the elements. Along this spine nodes are created that would work on the level of confronting the barranco with different elements from the city. The contact of the barranco with the sea, the dense urban fabric, the suburban fabric, the agricultural fields and the exit or entrance to the city, the highway will create 5 specific nodes that would catalyze different activities and play the role of sequences along the route. The barranco itself is a specific protected landscape that should keep and enhance species biodivesity and create complex ecosystems. For this reason in parts it will merge with the route. The route would add another layer to the barranco that will be the stimulator of this process of enhancement of the ecosystem.

NODE > BARRANCO - THE SEA

NODE > BARRANCO - THE URBAN

NODE > BARRANCO - THE SUBURBAN

NODE > BARRANCO - THE AGRICULTURE

NODE > BARRANCO - THE HIGHWAY

The Route 29

ARCHITECTURAL STRATEGY Keeping the identity of a specific landscape while transforming the area into an urban part of the city is the primary task of the project. Since the barranco itself is created by carving inside the soil, the project would try to interpret this act. In order not to change the skyline of the area but at the same time intervene in an architectural and technological manner, the strategy that the project would work with would be carving underground and creating spaces by subtracting land. This way of working with the landscape at the same time would make all the stratification of the land visible and would give emphasis of the importance of the soil itself in the process of creating life. Furthermore the strategy will be consistent with the idea of defining the edge apparent in Puerto de la Cruz. THE SUBURBAN ACCELERATOR The purpose of the suburban accelerator would be to play the role of a service machine for the existing residential area St Nicolas. St Nicolas is a typical suburban quarter, made out of small plots consisted of individual housing units, recreational water elements and decorative vegetation. In order to establish a firm connection between the housing units and the existing banana field next to it, and to create a sense of belonging for the residents, the accelerator is located in between and plays the role of transition element between two different categories of land. On the other hand, it is a connection of the newly established axis through the island and the highway, which is the main place of entrance for the external visitors. The program and the circulation should meet the two categories of users, the residents and the external visitors. The form is using the existing topography and creating terraced structure out of it in a manner that the productive land in Puerto de la Cruz is treated. Three towers rise from the structure in order to sign the entrances both from the proposed axis and from the residential part, and to give a sense of belonging to the community. From the main terraced structure the activities are carved out forming a sort of mat building with no spatial hierarchy, which leaves room for different flexible uses of the space. Furthermore, open space in a form of courtyards or skylights are carved out of this program to let the natural light inside the structure. The structure functions as a service machine at the same time. In itself, besides the visitors center it situates a market, a daycare center and a water treatment plant. The water is an important layer added to the whole system. The rainwater harvested from the collectors placed among the housing units replacing the existing recreational water structures and the gray water from the houses is led to the filtration center, where it is stored for sedimentation. Afterwards it passes through a process of phytofiltration along the terraces structure and thus filtrated spread around the agricultural park for irrigation uses. The excess water continues its path through the route, playing the role of a catalyst of different microclimates, inhancing the biodiversity in the existing ecosystems.

The Suburban Accelerator 31

The Suburban Accelerator

THE AGRICULTURAL CENTER The agricultural center is the node between the abandoned agricultural fields and the newly created axis cutting though the soil as a barranco. The axis passes over the edge between the abandoned terraced agricultural fields and the existing and functioning banana fields. Since the abandoned agricultural fields would transform in an experimental agricultural park practicing new sustainable agricultural technologies, the transition between the two different entities is done by carving out a public space in between. By extending the terraces in the direction of the square the agricultural complex of research center, educational center and a museum is formed. From the terraces the program is carved out. Unlike the suburban accelerator which has a role to serve the suburban residential area, and is open to changes of program and flexible, the agricultural center, whose role is to give urban character to the agricultural fields has a strong spatial hierarchy expressed through the open public space in a form of square, streets and courtyards and the built space with a tower used as a landmark for the public square, but at the same time used as a technological element which creates energy for the complex by catching the wind. In the square the edge of the natural land is left rough revealing all the layers of soil that is used for cultivating the banana fields. The edge of the built space is smooth and man-made, but its structure is again layers of soil, which would be the contemporary analogy of the opposed one. The rammed earth used for constructing the complex is the same one taken out from the site when excavating, which makes the whole project vernacular and self-sustainable. The accumulation of water formed in the square would work to change the microclimate in the public space. The cold air created in the square would circulate through each of the building, passing over the courtyards and skylights created for this purpose, thus enabling natural air conditioning through the dry periods. CONCLUSION The collaborative work of landscape, architecture and technology and infrastructure is the proposed approach towards sites with specific topographical identity should be preserved. All these layers laid over the land create a system that connects this otherwise defragmented part of the city with the rest of the city's entities and create a holistic system that could work by itself not only in terms of urban public life, but in terms of technological existence as well. At the same time it gives to the existing community an upgrade to the cultural identity that has been detached from the land so far and a shift in its further development into a self sustainable community that is aware of the natural resources it has to its disposal and is using them in a proper way.

The Agricultural Center 35

The Agricultural Center

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stan ALLEN, Landform building, New York, Lars 2011

Publishers,

Stan ALLEN, Mat urbanism: The thick 2D, Hashim Sarkis', CASE: Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital, Munich, Prestel, 2001

James CORNER, Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1999

Michel DESVIGNE, Intermediate natures, Springer Science & Business Media, 2009

Kenneth FRAMPTON, Megaform as Urban Landscape, University of Michigan, 1999

Rem KOOLHAAS, Generic city - S, M, L, XL, New York, Monacelli Press, 1995

NUNES, Landscape. Architecture, an article in Area Magazine, 2012

Charles WALDHEIM, Landscape urbanism reader, New York, Princeton Architectural. Press, 2006

The Manifesto of the Canary Islands for the European Landscape Project, 2008

As global urbanization continues with a fast pace, territories are more often viewed as seamless artificial landscapes, with no physical boundaries. The distinction between urban and rural, between city and countryside becomes blurred and irrelevant in the discussions about the contemporary city. So the discourse of urbanism is widened. Besides the usual interest for the urban form it is taking into consideration landscapes, ecosystems, connections, networks, territories, infrastructures. This multidisciplinary approach would be the interest of the thesis project. Puerto de la Cruz is a city that has been shaped by agriculture through time, but feeling the effects of globalization, there are loads of farmlands inside and in the outskirts of the city, that have been abandoned due to push for the competitive export- oriented farming and the turn to tourism as a main economic drive. The abandonment leads to undesirable changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services. The loss of small scale mosaics of land use also effects the biodiversity dependant on the extensively managed agricultural land. As people are abandoning the farmland and turning to tourism, the urban sprawl is slowly taking over the leftover landscape. Puerto de la Cruz is slowly losing this identity of an agricultural place with a terraced landscape. The aim of the thesis project would be to explore the ways to intervene in such particular landscape of Puerto de la Cruz, formed by different agricultural activities layered in time and now abandoned. This specific landscape is forming the identity of the city, so the subject of how to reuse this type of land is quite delicate. How to twist the direction of development of a city like Puerto de la Cruz from a typical touristic area affected by globalization, taken over by the urban sprawl and losing its particularly rich identity, into a self sufficient community, that is aware of the qualities that the land offers.