EVALUATING LANDSCAPE URBANISM AND THE SUSTAINABLE PARK MODEL

Andrew J. Broderick

November 23, 2009

UP 519: Urban Design Theory

Profs. Larsen and Bekkering

  In June the High Line Park opened in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. This project, which may

be the most high-profile park design in North America this decade, garnered a lot of popular press

attention and academic praise. In its previous life, the High Line was an elevated freight train railway on Man-

hattan’s Lower Westside that paralleled the Hudson River from Gansevoort Street to 30th Street. The line was

abandoned in 1980. In 1999 a grassroots, citizen-led initiative aptly named “Friends of the Highline,” founded

by Joshua David and Robert Hammond, envisioned turning the defunct elevated rail line into a post-industrial

“midair oasis” featuring a vegetated recreational pedestrian path constructed over the railroad (Ouroussoff,

2009). A decade after the plan’s inception, the park is, on one level, a welcomed green space intervention for

public use, and, on another level, a major statement about the future of recreational and ecological green space

design in post-industrial America. It pres-

ents a drastically different approach to park

design and planning than older, nearby

parks such as Paley and Central Parks.

This new park planning and design

approach is the subject of this paper as it

attempts to define and cross-analyze two

current transformative paradigms in land-

scape planning and design – the Land-

scape Urbanism Movement and Cranz and

Boland’s Urban Sustainable Park Model.

Both of these movements claim the High

Line Park as their own. This paper will

compare these paradigms to see how they relate and where they diverge. First, seminal literature of the Land-

scape Urbanism Movement will be synthesized to form an essential list of the Movement’s core tenets. Sec-

ond, Cranz and Boland’s Sustainable Park Model will be analyzed in comparison to the Landscape Urbanism

Movement. Throughout the paper, built project examples will be incorporated that aid in the understanding of

the two paradigms. Finally, conclusions will be drawn that will serve two purposes: clarify the relation between

the two paradigms and critique how these two paradigms can guide landscape planning and design in the

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Image 1: The High Line Park in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood at twilight looking south towards downtown. The park is the result of a ten year planning effort that resuscitated a defunct industrail elevated railway by turning it into a pedestrain greenway.

future. While there are several major underpinning themes that these paradigms share, they diverge in certain

ways that highlight the short-comings of each other. Taken together they form the foundation of a compelling

physical design vision capable of guiding future sustainability and social equity decisions that affect the built

environment.

Tenets of the Landscape Urbanism Movement

Landscape Urbanism is a multidisciplinary design movement that began in the late 1990s and has

influences ranging from geographer Ian McHarg’s 1969 Design with Nature book to Rem Koolhaas’ competition

entry for Parc de La Villette in 1982 (Shane, 2006). Guided by two key academic landscape architects, James

Corner of Penn and Charles Waldheim of Harvard, the movement largely stems from the traditional mold of

landscape architecture, but seeks to transcend the limits of that

profession by refocusing on a broader spectrum of issues facing

the built environment. Corner (2006) contends that the move-

ment is a “more promising, more radical, and a more creative

form of practice than that defined by rigid disciplinary categoriza-

tions.” Constructing an essential list of Landscape Urbanism’s

main characteristics is difficult as it consists of a broad spectrum

of fields including ecology, engineering, landscape design, and

urban planning/design. However, one guiding rule is supreme:

landscape (not architecture) is the primary element of urban order (Waldheim, 2006). In this way, the move-

ment is focused on “the field, the plane, the horizontal surface” and guided by four distinct tenets: the combi-

nations of urban processes, the staging of horizontal surfaces, and the speculative, imaginary vision (Corner,

2006; Waldheim, 2006).

In a broad stroke, both Corner and Waldheim focus on the prefix “inter,” as in inter-relation and inter-

disciplinary, in describing Landscape Urbanism. While this characteristic informs all four tenets, it is most

important in explaining the combination of urban processes over time. Corner (2006) proposes a shift away

from object based design to a distributional systems approach. Harnessing dynamic relations between ecol-

ogy, engineering, and design is Landscape Urbanism’s approach to addressing current environmental problems

in the built environmental such as urban heat islands, air and water pollution, flash flooding, the destruction

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Image 2: Pedestrians walk on the High Line Park. The park uses a striated pattern of regional vegetation and imper-vious concrete pavers. The project, which embraces its post-industrial status, is an example of both the Landscape Urbanism Movement and the Sustainable Park Model.

of natural habitat, and toxic soils. Corner

(2006) summarizes it best: “the promise of

landscape urbanism is the development of a

space-time ecology that treats all forces and

agents working in the urban field and consid-

ers them as continuous networks of inter-

relationships.”

One example that best illustrates this

idea is the Fresh Kills Lifescape on Staten Is-

land, New York, designed by Corner and his

firm, Field Operations. This large scale proj-

ect uses landscape as a medium to trans-

form the world’s largest landfill into a diverse

inhabitable green open space that provides

natural habitat and recreation while combat-

ing a diverse set of environmental concerns

ranging from toxic soils to bird migration. A

water network system, protected wooded

habitat, and an erosion control system all perform functions that dictate the project’s design, which is organized

into three key components: threads, islands, and mats (Corner, 2005). The complex and diverse interweaving of

ecological, cultural, and infrastructural layers make this project a hallmark of Landscape Urbanism.

A second tenet of Landscape Urbanism is the staging of horizontal surfaces. This characteristic is con-

cerned with the merging of landscape and built form. Corner (2006) explains: “…urban infrastructure sows the

seeds of future possibility, staging the ground for both uncertainty and promise...emphasizing means over ends

and operational logic over compositional design.” In this way, landscape’s potential is fully realized as an open-

ended system that can rapidly adapt to change. As people (or other animals) shift from one locale to another,

the surface trajectory shifts to record and re-record a variety of cultural and environmental events. This shift

demands a withdrawal from permanent object constructs towards “a choreography of elements and materials in

time that extend new networks, new linkages, and new opportunities” (Corner, 2006). For example, the gridded

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Image 3: The Fresh Kills Lifescape site overlay diagram. This diagram illustrates the mul-tiple systems at work on the site.

system of streets is an abstract ordering of the surface that allows of autonomy and remains open to alternative

permutations over time (Koolhaas, 1994).

One built project that embodies this notion is the Erie Street Plaza in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, designed

by Chris Reed and his firm, SToSS Landscape Urbanism. The riverside plaza, which is considerably smaller

than the Fresh Kills Lifescape project, is a flexible surface that serves both recreational and environmental func-

tions. The plaza’s surface is a duality between variegated striations of regional vegetation and permeable con-

crete pavers that, taken together, enable

a multitude of functions to take place over

different times of year. According to Reed’s

website (stoss.net), the surface is designed

to accommodate large gatherings like art

festivals as well as everyday activities like

boat-watching. It also serves as a storm

water collection system that collects run-off

and filters it through a reconstituted marsh/

wetland.

Another example is Weiss and Man-

fredi’s Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle,

Washington, which features an integrated,

continuous topographical ramped surface

linking plazas, art sculptures, amphithe-

aters, and the shoreline. It is built on re-

claimed, remediated land atop an industrial

railway, and it incorporates terraced rain

gardens that help control storm water run-

off. As these examples illustrate, the dual-purposing and planned flexibility of the horizontal surface is a quint-

essential Landscape Urbanism feature.

Landscape Urbanism has the ability to shift scales and built typologies. It reaches beyond parks and

plazas to enhance city-making through infrastructure and neighborhood design. Its implicit advantage is in its

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Image 4,5: The Erie Street Plaza site plan (above) and rendering perspective (below) look-ing towards the river confluence in Milwaukee, WI.

ability to address the built environment at wide-ranging scope and scales. SToSS Landscape Urbanism, for

example, designed a half-acre children’s playground as well as a 100 acre neighborhood urban design project

along Toronto’s waterfront that combines mixed use mid-rise buildings and natural habitat to form an urban es-

tuary (Burga, 2008). Dutch landscape firm

West 8, for example, designed a coastal

protection barrier (the ‘Shell’ Project) that is

neither park nor plaza, but a creatively de-

signed infrastructure element (Waldheim,

2006).

These examples as well as the

earlier Erie Street Plaza and Fresh Kills

Lifescape projects challenge the contem-

porary practice of design by pushing the

envelope on the role that design plays in

shaping our collective built environment.

They are formed by a progressive, imagi-

native, and creative process that yields

results on a multitude of scales and project

types ranging from half acre playgrounds to

entire neighborhoods. Landscape Urban-

ism harnesses the imaginary as motivation for the creative endeavor (Corner, 2006). This tenet is appropri-

ately listed fourth as it demands that each of the previous three tenets speculate on new possibilities in order to

form a new idiom for expression based first on process and, second, on aesthetic.

This new paradigm claims a broad range of contemporary design efforts. If it claims to operate at the

confluence of fields as wide ranging as landscape architecture and social policy (Waldheim, 2006), then where

does one draw the line? What are its limits? Is it an umbrella design movement that includes other new ideas in

the realm of landscape and urban design?

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Image 6,7: The Lower Dons Land waterfront redevelopment proposal in Toronto. The bird’s eye perspective (above) shows the wide expanse of the project while the perspective (be-low) shows the multi-functional natural habit and recreational area.

Cranz and Boland’s Sustainable Park Model

One way to test the boundaries of the Landscape Urbanism movement is to compare it to another

paradigm of landscape architecture. Dr. Galen Cranz, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, and landscape

architect Michael Boland suggest that a new type of park is emerging: the Sustainable Park. This model is

very closely related to Landscape Urbanism, but, surprisingly enough, the two paradigms don’t reference one

another despite having several built project examples such as the High Line Park in common. As will later be

explained, it is by no coincidence that these paradigms substantially overlap each other. This section will first

elaborate on the defining characteristics of the Sustainable Park Model, and then it will explain why it is es-

sentially a component within Landscape Urbanism. Finally, lessons that the Sustainable Park Model has for the

larger Landscape Urbanism Movement will be explained.

Cranz and Boland (2004) suggest that there have been four major park typologies since the first public

parks were built in the late 19th century that categorically define the evolutionary history of park planning in

America (see appendix ‘A’). At the beginning of the new millennium a fifth model of urban park – the Sustain-

able Park – emerged to address contemporary urban ecological and social problems. This model focuses on

addressing multiple urban problems at once, and bears a lot of similarities to Landscape Urbanism. This park

is based on three central characteristics: integration with the larger urban system beyond the park, material

and maintenance resource self-sufficiency, and has a new aesthetic expression (Cranz and Boland, 2004).

Cranz and Boland’s model focuses on integrating the park with the larger urban system (2004). They

identified many new parks that address four common problems: infrastructure, reclamation, health, and social

well-being. The first two characteristics parallel the Landscape Urbanism literature as integral elements of the

horizontal surface. In this light, Sustainable Parks and Landscape Urbanism are closely related. However, the

Sustainable Park Model goes one step further by explicitly addressing social well-being, health, and educa-

tion issues whereas it is only implied in the Landscape Urbanism literature. Cranz and Boland (2004) explain:

“What is distinctive about the Sustainable Park is that it might be used to improve and maintain physical and

psychological health even more directly than has been traditional in the U.S.” This characteristic lacks built

examples, but it is a normative claim that seeks to challenge contemporary landscape practice. In this way, it

relates to the ambitious aims of Landscape Urbanism, which would be well-served by exploring the potentials

suggested by Cranz and Boland.

Additionally, Cranz and Boland suggest that the new model plays a didactic role in improving the qual-

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ity of life of people (2004). Using the landscape to teach ecology and expose the public directly to new ways

of seeing and understanding nature is of primary importance. Signage and educational wayside are two ways

that explain natural processes at work (Cranz and Boland, 2004). While Corner and Waldheim don’t explicitly

address the didactic role Landscape Urbanism plays, they imply that this is an important element as evidenced

by the educational ecology hiking trails in the Fresh Kills Lifescape. In general, Cranz and Boland’s model

more directly deals with social issues than Landscape Urbanism.

Cranz and Boland’s park model focuses on resource self-sufficiency, which fits within the inter-relation

of ecology and urban systems idea. This characteristic embraces the use of plant types and maintenance

techniques that require little resources to sustain (2004). In this way, the Sustainable Park focuses on ecologi-

cal performance. Using native or appropriate exotic plant types to prohibit run-off and erosion; utilizing on-site

composting as a way to recycle vital nutrients; and designing water management systems that manage storm

water are a few specific examples. Beyond ecological systems, Cranz and Boland argue that the Sustainable

Park must also be culturally and socially viable. They suggest that public private partnerships such as park

conservancies or stewardship programs be formed to enable direct community involvement with park issues

(2004).

The third major principle of the Sustainable Park Model is the formation of a new aesthetic expression.

This quality is a meshing of what Corner calls the “imaginary” and “performative urbanism.” Cranz and Boland

(2004) call for a new form of park where the style is determined by the functions it performs – an “evolution-

ary aesthetic.” In fact, Cranz and Boland suggest that this new type of park “may serve as a model for other

urban landscapes, private gardens, and ultimately, the city itself” (2004). This statement parallels Waldheim’s

claim that “landscape has supplanted architecture’s role as the medium most capable of ordering contemporary

urbanism” (2006). Cranz and Boland continue to explain that the “evolutionary aesthetic” is one that is installed

in multiple steps over time. They also use the Fresh Kills Lifescape as an example of this principle.

After comparing the Sustainable Park Model to the Landscape Urbanism Movement (as summarized in

Table 1), it is clear to see that the two paradigms are very similar. It can best be ascertained that Cranz and

Boland’s model is essentially a more socially-directed as well as ecologically driven subset focused mostly on

parks that fits within the broader scope of Landscape Urbanism. What forces are at play that inform these two

paradigms and shape their related visions? How can one improve the other?

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Common Influences, Critiques, and the Future

Towards the latter half of the 20th century two major forces influenced both the Landscape Urbanism

Movement and the Sustainable Parks Model: the increase in regional ecology planning as evidenced in the

work of Ian McHarg and Kevin Lynch and the rise in demand for tourist recreational landscapes that seek to re-

image post-industrial urban centers. Both of these forces help to shift the professional focus of both landscape

architects and urban designers. The Landscape Urbanism Movement, as previously outlined, addresses both

of these forces by inter-mixing a multitude of processes over space and time. Similarly, the Sustainable Park

Model focuses on infusing ecological functions with recreational pursuits, but it also seeks to address some

social welfare and equity aspects that are, at best, only implied in the literature of Landscape Urbanism and,

at worst, are missing completely. This is one area where the Sustainable Parks Model can add to the larger

Landscape Urbanism Movement. More specifically, Landscape Urbanism needs to develop an ethical tenet

that needs to not only address ecological concerns but also issues of social welfare and equity.

The urban planning and policy arm of Landscape Urbanism should seek to address social equity policy

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Table 1: Matrix comparing the Landscape Urbanism Movement and the Sustainable Park Model

Sustainable Park Model Landscape Urbanism Movement

An integrated part of the larger urban system Ecological and urban processes over time

Resource self sufficiency The staging of horizontal surfaces

New modes of aesthetic expression the ability to shift scales; typological versatility

The imaginary (push the envelope)

Promote physical and psychological health Indirectly promotes physical and psychological well being

Increase social well being

Didactic role educate public about natureImprove quality of life by mitigating conflicts betweenadjacent land uses

Parks and Plazas Parks and Plazas

Neighborhoods

Urban Infrastructure (highways, storm barriers, etc)

Operate largely on post industrial sites

Scope

First Tier Characteristics

Second Tier Characteristics

Common Denomonaters

Embrace the rise in environmentalism and demand for recreational landscapes

strategies ranging from issues such as open-space planning in “excluded ghettos” (Marcuse and Van Kempen,

2000) to revising urban land-use requirements for food production. Through theses means Landscape Urban-

ism can truly embrace its poly-professional status and reach beyond the knowledge limits of its landscape

architecture origins to answer its goal of “offering coherent, competent, and convincing explanations of contem-

porary urban conditions” (Waldheim 2006).

Finally, cultural sociologist David Harvey (1996) offers this warning: the challenge to designers and

planners is not simply a challenge of spatial form, which both Modernist and New Urbanist paradigms posit,

but rather a “more socially just, politically emancipatory mix of spatio-temporal production processes…” Given

Landscape Urbanism’s focus on the inter-relation of processes over time it should consider addressing social

equity goals more directly so it doesn’t become a one-sided approach to addressing urban issues. Incorporat-

ing the social aims suggested by Cranz and Boland is just the first step of many in guiding the future of the

Landscape Urbanism Movement. Future discourse and research is necessary to establish a fifth tenet of Land-

scape Urbanism that deals with social equity.

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Appendix A: Cranz and Boland’s Five Park Models Including the Sustainable Park (2004):

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Table 1. A Comparison of the Sustainable Park to Prior Park Types after Cranz (1982).

Pleasure Ground Reform Park Recreation Facility Open Space System Sustainable Park 1850–1900 1900–1930 1930–1965 1965–? 1990–present

Social Goal Public health & Social reform; Recreation service Participation; Human health; social reform children’s play; revitalize city; ecological health

assimilation stop riots

Activities Strolling, carriage Supervised play, Active recreation: Psychic relief, Strolling, hiking, racing, bike gymnastics, crafts, basketball, tennis, free-form play, biking, passive & riding, picnics, Americanization team sports, pop music, active recreation, rowing, clas- classes, dancing, spectator sports, participatory bird watching, sical music, plays & pageants swimming arts education, non-didactic stewardshipeducation

Size Very Large, Small, city blocks Small to medium, Varied, often small, Varied, emphasis on 1000+ acres follow formulae irregular sites corridors

Relation to Set in contrast Accepts urban Suburban City is a work of art; Art-nature City patterns network continuum; part

of larger urban system; model for others

Order Curvilinear Rectilinear Rectilinear Both Evolutionary aesthetic

Elements Woodland & Sandlots, Asphalt or grass Trees, grass, shrubs, Native plants, meadow, playgrounds, play area, pools, curving & permeable curving paths, rectilinear paths, rectilinear paths, rectilinear paths, surfaces, placid water swimming pools, standard play water features for ecological bodies, rustic field houses equipment view, free-form restoration structures, play equipment green infra-limited floral structure, displays resource

self-sufficiency

Promoters Health reformers, Social reformers, Politicians, Politicians, Environmentalists, transcenden- social workers, bureaucrats, environmentalists, local commu-talists, real recreation planners artists, designers nities, volunteer estate interests workers groups, land-

scape architects

Beneficiaries All city dwellers Children, Suburban families Residents, workers, Residents, wildlife, (intended), immigrants, poor urban youth, cities, planetupper middle working class middle classclass (reality)

Image Credits

Cover Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, WA; Designed by Weiss/Manfredi. source: Thun, G. (October 2009) Surfacing Lecture. Arch 589. TCAUP. U. of Michigan.

1 The High Line Park, Manhattan, NY; Photo by Iwan Baan, Friends of the High Line source: http://www.thehighline.org/galleries/images

2 The High Line Park, Manhattan, NY; Photo by Librado Romero, The New York Times source: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/06/09/arts/20090609_HIGH_SLIDESHOW_3.html

3 Lifescape Diagram, Staten Island, NY; Fresh Kills Masterplan, James Corner, Field Operations source: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/fkl/fkl_index.shtml

4 Erie Street Plaza, Milwaukee, WI; Competition Drawing, Chris Reed, SToSS Landscape Urbanism source: http://www.mkedcd.org/planning/EriePlaza/finalists.html

5 Erie Street Plaza, Milwaukee, WI; Competition Drawing, Chris Reed, SToSS Landscape Urbanism source: http://www.mkedcd.org/planning/EriePlaza/finalists.html

6 Lower Dons Land, Toronto, Canada; Competition Drawing, Chris Reed, SToSS Landscape Urbanism source: Burga (2008)

7 Lower Dons Land, Toronto, Canada; Competition Drawing, Chris Reed, SToSS Landscape Urbanism source: Burga (2008)

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Corner, J. (2005). Lifescape. Competition Entry. Fresh Kills Park Draft Master Plan. New York City Department of City Planning. Retrieved from www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/fkl/fkl_index.shtml

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