The Interpretation of Landscape
Strategies Towards Smarter Cities
Ioanna Fakiri
Department of Architecture, N.T.U.A., Athens, Greece
Κeywords: Landscape, Urbanism, Planning, Conduits, Surface, System, Matrix, Receivers, Indicator, Process, Coding,
Synthesis.
Abstract: In recent years we have seen a gradually increasing concern for the urban landscape and the way it is
designed and evaluated. This concern, a result of the emergence of digital technologies and convergence of
different scientific disciplines, is based on the ability of design tools to support and reinforce the discussion
on urban landscape as an open process for action. But, how do we design a new urban space employing
these design tools? So far the discussion on the design and form of the city placed emphasis on the creation
of a communication platform that functions either through the development of interpersonal and interactive
relationships of the users, or as an entity for configuring and displaying visual messages and communication
to society. The term "smart city", has been linked with digital applications, sensors, and software to produce
the city of the future. However, the real challenge is to develop a "smart city," that starts from the city of
today and enables the combination of these smart practices by activating infrastructure that may reform the
spatial structure of the urban morphology. This paper will introduce a "reformer," the natural landscape,
based on which a new methodological approach shall be established, in order to manage the urban
landscape. This will help create a "smarter city," which may find applications in various fields that start
from today’s city, instead of trying to compose an ideal image of the city of tomorrow, that can bridge the
gap between digital, natural and urban environment. The main theme of this paper is part of the extended
scope of Landscape Urbanism, according to which the urban landscape can be redefined / designed through
the remedial procedures of the urban landscape.
1 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION ON
SMART CITIES AND
INNOVATIVE ENVIRONMENTS
Before tackling the main issue of the research
presented in this paper, it is necessary to present the
broader context of this research, as this constitutes
the basis, which feeds the research interests,
produces general questions and directs research
methods. This research is being conducted at a time
when the focus of architectural activity shifts from
its perception as a form or (and) operational
organisation, which responds to a given architectural
program, to its perception as composition of
elements, their properties and relationships. At the
dawn of our late capitalist era, we are witnessing a
paradigm shift that encourages a new relationship
between design and object, which, according to
Michael Hays (Hays, 1998) is nothing other than the
passage from a "critical history" to a "theory" of
architecture.
To this end, the term "smart city" was
introduced, which covers a wide spectrum of
research and development applications. The concept
of smart city involves an emerging market, therefore
identifying and examining the term "smart" is still
going on. Consideration of the particular
characteristics of the smart city is best understood by
interpreting its main conceptual features (Vianna et
al., 2004; Hollands, 2008). Accordingly "Smart
cities" are created by the convergence of two major
currents: on the one hand, the redefinition of the city
through its communication technologies, digital
networking and representation, and, on the other
hand, through the understanding of the city as an
environment of creativity and innovation. Despite
the clear link between society of creativity and
information society, the concept of "smart city" is
still controversial. This occurred because term
Fakiri, I.
The Interpretation of Landscape - Strategies Towards Smarter Cities.
In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Smart Cities and Green ICT Systems (SMARTGREENS 2016), pages 111-116
ISBN: 978-989-758-184-7
Copyright
c
2016 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
111
"smart" is often associated with digital functions,
and the terms "digital city" and "cyber city"
(Mitchell, 2006) are used alternatively and
equivalently. However, it is certain that, providing a
digital platform or a digital representation of the city
does not adequately justify the description of an
urban system as innovative.
In the following
sections, the main framework of the research
presented in this paper elaborates on the above
questions and proposes a new method for a smarter
city.
1.1 Research Framework
Digital applications, sensors, and software often
interact towards the creation of the city of the future.
However, the real challenge in contemporary reality
is to develop a "smart city", which starts from the
city of today and enables the combination of smart
practices. As part of this research that attempts to
define the concept of a smarter city that is based on
the structure of an existing city, the parameter of the
natural landscape is introduced, which, in the
proposed method acts as a key reformer of the urban
fabric.
Accordingly in this work the notion of "natural"
is no longer defined as an external feature and a
representational structure but participates and
supports the urban fabric and becomes part of the
broader approach to urban technology that combines
artificial and natural systems (Νeuman, 2006). This
synergy between natural systems and urban
infrastructure systems, in this paper, will be the basis
of a new methodological approach to design with
emphasis on the landscaping component.
2 THE STATE OF THE ART
2.1 The Science of Landscape
Urbanism
Landscape Urbanism is a neologism, introduced in
1996 by Charles Waldheim that attempts to describe
the landscape as an urban phenomenon, on an effort
to reduce the conflicts between the man-made and
natural environment of the cities. Landscape
Urbanism is today a thriving interdisciplinary
practice that emerges as a renewed perception for
recording, dealing with, and strategically examining,
or designing, towards contemporary problems of the
structure of the urban landscape.
Waldheim, through a presentation of two projects
from the 1930’s and 40’s, presents the early
emergence of an "organic urbanism" which can be
viewed as early versions of landscape urbanist
principles. His account in these projects becomes
the basis for a brief look into the rise of this organic
way of thinking – that is the rise of landscape
urbanism.
The Universities of Pennsylvania, Harvard and
Toronto between 1999 and 2010 functioned as
vibrant workshops studying and researching
applications of this interdisciplinary field.
Proponents of Landscape Urbanism agree that
traditional dichotomies between the urban and
natural landscape are now powerless in the face of
today’s urban reality. The new strategic design
enhances the participation of the natural factor
focusing on the specific dynamic processes and
changes inherent in a place. Temporality, variation,
gradual evolution and adaptation to ecological
parameters, are derivatives of a renewed
understanding of the correlation between urban
environment and natural space at a conceptual level.
At this point, it is worth-mentioning some
additional definitions of Landscape Urbanism.
According to Waldheim (Waldheim, 2006)
Landscape Urbanism appears to describe a
disciplinary re-alignment, in which landscape
replaces architecture as the basic building block of
contemporary urbanism. For many
researchers and
theoreticians across a range of disciplines, landscape
has become both the lens through which the
contemporary city is represented and the medium
through which it is constructed. Discussions
regarding Landscape Urbanism as a synthesis of
natural and social processes, which are contained
within the broader context of the urban component,
gives rise to a new urbanism grounded in ecological
literacy, where even people are viewed as part of
nature (Steiner, 2006).
Another interesting conception of landscape
urbanism is Corner’s three surface strategies, namely
"open-ended," "indeterminate," and "catalytic,"
which suggest as a way of developing design
strategies, as opposed to formal compositions and
master plans (Corner, 2003). These three surface
strategies refer to his perception of the contemporary
city as a horizontal surface constructed in three
layers: construction surface, infrastructure, and
affiliation. As Corner states: "Land division,"
"allocation," "demarcation" and the "construction of
surfaces" constitute the first act in staking out
ground; the second is to establish services and
pathways across the surface to support future
programmes; and the third is ensuring permeability
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to allow for future permutation, affiliation and
adaptation (Corner, 2003). This framework
integrates both conceptual approaches and research
proposals, with potential real world applications.
This generally stems from a conviction that
landscape is emerging as a model for urbanism.
In the same framework, Stan Allen, states that
"Landscape has traditionally been defined as the art
of organising horizontal surfaces". Departing from
this observation, he elaborates saying that landscape
bears an obvious relationship to the extended field of
the contemporary city, as well as to the newly
emerging interest in topological surfaces. By paying
careful attention to surface conditions, including or
involving, not only configuration, but also
materiality and performance, designers can activate
space and produce urban effects without "the
weighty apparatus of traditional space making."
(Allen, 2002)
2.2 Defining the Idea of a Smarter City
based on the Landscape
As mentioned earlier, the natural landscape, on the
one hand, is the lens through which we can describe
and visualise the smarter city, while on the other
hand, the appreciation of the natural landscape is
linked to a search for the landscapes dynamic
capabilities as a design standard. Therefore, the
landscape comes into the public scene as an
indicator of the sustainable growth of the urban
fabric, and as an indicator of sustainability to the
extent that it can control the delicate dynamic
balance between the natural space and the urban
fabric. This renders landscape an attractive
intervention environment worthy of a smarter city.
In this paper, we will try to outline methods and
strategies that can manage the dynamic conditions of
the natural landscape. Specifically, the aim of the
presented research is to propose a method for
managing the landscape in the form of a diagram,
and an approach, which will be linked with the
concept of a smarter city, that is based and builds on
the city of today.
The notion of the smarter city as a hybrid field
between the natural and the urban fabric permits the
exploration of processes that will lead to the
effective management of the properties of both
systems (natural and urban). According to Herbert
Simon (Simon, 1996), the dominant directions in
landscape management are the following two: a)
prevision and b) the homeostatic and feedback
adjustment. Prevision presupposes understanding the
initial conditions, the selection of appropriate
variables, and decoding of the relations between
them. On the other hand, homeostasis refers to the
flexibility of a system to absorb environmental
changes remaining unchanged, while feedback
presupposes a kind of dynamic adjustment of the
system. Departing from Simon’s approach, we will
try to outline a strategy for the hybrid development
of smarter cities based on these two basic directions.
2.3 What Does the Landscape
Urbanism Means in Practise?
Francois Dagognet referring to Landscape design
strategy, he describes it as a method where one finds
less in it, than through it. But how can landscape
function as a method? Corner admits that landscape
urbanism contains many uncertainties concerning its
practical application. Though he promotes new
concepts and representation techniques and suggests
ways on how these can be applied.
However, Corner believes that the current state
of landscape urbanism is not able to deal with this
complexity. Instead he claims that one should focus
on the development of techniques and methods
(Corner, 2006). The activities listed by Corner are
quite abstract. Thus, in this paper we will try to
describe a design methodology that will lead to the
development of a broad variety of tools and design
process approaches.
3 MEASURING AND MINING
URBAN DATA
3.1 Analysis: A Dual Conduit System
In this section we attempt to define a methodology
in which the urban landscape is shaped through a
complex diagrammatic entity capable of operating
through feedback. The integration of metabolic
processes of the natural landscape, as defined by
Corner, in the production of the urban landscape also
involving material and geometrical parameters,
requires a management. In the proposed
methodology natural landscape is broken down into
two distinct parts.
Each part is functioning as a
conduit that conveys fluxes through it. The use of
the term flux in this paper is based on the following
rational: In the initial meaning of the term "Flux,"
that derives from the Latin word fluxus, both flow
and change are included. This perfectly describes
both a main functionof natural landscape that is able
to convey flows, and the effects that flows have on
The Interpretation of Landscape - Strategies Towards Smarter Cities
113
Figure 1: Fundamental Components of Smarter City.
it, which may cause changes to it. The first conduit
requires reading the landscape as a surface, and the
second conduit as a system.
Hence, landscape,
described as a surface, can be perceived as an
heterogeneous field which functions as a main
infrastructure of the city. Interpreting the landscape
as a system may be used to emphasise the interaction
of historical, cultural, economical and social
processes, as well as to provide an explanation of
their effect on the spatiality of a city over time.
The output of the two conduits, are included in a
matrix, which will be used to further contextualise
the developed strategies. The matrix consists of
multiple receivers. The output data transferred
through the conduits of the matrix are subsequently
organised in different receivers according to set
quality parameters. The receivers can be combined;
and, in this manner, the matrix itself can be read as a
palette of landscape urbanism strategies and can be
adapted to a given instance of an urban landscape.
In other words the matrix facilitates
contextualisation and can serve as a framework for
the application of the proposed landscape urbanism
methodology.
3.2 Landscape as a Surface
The idea of landscape as surface means seeing the
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landscape surface as being active and operational,
rather than as a thin passive board (Allen, 2002). At
this point, the landscape as surface is not understood
as a flat lifeless plane, but rather as a set of
behavioural characteristics. Soil has permeability
and plants have height and growth rate –
characteristics that make the surface a living carrier
of flows and processes. The idea of the surface
includes the performative aspects of the landscapes
surface. Slope, hardness or softness, permeability,
depth, or soil chemistry are all variables that
influence the behaviour of surfaces such as their
tendency to shed or hold water, or their ability to
support traffic, events, or plant life (Wall, 1999).
Thus, the surface of the landscape with its wide
range of properties, can affect program and
organisation, and contribute to the creation of a valid
strategic model for a contemporary urban condition.
In the proposed method, all the first conduit’s
data are transferred to the matrix that incorporates
two distinct receivers: a hydrological receiver and a
geological one.
3.2.1 Hydrological Receiver
The hydrological receiver addresses water as a living
mechanism, which can create a resilient, yet
productive ground, for the social and morphological
prosperity of the landscape. This can generate a
water management system. Accordingly in this
method "water" is not addressed merely as a basic
necessity for everyday life; it becomes a central
element for a new urban social ecology.
In particular, the water receiver may be used to
find out the timings, amount of water, extension, etc.
to find out the problems and the opportunities the
city is facing exactly. Water flows over the surface
and software simulates processes of erosion and
deposition. This finding allows the model to predict
the water dynamics with high resolution.
3.2.2 Geological Receiver
The main purpose of the geological receiver is to
provide an understanding of the influence of various
parameters, such us grain size of the soil vegetation
and slope processes, depth or soil chemistry,
material could influence on the formation of a new
urban social ecology. The receiver is using data from
multiple sources, including data downloaded from
online sources, field-collected data, and published
map data. For this purpose, geological simulation
models can be employed. Such software will help us
analyse, store, manipulate and visualize geological
information on a map.
3.3 Landscape as a System
The landscape as a system involves the interaction
of cultural, social, historical, and economical
conditions and provides an understanding of how
these conditions affect the spatiality over time.
Specifically, landscape as system handles landscape
as a dynamic ecosystem, derived from the
reevaluation of the synthesis of natural and cultural
processes. This interpretation of the system further
means a focus on process, synthesis, resilience and
contingency.
Lister (Lister N-M, 2007), by reference to Sim
Van der Ryn and Cowan, explains that the
description and culture could create new hybrid
models linking cultural activity and natural systems.
To manage the urban fabric, it is not enough to
distinctly address the cultural factor and the natural
element, but those two, must interact through
hybridized forms that are best suited to describe
typologies inherent in the modern city.
Summarizing, the landscape as a surface and the
landscape as a system contribute to the development
of operational strategies aimed at the management of
the landscape as a whole. The establishment of the
double conduits is the first piece of the
methodological tool. The objective of this phase is to
collect data, separate them according to their quality
into the two distinct conduits, and to transform the
data into appropriate forms, vector objects, so as to
be used as data of the next phase. The handling of
the landscape as a combined surface and system
may actively contribute to the dynamics of the city
and aims to develop operational strategies towards
the city redefinition.
4 PROCESS AND SYNTHESIS
The second phase of the methodological tool
introduces specific standards called "indicators".
These "indicators" are quantified data that meet
specific conditions (simplicity, power, data
availability over time, sensitivity to small changes,
validity) and allow the system to legislate and
monitor the quality of the variables managed. At the
point where the "indicators" check the validity of the
previous level’s data, these conduits are charged
with a plus or minus sign. If the sign is minus, the
conduit is understood as meaning, in which case the
system reclassifies the vector objects. If the sign is
plus, the conduit acts as accelerator and facilitates
the encouragement and integration of data.
The third phase of the methodological approach
The Interpretation of Landscape - Strategies Towards Smarter Cities
115
involves the stage of synthesis of the "indicators",
the interaction of vector objects and final evaluation,
based on which the landscape is organized.
In conclusion, this paper proposes a new concept
of smart cities and a new approach to the natural
landscape as reformer of the urban fabric. New
conceptual models and strategies are created to
interpret the landscape as a surface and as a system,
not only as a natural backdrop.
5 EXPECTED PARADIGM SHIFT
To sum up, if today the cultural consideration
changes looking for a smarter city, then design
strategies should move to manufacturing techniques
that manage change through ecological evolving and
developing platforms. On an effort to form a smarter
city, natural landscape should not be a backdrop on
which the urban articulation will be placed, but a
dynamic field of study, management and recovery of
the urban fabric. On this basis the research presented
in this paper a first conceptual approach to a
mechanism that may monitor the transformation of
natural space, fed with data obtained from its
analysis, in order to compose them and redefine the
urban space. It could be said that this mechanism
acts as a filter which not only receives information
but also checks if this information can be changed
and also produces connections and forms supported
by computer generated programs. Unlike traditional
urban fabric design methods, or the digitized form of
smart cities, this mechanism aims to produce a
smarter city through a renewed perception of
convergence of the aspect between man-made
environment and natural space.
This mechanism for the design and data
management of the hybrid field between the natural
and the urban fabric
is in a conceptual stage; the aim
however is the future development of systems that
support its practical operation. Such systems do not
involve new hardware, but are mainly platforms
coupling already existing software in order to gather
real-time data, encode and control the homeostasis
or the feedback. In this direction new methods of
integrating spatial and related databases can be
developed.
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