The planning profession has reached something of a critical juncture. This is not, of itself, a particularly interesting revelation; to hear planners talk about it, our profession is pretty much always reaching some sort of critical juncture, crossroads, etc. This time, however, we might be onto something.

I recently finished plodding my way through editor Roger Elwood’s Future City, an early-seventies anthology of “new wave” science fiction takes on (wait for it…) the “Future City.” The contributions were unerringly pessimistic, forecasting a future of out-of-control urbanism roughly on the model of the South Bronx circa 1977, but With Added Fancy Computers. The contributions were also, and again unerringly, wrong. The archetypal City of 2012 hardly resembles the nightmares they envisioned, and the attitudes towards urbanism held by many of the stories’ characters are, if anything, even more distant from the current re-awakening of interest in all things urban.

In previous posts on Landscape Urbanism, I’ve argued that the narrative of urbanism—the one accepted by both the mass media and highbrow magazine monthlies—is up for grabs at the moment. It’s changing, to be sure, but through an international, multi-media conversation the results of which nobody can yet foresee. For as long as this conversation is ongoing, it’s perhaps not beyond reason to propose that we’ve all got a certain moral duty to flag both its best and worst contributors for either praise or derision.

With that said, then: three cheers for Mark C. Childs, and a chorus of raspberries for Boyd Cohen.

Urban Composition: Developing Community through Design is Childs’s contribution to the Architecture Briefs: Foundations in Architecture series published by Princeton Architectural Press. The series, we’re informed, is “designed to address of a variety of single topics of interest… in a user-friendly manner alongside the basics of architectural thought, design and construction.” Though ostensibly written for “architecture students and professionals,” Childs’s Urban Composition could be enjoyed just as easily by the interested layman.

In Urban Composition, Mark C. Childs presents not only an introduction to the practice of conscientious urban design, but also advances an optimistic, collectivist vision of civil composition’s contribution to the commonwealth. Image courtesy Princeton Architecture Press

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Just as Danny Boyle’s cinematic representation of England’s transition from a pastoral, farming nation to the leaders of the industrial revolution, London’s East End has been going through a transition of its own in preparation for the Olympic Games. The next question that begs analysis, and dare I say it, the delightfully sarcastic judgment that so often begets British dialogue, is what happens next? When the athletes, officials, tourists, and hoards of security and soldiers leave the Games to patiently wait for the next spectacle of outstanding athletic feats, what is the next phase of Danny Boyle’s English dream?

The London Olympic Committee, for all intents and purposes, has done a fairly progressive job of planning for the temporary nature of the Olympics. Finally, after 30 previous Summer Games where the host cities have seemed to plan with the spectacle in mind, and then proceed with a wish and a prayer that somehow the sites will be used after the event, the planning committees have asked, ‘Hey, maybe we should figure out what to do with this stuff when the 14 days are over’?

London has introduced concepts of temporality in its buildings, unlike previous Olympic host cities. Most of the major sporting structures will decrease in size following the closing ceremonies, or transition into other programs and uses. For this, London should be applauded. They have stepped into the zone rarely taken by architects of impermanent place making.

Yet for all intents and purposes, the Games are still an aggressive rally against thousands of displaced residents. And they’re hardly something to point to as a model of sustainability. What we didn’t see on TV are the thousands of people kicked out of their homes and businesses in the name of world sport and the Olympic ‘spirit.’ So the question still remains, despite all the talk of planning and paying attention to the post-Olympic let down: what is REALLY going to happen to the buildings, the open spaces, and the people that had to relocate all in the name of tradition?

We only have to look back a few short years to the Athens Olympic Games of 2004 to see the fissure between the spectacle scenario of the event and the chaos an ultimate abandonment of the sites after the athletes and spectators have left town. With over $1.2 billion in security alone and nearly $11 billion in total costs, there is little to no money for maintenance of the once celebrated structures. There has even been talk that the Olympics put the Greek economy into a tailspin.

While the Olympics offer the promise of urban spatial transformation, the results are often far from the early ambitions of the planners and idealists. There are 43 sites for the London Olympic Games. London has done a fairly decent job, with very few venues needing to be built from scratch. The Olympic budget has increased to a whopping $18.3 billion, causing rational people to question what will happen to the mammoth structures rising out of those billions of British pounds.

To get more specific, I’d like to take a quick look at three of the major Olympic venues in London.

1. The Olympic Stadium

What do you do with a stadium that has a capacity of 80,000? For the London Games, the Olympic Stadium’s capacity will be reduced post-events to a permanent capacity of 25,000. The structure is comprised of a temporary steel and concrete upper tier, which holds the additional 55,000 spectators to be dismantled after the conclusion of the event. The plan is to use the stadium as a venue for sporting events, as well as cultural and community events; for example, it will host the 2015 IAFF World Championships.

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Valencia’s Green River, Photography by Brian Phelps.

Bold ideas are easy, implementing them is hard. This is particularly true as cities around the world want to use their landscape infrastructure to address the issues they face. How can interventions be woven into the existing urban fabric? Beyond simply mustering the financial resources or political will, one must seek opportunities to carefully insert or adapt landscape systems to the constraints of established urban communities. New York’s High Line, Atlanta’s Beltline, and Madrid’s RIO project all relied on abandoned or superseded rail or highway infrastructure to thread linear landscapes through the hearts of old cities. Valencia, on the other hand, relied on a crisis, and in the words of Rahm Emanuel, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

In 1957, Valencia experienced a devastating flood that forever changed the city’s relationship with the Turia River. Nearly three quarters of the city was inundated by floodwater and over 60 people lost their lives. The following year, the city embraced a plan to divert the river around its western outskirts to the Mediterranean Sea.

1957 Flood in Valencia: Photograph extracted from PereDrak’s Valencia Slideshow.

Re-routing the City’s River..

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What does it mean to tell the story of landscape architecture? Of design, generally? And what about the stories behind the designs of all of the projects underway worldwide? The aftermath of a great project can unfortunately be a resounding silence: the metaphorical gates open, the space is unveiled, the construction teams leave the site, and then a few leaves fall. When people use new spaces and places in the urban setting, how do we tell the story of the creation of landscapes beyond launch day? Beyond signage? About the designers, architects, planners and people behind the projects?

In this interview, I join Amanda Walter and Holly Berkley, co-authors of the recently released book, Social Media In Action, to talk about the need for communication in landscape architecture and how the increasing prevalence of social media tools—such as blogging, Twitter, Facebook and more—are helping the architecture, engineering and planning industry change the way we communicate.

Sarah Kathleen Peck: What do you see as the role of storytelling and communication in landscape architecture?

Amanda Walter and Holly Berkley: Unfortunately, landscape architecture can be invisible to lay people. This may be the profession’s biggest struggle. If landscape architects don’t tell the stories of their projects – drawing attention to the design and intention of the space – no one else will. Your designs can’t speak for themselves when the public attributes their authorship to God. For landscape architecture firms, your narrative is what will open the public’s eyes to your work.

Today, telling and sharing stories couldn’t be easier and digital formats are great for visually rich topics like design. Social media loves visual content. Videos are shared more frequently and posts (whether on a blog, on Facebook or LinkedIn) with striking images attract more readers.  Once you start telling your stories in social media, your readers will let you know (like, share, comment on, etc.) the content they like the best – pay attention to what content engages your audience and you’ll hone your story telling skills.

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Shortly after finishing up her duties the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, architect Susan Chin started in her new position as Executive Director at the Design Trust for Public Space, a switch she says, was both “exhilarating and exhausting, like running at 100 miles per hour”.

“As I was going through my DCA files, I felt so fortunate to have played a leadership role in NYC government during a time of Design Excellence, green buildings and infrastructure, an upswing in public sector and private support for great architecture, program, and civic involvement.” After the transition, when as she “finally bobbed to the surface,” she tackled the questions I sent her upon hearing of the move she was about to make.

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My friend Andres Duany is as clever as can be, and so, surely timed his Metropolis obituary for Harvard’s Urban Design Program to correspond with our celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Urban Design Program, at which he is to speak [this week, November 12, 13]. Why not a shot across the bow a week early? It certainly got our attention. Though how he intends to defend this theory in front of several hundred people looking ahead to participating in the second half century of the discipline of urban design will be interesting to observe. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. While, yes, an increased interest in environmental stewardship is surely in our future. It would be utterly irresponsible for it not to be so during these next decades of the 21st century.

Those of us who teach and practice urban design welcome an environmentally-based broadening of the discipline, which at times has been perceived as too narrowly aligned with architectural sensibilities. Addressing urbanism wisely in its many contemporary guises, we now know, requires a multiplicity of arrows in our intellectual quivers – ecological considerations being among the ‘sharpest’ of these. Why should not the landscape architecture profession re-assert its voice, as concern about ecological footprints gains broad public notice. It has been the design discipline that has most consistently retained consciousness of humanity’s impact on land and environments. We at the GSD even recall that the birth of American urban planning, as a serious academic discipline, begins with the lectures at Harvard of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. in the 1920’s.

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Without a doubt, architect Andres Duany is a pivotal figure in creating a less car-dependent, more walking-oriented American landscape—the kind of human-scale, personally navigable, tight developments that seem to have sturdy green roots and point, generally, toward a more urban lifestyle. Certainly, densely-settled cities have what Duany and his cohorts have been advocating for 30 years. But now as these cities begin to re-engage with nature, to create their own, healthy and life-affirming environments, surprisingly (at least to me)  Duany is not cheering, he’s jeering. He seems to equate the new “dogma of environmentalism” (my quotes) with the recent changes at the Harvard GSD, where the old Urban Planning and Design department is giving way to Landscape Urbanism. And so I must ask this, is he just looking for a fight, or is there a constructive dialogue to be had here? —sss

Last April, upon attending a remarkable conference at the Harvard GSD, I predicted that it would be taken over in a coup. I recognized a classic Latin American-style operation. It was clear that the venerable Urban Design program would be eliminated or replaced by Landscape Urbanism. Today, it is possible to confirm that the coup was completed in September—and that it was a strategic masterpiece.

To summarize: The first step was the hiring of Charles Waldheim, who, after long and patient preparation, had circled in from the academic hinterland acquiring “famous victories” at Illinois and Toronto. The second step was the “general strike” of the huge Ecological Urbanism Conference—the one that I attended last April. With some thirty speakers, it was both a remarkable show of force, and simultaneously the casting call for the next faculty.

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