撰文 (葡萄牙)路易斯 · 劳瑞斯 翻译 狄帆 校对 杨云峰
风景园林是一门跨越了科学、技术以及艺术等诸多领域的学科。从这一角度上看,每一个园林师都应该能够创造出可持续、同时又能够保护环境、自然和文化的景观,并且提升人们的生活质量。不幸的是,有时情况并非如此。
这篇论文中的研究是在我辗转于三所大学——葡萄牙阿尔加维大学(University of Algarve)、美国密歇根州立大学(Michigan State University)和加拿大多伦多大学(University of Toronto)完成博士学业过程中的一部分成果,它们是在阿尔加维大学托马斯·帕那古浦罗斯教授(Thomas Panagopoulos)、密歇根州立大学乔·布雷教授(Jon Burley)、多伦多大学建筑学院副院长查尔斯·瓦尔德海姆教授(Charles Waldheim)的指导下完成的。在国外留学的机会是我职业生涯中的重大突破,是难以从书本中学来的一段经历,必须真实体验才会有所感触。
海外留学使得我能够接触风景园林师并一起工作,我学习他们的书籍及研究,虽然一开始我认为我几乎没有与他们共事——比如迈克尔·霍克教授(Michael Hough,图01中右二),他的著作《城市与自然过程》(Cities and Natural Processes, 1995)是在我研究生期间时常阅览的一本书。如果说求学期间是否一切都如意?答案很明确,绝对没有!文化差异、经济压力、远离亲人……,这些都是难以接受的现实。然而,在积极的态度之上,建立起简单而直接的问题解决方法,乐观的人总能看到事物美好的一面。如果我有机会,我愿意重温这段海外求学的美妙经历。学习、研究、讲座,这一切都令人愉悦不已!
此外,这些研究经历使我意识到城市规划与空间保护、再发展与设计是同一过程的不同部分;景观改造新策略与方法是后工业景观改造的重要工具,并能催进城市再发展与振兴。也许基于这点,在过去十年中众多研究者都投身于景观改造的理论发展之中,这些通常由设计师的主观意志所决定,而这又是其中的缺陷所在。
然而,关于后工业景观改造的方法论研究依然不多,不仅是可能的框架,并且是原则的结合。基于此,本文所提出的方法被认为是一个可行的方法,以解决城市扩张问题,及其衍生出来的包括社会、经济和环境等问题导致的城市土地利用的矛盾。
作为一个兴趣在城市规划的风景园林师,在我短暂的职业生涯中我的主要关注在于通过设计满足现代生活的种种需求,解决社会、自然、文化遗产以及经济等诸多方面存在的问题。在哲学层面,我对于风景园林和城市规划的理解与很多当代学者不同,认为它们需要综合考虑景观设计的不同要素,并且须对规划设计过程中生态、文化和社会经济问题进行广泛研究。
我的方法目标是在个人感受的基础上使风景园林师及其他规划设计专家收集可供构思整体概念和重建总体规划的数据,从而创造出新颖的设计形式以供深化设计。
我相信,我们始终在学习,对于我来说最好的方法就是通过经验、尝试和失败来学习。因此,我选择案例研究作为我的研究方法,并认为它是一个收集信息,使得设计师能越来越关注设计本身,减少个人的评判意志的有效途径,并设计越来越多反映大众需求、场地特性并对自然和人类双方都有益的项目。这并不是说我想要勾勒出能使任何人都能提出景观倡议的灵丹妙药。我的目标是建立某种方针来在设计过程中帮助设计师,确保普罗大众是设计过程中最重要的考虑因素。
虽然案例研究法并非完美无缺,但它被众多研究者看作为重要的研究策略(Yin, 1994;Agranoff and Beryl, 1991; George, 1979; and Lucas,1974),它不仅能进行相似案例间的比较分析,还能引导减少主观预判的系统的分析。案例研究法的特点使得它能被广泛的运用于各个学科(医学研究、社会学、工程、规划、建筑和风景园林)。此外,根据弗朗西斯(Francis,1990 & 2001)还认为,利用案例研究法分析已建成的案例非常有效。
在本研究中所设想的方法适用于创建后工业景观改造规划和设计的原则,而这些原则能提高相似景观改造设计的设计质量。通过分析研究超过100个成功的后工业景观改造项目(图02-03),我们能得出一系列原则用以创建特点的设计策略。
虽然这一方法的应用仍属探索阶段,我相信其应用与发展将帮助设计师提高设计技巧,同时提高设计质量。我会尽可能地继续完善相关数据的质量和数量,并将继续整理相关成果以供发表,目前围绕这项研究我已发表论文20余篇。
路易斯·劳瑞斯/博士/葡萄牙阿尔加维大学空间与组织动力学研究中心/葡萄牙波塔莱格雷理工学院农业与自然资源系教师
译者简介:
狄帆/1986年生/男/南京林业大学城市规划与设计硕士/哈佛大学设计学院风景园林学系硕士生
校对简介:
杨云峰/1981年生/博士/南京林业大学风景园林学院讲师/美国密歇根州立大学访问学者/本刊特约编辑/YouthLA核心编辑(南京 210037)
图01参与迈克尔·霍克教授一起室外讲座。我依然记得他对Brick Works场地提议的富有激情的阐述。
Fig.01 Outdoor Lecture with Professor Michael Hough. I still remember the passionate way he explained to me some particularities regarding the proposal developed for the Brick Works site.图02克利夫兰工业景观——沿凯霍加河,因催生了1960年代环保运动而闻名。
Fig.02 Industrial Cleveland – alongside the Cuyahoga River, also known as river that caught fire helping to give incentive to the environmental movement in the late 1960s.
图03 酒厂街区——位于多伦多市中心,由散落在10条街的40余座历史建筑组成,是北美地区最大的维多利亚时代建筑集群。
Fig.03 Distillery District-located in Toronto's Downtown, this redevelopment is known as the largest collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America, comprising more than 40 heritage buildings distributed along 10 streets.
Landscape architecture is generally described as a multi-disciplinary field which incorporates several branches of knowledge considering at the same time science, technology and arts. In this scenario each and every single landscape architect should be perceived as someone who is able to promote the creation of landscapes that ensure sustainable development, while protecting the environment, preserving natural and cultural assets, and improving people's quality of life. Still,unfortunately, sometimes this is not true.
The research presented in this paper is part of the study developed during my Ph.D. program which enabled me to study at three great universities- University of Algarve (UAlg), the Michigan State University (MSU) and the University of Toronto(UofT)-under the supervision of my Ph.D.Coordinators: Professor Thomas Panagopoulos at UAlg, and Professor Jon Burley, at MSU, and also Professor Charles Waldheim, Dean at the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at UofT. The opportunity to study abroad was, in fact, a great achievement in my academic career,an experience that cannot be learned in books,something that you have to feel in order to describe.This opportunity allowed me to get in touch and sometimes work together with several landscape architects, whose books and research I followed very closely and who I supposed to be unreachable,as is the case of Professor Michael Hough (Fig.01),whose bookCities and Natural Processesfrom 1995, was one of my preferred readings throughout my grad studies. Still, if one ask me if these were easy times? The answer is prompt and clear. No,they were not! Cultural adaptation, financial support, missing the ones you love…, are not pleasant realities, However, applying a very simple and direct problem solving approach, based on a positive attitude, enabled me to see that "the glass is not half empty, it is half full".
If I had the opportunity, I would do it all over again, because this has been a wonderful experience. Learning, researching, and lecturing are really pleasant things to do! Maybe I just feel this way, because I truly believe that as mentioned by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the VII century b.C. "Those who work in what they love, pass their entire life without working…"
Additionally this research journey enabled me to realize that urban planning and open space preservation, redevelopment and design are part of the same process, and that the development of new strategies and methodologies for landscape transformation constitute very important tools towards post-industrial landscape redevelopment,while fostering urban redevelopment and revitalization. Maybe for this reason, throughout the last decades several researchers and academics have been committed with the development of strategies to enable the creation of better landscape transformation projects, which are normally excessively subjective and dependent on the designer's determination, fact that is considered to be a limitation. Indeed, new frameworks and methodologies are required.
However, considering that there is still little research regarding post-industrial landscape transformation and redevelopment methodologies,envisioning not only possible frameworks, but also the principles they integrate, the approach proposed in the present research may be considered a proficient approach to address urban sprawl,increasingly viewed as significant and growing landuse problem that encompass a wide range of social,economic and environmental issues.
As a landscape architect which research interests are deeply related with the field of urban planning, my main concerns throughout my short career have been connected to fitting design to the needs and desires of contemporary life, addressing in equal measure society, the natural landscape,heritage and culture, and economic issues. My vision of landscape architecture and urban planning differs from many contemporaries in its philosophical grounding in the social as well as creative matrices, calling for a comprehensive view of the different components of landscape design,acknowledging the need for an interrelated analysis of the ecologic, cultural and socioeconomic issues in planning and design processes.
In this regard in the aforementioned paper I present a specific methodology envisioned with the objective to enable landscape architects and other planning and design specialists to collect data from which they might conceive the overall concept and prepare redevelopment master plans,based on more than their personal tastes and beliefs,generating innovative forms of design from which detailed drawings and technical specifications may be prepared.
I believe we are always learning, and to me,the best way of doing it, is by experience, by trial and error. For this reason, learning by experience,using case study research was the method I've selected, since I consider it to be a proficient tool to collect information that will enable designers to strengthen the quality of design, converting each and every single project less and less the result of designers' beliefs and more the result of people's needs, site specificities and the spirit of the place,factors which coupled with individual expertise might result in better projects both to people and landscapes. This is obviously not to say that I intend to define a recipe according to which anyone may develop a design proposal. The objective is to establish some guidelines that might influence and help designers throughout the design process,assuring that people are the most important factor on the design equation.
Like any other theoretical stance, the presented method-case study research-was never as fixed as its challengers believed it to be. In fact, the case study research method is considered by several authors a very important research strategy (Yin,1994; Agranoff and Beryl, 1991; George, 1979; and Lucas, 1974), which allows not only the analysis and comparison among similar case studies, but also the development of a systemic analysis, where the subjectivity may be reduced significantly. Its characteristics enable the use of this method in various fields of knowledge (e.g. medical research,sociology, engineering, planning, architecture and landscape architecture). Moreover, this method is, according to Francis (1999 and 2001), a very useful tool to study and analyse existing projects and the way in which specific problems and design constraints were solved and which strategies should be followed or avoided.
In the present investigation the envisioned method was applied in order to enable the creation of a set of post-industrial landscape redevelopment planning and design principles that may inform the establishment of a specific theoretical basis to increase the quality of similar redevelopment proposals- i.e. by researching and analysing the practical principles applied in more than 100(Fig.02-03) successful post-industrial landscape reclamation projects, it was possible to ascertain and propose a set of principles that will inform the creation of specific design theory.
Though the application of this method is still an on-going process, I do believe that its application and refinement might help designers to improve their design skills, while strengthening design quality. As far as possible I will continue to improve the quality and the amount of data related to this subject, and I will continue to publish the findings of this journey, which so far counts with more than 20 papers.
Agranoff, R. and Beryl A., 1991. The Comparative Case Study Approach in Public Administration. Research in Public Administration, 1: 203-231.
Francis, M., 1999. A case study method for landscape architecture.The Landscape Architecture Foundation, Washington DC.Francis, M., 2001. A Case Study Method for Landscape Architecture. Landscape Journal, 19(2): 15-29.
George, A., 1979. Case Study and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison. In: Lauren, P. (Eds.),Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory and Policy. Free Press, New York.
Lucas, W., 1974. The Case Survey Method. RAND Corporation,Santa Monica.
Yin, R., 1994. Case Study Research: design and methods. Sage Publications, London.