Downloads
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7480/spool.2016.2.1117Abstract
The article addresses the theme of ‘particular places’ in the contemporary landscape metropolis by focusing on the temporal, climatic and geographic specificity that determines each place as unique. In particular, it explores how design can support the appreciation of a ‘particular place’ by enhancing the readability of its temporal, climatic and geographic constituents through an engagement with local weather phenomena.
The article considers the capacity of design to foreground the particularity of a place by connecting to its weather through a critical reading of SLA’s redesign of the seafront of Brattøra in the city of Trondheim in Norway. My critical approach to the project juxtaposes a personal investigation of the design work based on primary experience and the insights of a conversation with SLA’s principal Stig Lennart Andersson, performed and transcribed in 2012 as part of my doctoral thesis. Elaborating on this conversation, the article is articulated in three successive thematic sections, dealing respectively with the concepts of ground, exposure and wonder. Albeit specific to the project, these notions afford the possibility to expand upon more universal considerations of the capacity of design to foreground diffuse, changing and immaterial components of space in human experience. In the conclusive part of the article, I attempt to verbalise why SLA’s work can be considered a valuable reference for the design of ‘particular places’ in the contemporary landscape metropolis.
How to Cite
Published
License
Copyright (c) 2020 SPOOL
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Plaudit
References
Corner, J. (2006). Terra Fluxus. In C. Waldheim (Ed.), The Landscape Urbanism Reader, (21-33). New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (B. Massumi, Trans.) Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1980)
Eliasson, Ó., Obrist H.-U. (2006). The Goose Lake Trail (southern Route): Gæsavatnaleið (syðri): a Road Conversation between Olafur Eliasson and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Köln,Germany: Walther König.
Fisher, P. (1998). Wonder, the Rainbow, and the Aesthetics of Rare Experiences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Foucault, Michel (1977). Intellectuals and Power: A conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. In Bouchard, D.F. (Ed.), Language, counter-memory, practice: selected essays and interviews (205-217) Ithaca, NY: Cornell University. The conversation was recorded March 4, 1972. Originally published as “Les intellectuels et le pouvoir,” L’Arc 49 (1972): 3-10.
Gibson, James J. (1966). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Gibson, James J. (1986). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. 1979. Reprint, New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Hellström Reimer, M. (2010). Unsettling eco-scapes: aesthetic performances for sustainable futures. Journal of Landscape Architecture, spring 2010, 24-37.
Høyer, S. A. B. (1999). Things Take Time and Time Takes Things: The Danish Landscape. In J. Corner (Ed.), Recovering landscape: essays in contemporary landscape architecture (68-77). New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press.
Ingold, T. (1993). The Temporality of the Landscape. World Archaeology, 25(2), 152-174.
Ingold, T. (2005). The Eye of the Storm: Visual Perception and the Weather. Visual Studies 20(2): 97-104.
Labadini, A. (2016) Immaterial Landscapes. Formulating the Intangible in Northern Landscapes. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway.
Meyer, E. K. (2005). Site Citations: The grounds of Modern Landscape Architecture. In C. Burns & A. Kahn (Eds.), Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strategies (93-129). New York, NY: Routledge.
Meyer, E. K. (2008). Sustaining Beauty. The Performance of Appearance – A manifesto in Three Parts. Journal of Landscape Architecture, spring 2008, 6-23.
Morton, T. (2011). Zero Landscapes in the Time of Hyperobjects. Zero Landscape: Unfolding Active Agencies of Landscape. Graz Architecture Magazine, 07, 78-87.
Nancy, J.-L. (2005). The Ground of the Image. New York, NY: Fordham University Press.
Norberg-Schulz, C. (1996). Nightlands: Nordic Building. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ponte, A. (2014). The House of Light and Entropy. London, United Kingdom: AA Publications.
Rendell, J. (2003). “Between Two: Theory and Practice.” The Journal of Architecture 8(2), 221-237.
Sloterdijk, P. (2011). Architektur als Immersionskunst [Architecture as an Art of Immersion]. Arch+ 178, 58-59.
SLA. (2010). Process Urbanism: The City as Artificial Ecosystem. Retrieved from http://www.processurbanism.com.
von Uexküll, J. (1934). Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen [A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans]. Berlin, Germany: Verlag von Julius Springer.
Waldheim, C. (2016). Landscape as urbanism: A general theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
