Urban Open Space Planning and Design 2009

Landscape as a strategyfor Identity and Sustainability,Seodaemun to Sinwol as a case

Prof. Wybe KuitertHyo Jin Kim

Mina ParkMyung Jae Lee

Wee Rae JoeJin Bailian

GSE

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CONCEPT & ANALYSIS he city of Seoul, like any city, is an occupation pattern that sits on a landscape. It is a landscape of soil, water, topography, potential vegetation, and settlements built by humans in patterns of occupation. Human occupation always takes into account the natural situation of the substrate of landscape. In previous time, with little science and technology, settlements had to follow the strong impacts of the natural environment closely. A strong relation between everyday life and landscape resources was the result. Favorable landscape units, such as the foothills of Seoul were used for growing food, and enjoy other blessings of nature. The foothills were a good place to live. On the contrary, flood plains were not used for city building. With increasing technological means, natural parameters became less important, though never absent. Also the modern city has to live with rain, and with limitations of soil and topography. And always economic resources are required to maintain the urban landscape: the more artifi-cially it is built, the more resources are needed for its maintenance.

SUSTAINABILITY

It is this necessary maintenance that makes the technological city vulnerable. With sea levels increasing and rains becoming more unpredictable, more technology is required and more economic resources are needed to maintain it. Sewer systems have to be adapted - and maintained. Dams have to be built higher and stronger and all will require more efforts and funds to maintain. Not to mention the fact that cities are growing and citizens tend to spend more and more, which enlarges problems of maintaining. And this is only because we all have higher expectations of daily life – tomorrow should be better than today.Ultimately it means that we cannot sustain the efforts of maintaining our cities. Our present way of building cities is not sustain-able. Therefore we need to re-introduce the importance of the original landscape. Original landscape patterns still wait under our modern urban landscape to be rediscovered and should be re-vitalized to help increase sustainability to the urban system.

IDENTITY

Modern cities are often developed as a functional system with the science and technologies of plain urban planning where land-scape is reduced to a blank site to be developed. In such cases the awareness of landscape as a sustainable system is lacking. Another deficit of old-fashioned urban planning is the absence of identity. The city is thought of as a rational system of consum-ers and producers, and of things like leisure and health. The result of this approach is a standard solution for a standard type of human being to function as anonymous entity in an anonymous urban environment. In a social and cultural sense this is another form of un-sustainability. Examples show how such an environment gets into trouble when its occupants grow old and sick, or become unemployed; neighborhoods decline and become urban slums. The question: who am I, what was the purpose of my life, becomes pressing, causing burdens to society as a whole. A proper social housing policy is important to solve these problems. Introducing landscape as a tool for identity is another part of the solution. Any city, any neighborhood, should have it’s charac-ter, should have it’s own quality, a quality that derives from a sustainable managing of the natural environment that gives place to urban development. The landscape that sits under the city should be readable, understandable, usable, and enjoyable. Seoul is blessed with rivers and mountains. More precisely, the Han River runs through two mountain ridges Mangyeongdae and .. Between these two landscape elements extends a landscape of rolling plains and valleys; it is a strong system that can define identity and increase sustainability in the city.

T


Prof. Wybe KuitertHyo Jin Kim

Mina ParkMyung Jae Lee

Wee Rae JoeJin Bailian

GSE

S 20

09 f

all

Urb

an o

pen

spac

e pl

anin

g an

d de

sign

stu

dioI

I

CONCEPT & ANALYSIS he city of Seoul, like any city, is an occupation pattern that sits on a landscape. It is a landscape of soil, water, topography, potential vegetation, and settlements built by humans in patterns of occupation. Human occupation always takes into account the natural situation of the substrate of landscape. In previous time, with little science and technology, settlements had to follow the strong impacts of the natural environment closely. A strong relation between everyday life and landscape resources was the result. Favorable landscape units, such as the foothills of Seoul were used for growing food, and enjoy other blessings of nature. The foothills were a good place to live. On the contrary, flood plains were not used for city building. With increasing technological means, natural parameters became less important, though never absent. Also the modern city has to live with rain, and with limitations of soil and topography. And always economic resources are required to maintain the urban landscape: the more artifi-cially it is built, the more resources are needed for its maintenance.

SUSTAINABILITY

It is this necessary maintenance that makes the technological city vulnerable. With sea levels increasing and rains becoming more unpredictable, more technology is required and more economic resources are needed to maintain it. Sewer systems have to be adapted - and maintained. Dams have to be built higher and stronger and all will require more efforts and funds to maintain. Not to mention the fact that cities are growing and citizens tend to spend more and more, which enlarges problems of maintaining. And this is only because we all have higher expectations of daily life – tomorrow should be better than today.Ultimately it means that we cannot sustain the efforts of maintaining our cities. Our present way of building cities is not sustain-able. Therefore we need to re-introduce the importance of the original landscape. Original landscape patterns still wait under our modern urban landscape to be rediscovered and should be re-vitalized to help increase sustainability to the urban system.

IDENTITY

Modern cities are often developed as a functional system with the science and technologies of plain urban planning where land-scape is reduced to a blank site to be developed. In such cases the awareness of landscape as a sustainable system is lacking. Another deficit of old-fashioned urban planning is the absence of identity. The city is thought of as a rational system of consum-ers and producers, and of things like leisure and health. The result of this approach is a standard solution for a standard type of human being to function as anonymous entity in an anonymous urban environment. In a social and cultural sense this is another form of un-sustainability. Examples show how such an environment gets into trouble when its occupants grow old and sick, or become unemployed; neighborhoods decline and become urban slums. The question: who am I, what was the purpose of my life, becomes pressing, causing burdens to society as a whole. A proper social housing policy is important to solve these problems. Introducing landscape as a tool for identity is another part of the solution. Any city, any neighborhood, should have it’s charac-ter, should have it’s own quality, a quality that derives from a sustainable managing of the natural environment that gives place to urban development. The landscape that sits under the city should be readable, understandable, usable, and enjoyable. Seoul is blessed with rivers and mountains. More precisely, the Han River runs through two mountain ridges Mangyeongdae and .. Between these two landscape elements extends a landscape of rolling plains and valleys; it is a strong system that can define identity and increase sustainability in the city.

Landscape units and soil

Water system

T

GREEN WAY as a case


Occupation

Vegetaion system

Water system


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ANALYSIS

Occupation

Vegetaion system

GREEN WAY as a case


Occupation

Vegetaion system

Water system

PROPOSAL


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Hyo Jin Kim

Myung Jae Lee

0 75 125(m)25

A

A’

A

A’

A

A’

A

A’

PROPOSAL


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Wee Rae Joe

Mina Park

0 30 50(m)10

A

A’

A

A’

A A’

B B’

C C’

Urban Open Space Planning and Design 2009

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Transcript of Urban Open Space Planning and Design 2009