Performance

High performance urban landscape : A Guideline for Innovation

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As worldwide trends of urbanization continue, urban landscapes are getting increasing pressure on both natural and man-made systems to deliver ecological and social services to align with basic social needs for current and future generations. “Urban landscapes” in this case could thus either be seen as environmental degradation during urbanization, but they could also be catalysts for the regeneration of our socio-ecological systems. In the crossroad of this dichotomy lies policy makers, planners, designers, engineers, and construction professionals who make site decisions every day in their practice that affect the implementation quality and spatial distribution in our cities. The directions of these design choices require thorough consideration and shall be discussed and verified through evidence-based decision-making procedures. To do so, a comprehensive approach is urgently needed to identify, benchmark, evaluate the performances of these urban landscapes.

The life quality of urban residents relies on the ecological and the social services our natural and man-made systems provide. Within the urbanized areas, these services are in high demand, but are increasingly being reduced, due to the growth of urban population. Landscape architecture is a profession that has focused on both the eco-system and social system since its origin through a commitment to protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the commonwealth. It is the profession’s calling and responsibility, to serve and find resolutions for these pressing challenges.

Why Performance?

When it comes to the term of “landscape,” people usually don’t approach from a performative way. It is either given from the natural setting, or perceived more aesthetic than functional. The unclear terminology led to diverse standpoints or even polarizations when it comes to defining the narratives of Nature-based Solution (NbS) and Green Infrastructure (GI) in the urban landscapes.

Notwithstanding the responsibility, the built environment demands from policy makers, planners, designers, engineers, and construction professionals, a widespread culture of indifference exist toward a critical analysis of the measurable impact of built work (Chong, Brandt, and Martin, 2010; Brown and Corry, 2011; Chen et al., 2017). Policy makers and planners select criteria based on opportunities given; designers and engineers craft projects from individual experiences and proclaim success according to available results. The competition of “who is greener” has become harder to be evaluated, not to mention to follow. In addition, the data is fragmented and disproportional, and there are very few agreed methods for data collection. A lack of reliable information about the performance of our built environment is debilitating, where current landscape architecture practice is still based on beliefs rather than facts (Brown and Corry, 2011). Therefore, there was a growing polarization of altruism and skepticism, in which people either always regardless vote for green solutions, or always stay away.

In this situation, many landscape professionals are still mostly unclear about the extent to which designs contribute to the health of societies and environments. While the concept of landscape performance is getting attention within the field of design, the availability of resources, time, and technical outlines remain substantial obstacles for many designers. In-depth research investigations from academics and scientists are mostly case-specific with very targeted parameter. At the same time, overly-generalized sustainable principles are often too vague for implementation. Even though performance-based design sustainability has gained significant attention within the design field, confusion and inaction still rampant throughout the profession.

Fortunately, advocates and front runners in the field of landscape architecture are advancing the knowledge base of landscape performances and their metrics. Beginning from the early 2000s, there has been a shift in professional focuses globally on quantifying ecosystem and social services, using data and communicating the value of urban landscapes. This identification and quantification movement not only helps convey the multi-faceted value of sustainable landscape design but also supports public policy decision-making in weighing the challenges and opportunities from different development scenarios.

These advocates and front runners include the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF), Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES), American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and its technical information series (LATIS). Through their efforts, high sustainability standards and performance metrics are being increasingly embraced by the designers, developers, and municipalities. New York City and San Francisco, for example, have further tailored the rating system into their specific contexts, not only for design betterment but also for landscape management.

These rating programs are beginning to de-emphasize simple point-counting, point-following decision making with a focus on products rather than process. Instead, more and more experts in the field are emphasizing a systems-based, holistic, and inclusive approach to design, including consideration for their own landscape contexts and locally proven sustainability performances.

Crossroad of Performance and Design

Many might argue that design and scientific process are different. Indeed, design projects are mostly built under an open system with lots of factors where there is no controlled experiments possible.  However, this design guideline is not meant to be a robust framework of methodologies for scientific research, but rather, it borrows scientific method and process while serving the objectives of design thinking, which means problem solving, solution-based approaches to design challenges.

The approach of this guideline accepts wider varieties of experimentation, which are not exclusive to controlled experimentation and are accepted as being necessary for transdisciplinary, environmental problem-solving (Ansell and Bartenberger, 2014). The guideline also adopts heavily from design thinking strategies, which are traditionally more creative than scientific. It accepts the additions of value netting, prototype building, constraint eliminating, and adaptive feedback to the scientific method.

This approach allows landscape practitioners to solve design problems and help researchers to identify future topic area for more rigorous scientific inquiry. Establishing critical practice and research topics could support future evidence-based design and identify ways to improve landscape performance through the design and project life span. It is now time for the landscape professionals to lead with confidence in research and practice, and become more “scholarly practitioners” (Deming and Swaffield, 2011). The paradigm change then manifest through improvements of best practices or changes in landscape management strategies.

The openness of this type of landscape architecture investigation could support systems such as citizen science movement that might result in transparent and trans-disciplinary systems that facilitate science-society-policy interactions, leading to more democratic research pathway, evidence-based decision making, and thus becoming advocacy tools for improving the health, safety, and welfare of our built environment (Socientize Consortium, 2014).  The long-term projection for the landscape architecture profession requires that the practitioners and industry take a more analytical and critical look at built urban landscapes and learn from successes and failures through the aspects of the capacity to support ecosystem and social services. In another word, it is performing at a high level of design excellence.

About this Design Guideline

This design guideline is meant to help planners and designers to comprehensively identify the impacts of landscape architecture projects, provide aspects to evaluate if a site is meeting its intentional objectives, remind concerns and pitfalls, and facilitate design process and innovation to deliver ecological and social benefits. It could be used at various stages of the design process, from pre-design to post-occupancy, and within multiple sites and time scales.

The main content was constituted by 10 chapters. Chapter 1 starts with site selection and specific concern of each typology and potentials. Chapter 2 to 6 focus on the direct and indirect materials and medium that landscape architects engage in their practice, which include water, soil, vegetation, and atmosphere.  Chapter 7 and 8 are about the land transformation process, which includes construction and maintenance. And finally, Chapter 9 and 10 loop back to the essential aspects of economic and social benefits and how urban landscape respond and engage in the dynamics. Even though each chapter has its own thematic focus, all of them are inter-related and inseparable. Case studies and their images are used throughout the guideline to support a better mental image and reference. But it is important to note that, this guideline did not take a case-study based approach. In fact, the de-coupling individual case from an overall framework is crucial to achieving an un-bias and balance guideline.

In each of the chapter, the contents are organized in a similar flow for better accommodate reader clarity. Even though some topics are for fitted than other, the flow in general start with an introduction, performance benefits, measurement and monitor, constraints and concern, and finally design potentials. To avoid wordiness, all the references and critical online resources are compiled in the appendix. In this way, this guideline aimed to be both readable and searchable.

Special acknowledgment to the support of Beijing Advance Innovation Center for Future Urban Design and Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. This guideline will not be complete without bits of help and advises from ASLA Professional Practice Networks and all the landscape experts who contributed to the process of the making.