Talk:Case Study Clemson 4
Comments to Core Question 1
We think this project –and its análisis by Clemson group- shows an approach from american’s tradition of Landscape Architecture started with Olmsted, which has been integrating sustainable development criteria. In this sense -as Clemson group says- we are talking about a representative project. It addresses the complexity of natural and artificial systems involved.
We agree that future landscapes must include more research. An approach from what some people call the paradigm of complexity goes in this direction. But this not necessarily implies more technology aimed to material production. Some technologies soft in a material sense but rich in knowledge could make possible more sustainable results . An approach from sustainability understood in a broader sense -not as sustainable development- makes it possible to consider production processes as a whole.
Nevertheless, this project integrates some aspects we think necessarily must be considered in a landscape project:
_ Sustainable design: Energy balance improving environmental conditions. The studies about wind, soils, solar mapping and migratory birds are particularly remarkable from our point of view.
_ Aesthetics conceived in Baumgarten’s sense: As the sensory knowledge that points to the apprehension of beauty and it is expresses in arts –in this case: landscape-.(1)
_ Ethics: To construct taking into account the necesities of people –specially the inhabitants of the future- and the site characteristics with an attitude open to change and at the same time respectful of previous conditions.
It is particularly remarkable the situation of this project in the dialectics natural-artificial: The way it evokes nature, making explicit the artifice in a high density context and the way it opens to not pre-determined public uses talks about a new monumentally –understood in Iñaki Abalos’s sense of space of public celebration between humans and not humans, natural and artificial-.(2)
References: 1 - Diccionario de filosofía Herder. Multimedia Viewer version 2.00.1990. Microsoft Corp. Edotorial Herder. Barcelona 1996 2 - ABALOS, IÑAKI (2005) “Atlas pintoresco. Vol. 1: el observatorio”, Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona
Comments to Core Question 2
Certainly this project combines issues belonging to different disciplines to build a place where it is possible a better quality of urban life.