1. Islais Creek
Atlas Project
by way of introduc/on
through the lenses of Terra
Fluxus & The Beholding Eye.

2. Landscape Urbanism
"Nature"&
Systems

3. The promise of landscape
urbanism is the development of a
spaceBme ecology that treats all
forces and agents working in the
urban field and considers them a
conBnuous networks of
inter‐relaBonships
Corner

4. Big ideas
relaBve to the
pracBce and forms of
visual
communicaBon
design.

5. Moreover, it is increasingly the case that
vast developer‐engineering corporaBons
are construcBng visualizing today's world
with such pace, efficiency, and profit that
all of the tradiBonal convenBonal design
disciplines (and not only landscape) are
marginalized as mere decoraBve pracBces,
literally disenfranchised from the work of
spaBal cultural formaBon.
Corner

6. Perhaps the very complexity of the metabolism that drives
the contemporary metropolis demands
a conflaBon of professional and
insBtuBonalized disBncBons into a new
syntheBc art, a spaBo‐material pracBce able
to bridge scale and scope with criBcal insight
and imaginaBve depth
Corner

7. landscape
(signifier or sign?)

8. urbanism
(signifier & sign)

9. nature not nature

10. nature?

11. Nature, is mostly represented by a
soSly undulaBng pastoral scene,
generally considered virtuous,
benevolent, and soothing, a moral
as well as pracBcal anBdote to the
corrosive environmental and social
qualiBes of the modern city…
Corner

12. nature not nature

13. (cultural) image of
Nature (sign)

14. technological
blitzkrieg

15. technological
blitzkrieg

16. In this view, ciBes are seen to be busy with
the technology of high‐density building,
transportaBon infrastructure, and
revenue‐producing development, the
undesirable effects of which include
congesBon, polluBon, and various forms of
social stress;
Corner

17. landscape, in the form of parks,
greenways, street trees, esplanades, and
gardens, is generally seen to provide both
salve and respite from the deleterious
effects of urbanizaBon.
Corner

18. landscape, in the form of parks,
greenways, street trees, esplanades, and
gardens, is generally seen to provide both
salve and respite from the deleterious
effects of urbanizaBon.
Corner

19. to situate landscape
in the city

20. themes

21. By way of providing a schemaBc outline for such a pracBce, I can
sketch four provisional themes:
‐ processes over Bme
‐ the staging of surfaces
‐ the operaBonal or working method
‐ the imaginary
Corner

22. Processes over Bme:
urbaniza)on is a dynamic process
characterized more by terms like fluidity,
spontaneous feedback, and non‐linearity,
than stability, predictability, or ra)onality.
Ecology and systems theory are concepts
inherent to the city.
Corner

23. Systems Theory
is a transdisciplinary approach that
abstracts and considers a system as a set
of independent and interacBng parts. The
main goal is to study general principles of
system funcBoning to be applied to all
types of systems in all fields of research

24. The term cyberneBcs derives from a Greek
word which meant steersman, and which
is the origin of English words such as
"govern". CyberneBcs is the study of
feedback and derived concepts such as
communicaBon and control in living
organisms, machines and organizaBons.

25. Its focus is how anything (digital,
mechanical or biological) processes
informaBon, reacts to informaBon, and
changes or can be changed (adapt) to
be[er accomplish the first two tasks.

26. PosiBve feedback
Adding to system increases change but
makes things unstable.
++++

27. NegaBve feedback
Brings the system back to stasis.
“Homing in”
‐ ‐ ‐ ‐

28. ciBes and infrastructures are
just as "ecological" as forests
and rivers

29. Processes over Bme:
urbaniza)on is a dynamic process
characterized more by terms like fluidity,
spontaneous feedback, and non‐linearity,
than stability, predictability, or ra)onality.
Ecology and systems theory are concepts
inherent to the city.
Corner

31. Much of the world looked
different not all that long ago
Santa Monica California

32. An Epistemological Problem:
How did we get here?
Santa Monica California

33. An Epistemological Problem:
How did we get here?
Historical Amnesia?
Santa Monica California

35. City as Palimpsest
(Sequence Occupancy)

36. City as Palimpsest
(Sequence Occupancy)

37. City as Palimpsest
(Sequence Occupancy)

38. City as Palimpsest
(Sequence Occupancy)

39. City as Palimpsest
(Sequence Occupancy)

40. Russian River, California

41. Los Angeles River, California

43. Los Angeles River, California

44. Los Angeles River, California

45. Los Angeles River, California

46. Processes over Bme:
urbaniza)on is a dynamic process
characterized more by terms like fluidity,
spontaneous feedback, and non‐linearity,
than stability, predictability, or ra)onality.
Ecology and systems theory are concepts
inherent to the city.
Corner

47. Visualizing systems

48. This suggests shiSing a[enBon away from
the object qualiBes of space (whether
formal or scenic) to the systems that
condiBon the distribuBon and density of
urban form. Field diagrams or maps
describing the play of those forces are
parBcularly useful instruments in
furthering an understanding of urban
events and processes

49. Field Diagrams
Walter Christaller's diagrams of popula)on
distribu)on

50. Field Diagrams
Walter Christaller's diagrams of popula)on
distribu)on

51. Vector Fields
(visualizing dynamic systems &
processes)

52. Vector Fields
(visualizing dynamic systems &
processes)

53. ciBes and infrastructures are
just as "ecological" as forests
and rivers

55. view the enBre
metropolis as a living
arena of processes and
exchanges over Bme
Corner

56. The Hidden Landscape

61. The designaBon terra firma (firm, not
changing; fixed and definite) gives way in
favor of the shiIing processes coursing
through and across the urban field:
terra fluxus.
Corner

62. Surface:
The second theme of the landscape
urbanism project concerns itself with the
phenomenon of the horizontal surface,
the ground plane, the "field" of acBon.
These surfaces cons)tute the urban field
when considered across a wide range of
scales, from the sidewalk to the street
to the en)re infrastructural matrix of
urban surfaces.
Corner

63. Surface:
For example, the grid has historically proven to be a
parBcularly effecBve field operaBon. Extending a framework
across a vast surface for flexible and changing development over
Bme, such as the real estate and street grid of Manha[an, or
the land survey grid of the Midwestern United States. In these
instances, an abstract formal operaBon characterizes the
surface, imbuing it with specificity and operaBonal potenBal.
This organizaBon lends legibility and order to the surface while
allowing for the autonomy and individuality of each part, and
remaining open to alternaBve permutaBons over Bme.
Corner

64. Surface:
The second theme of the landscape
urbanism project concerns itself with the
phenomenon of the horizontal surface,
the ground plane, the "field" of acBon.
These surfaces cons)tute the urban field
when considered across a wide range of
scales, from the sidewalk to the street
to the en)re infrastructural matrix of
urban surfaces.
Corner

68. Surface:
The second theme of the landscape
urbanism project concerns itself with the
phenomenon of the horizontal surface,
the ground plane, the "field" of acBon.
These surfaces cons)tute the urban field
when considered across a wide range of
scales, from the sidewalk to the street
to the en)re infrastructural matrix of
urban surfaces.
Corner

71. operaBon/working methods:
landscape urbanism a suggests a reconsidera)on of tradi)onal conceptual,
representa)onal, and opera)ve techniques.
The possibili/es of vast scale shi>s across both /me and space,
working synopBc maps along side the inBmate recordings of local
circumstance,
comparing cinemaBc and choreographic techniques to spaBal notaBon,
entering the algebraic, digital space of the computer while messing
around with paint, clay, and ink,
and engaging real estate developers and engineers alongside the
highly specialized imagineers and poets of contemporary culture
Corner

75. the imaginary:
imaginaBon and speculaBon
Public spaces are firstly the containers of collec/ve memory
and desire, and secondly they are the places for geographic
and social imagina/on to extend new rela)onships and sets of
possibility. Materiality, representa)on, and imagina)on are
not separate worlds; poli)cal change through prac)ces of
place construc)on owes as much to the representa/onal and
symbolic realms as to material ac)vi)es. And so it seems
landscape urbanism is first and last an imagina)ve project, a
specula)ve thickening of the world of possibili)es.
Corner

80. THE END

81. The Hidden Landscape

84. Surface, not form:
horizontality and sprawl in places like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, San Jose,
and the suburban fringes of most American cites is the new urban reality. As
many theories of urbanism attempt to ignore this fact or retrofit it to new
urbanism, landscape urbanism accepts it and tries to understand it. Traditional
notions of program and structure are not useful in this diffuse urban condition–
their scope is small and limiting. Landscape urbanism uses 'territories' and
'potential' instead of 'program' to define a place's use; it finds thinking in terms of
adaptable 'systems' instead of rigid 'structures' as a better way to organize
space.
Form:
the traditional character of the city; formlessness characterizes nature, that
which has been untouched by human intent. This city/nature duality is critical to
most theories of the city and nature. Landscape urbanists argue that this is
duality is naive and argue for a conflation of landscape and building.

85. The modernist noBon that new physical structures would yield
new pa[erns of socializaBon has exhausted its run, failing by
virtue of trying to contain the dynamic mulBplicity of urban
processes within a fixed, rigid, spaBal frame that neither derived
from nor redirected any of the processes moving through it.

86. MODERNISM

88. CorrecBve Phase

95. new working methods:
landscape urbanism a suggests a reconsideration of
traditional conceptual, representational, and operative
techniques. The possibilities of vast scale shifts across both
time and space, working synoptic maps along side the
intimate recordings of local circumstance, comparing
cinematic and choreographic techniques to spatial notation,
entering the algebraic, digital space of the computer while
messing around with paint, clay, and ink, and engaging real
estate developers and engineers alongside the highly
specialized imagineers and poets of contemporary culture

98. Visualizing the Landscape

99. imagination and speculation:
Public spaces are firstly the containers of collective memory
and desire, and secondly they are the places for geographic
and social imagination to extend new relationships and sets
of possibility. Materiality, representation, and imagination
are not separate worlds; political change through practices
of place construction owes as much to the representational
and symbolic realms as to material activities. And so it
seems landscape urbanism is first and last an imaginative
project, a speculative thickening of the world of possibilities.

106. The Hidden Landscape