IDEAS | landscape architecture / planning / urban design

Cell phones offer us a seemingly irresistible portal into a digital realm where every whim and desire can ostensibly be exercised. With the advent of “selfies,” they also turn the memorable places we visit into spectacles of self-gratification. Whether or not we delight in this much-debated reality, it appears destined, for now, anyway, that human and machine forge a more intimate bond which reflects advancements in genetic engineering, the hybridization of biological and artificial parts, and the reliance on digital networks for business and play. This unrelenting drive toward a bionic existence promises ideals of customization in appearance, maximization of pleasure, and self-gratification.

The issue for landscape architects is how we can design parks that meet the requirements of people in the digital era. What would the bionic man want in a municipal park? That the park becomes bionic too. Technological innovations across the spectrum are coming to parks and public spaces as well, resulting in a more personalized experience of varying site micro-climates created from dynamic artificial apparatus, interactive relationships between art installations and park goers, and the integration of digital networks into park function and maintenance.

Urban parks are already offering free Wi-Fi and docking stations to support digital tethering. Some even have apps that promote events and activities, act as tour guides offering navigation and information, and allow people to connect to one another. Beyond the introduction of digital art pieces such as the Crown Fountain in Chicago’s Millennium Park, the real change will be the prominence of semi-autonomous intelligent systems that respond to stimuli from the user and form a kinetic signature for the park.

One of the best examples of this is the art installation “Pulse,” located in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park, which employs a field of lights flashing to mimic the actual pulse of a park patron. The most intriguing aspect is that it forms an iterative relationship between the user and the kinetic element. When someone sees their heartbeats represented visually, their pulse will often increase in reaction to the revelation. This direct engagement of park with people creates a new kind of emotional connection to place and satisfies our desire to impact our surroundings.

The bionic park will be in a permanent state of flux to meet the near infinite versions of human desire. Its agenda is therefore one of maximizing utility by rapidly responding to the real-time aggregation of user and weather data so that the park offers custom experiences to a range of users. The key in this instance is balancing the needs of the individual with group concerns for community building and environmental and social justice. With this in mind, the discussion inevitably circles back to the fundamental question of whether current-day digital technology is a source of unity or a source of separation, and which is more appropriate.

Image by Chris Smith via Flickr Creative Commons: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cjsmithphotography/7030440181

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One Response to “The Bionic Park: Municipal Spaces in the Digital Era”

Clare Bevis

Hi Patrick,

My name is Clare and I’m currently working on my masters project in environmental design at the Glasgow school of art. This specific article really closely related to the area I wish to tackle over the coming months. I’ve been looking into how technology is used in public spaces and how spaces in the future should be designed to accomodate the change in the human behavior within these spaces so that they are connected to the people/space they are in (to put it short). Would you have an email i could contact you on or a website I could visit at all?

I look forward to hearing from you,

Kind regards

Clare Bevis
April 12th, 2015 Reply

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Posted by Patrick Sunbury
in Arts and Culture
on 10 April, 2015

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A day before our presentation to an important mayor, my Chinese client called me to say, “By the way, prepare a plan without that golf course drawn in; they are not allowed to be openly proposed.” I admit that I responded in full panic mode: “What am I supposed to say about that huge space now suddenly empty?” “Don’t worry,” he said. “The mayor will get it. Just remember to refer to it as a ‘sports park’ or ‘green park’.”

It’s not likely that a 70-hectare parcel of land packed with fairways can easily pass for a regular “park,” even to the most amateurish eyes. I was amused by this phenomenon: Banning golf courses on paper while building them everywhere under all kinds of funny names? What’s behind this love-hate relationship between the Chinese government and golf courses?

Back in the Mao Days, golf was regarded as a symbol of a “bourgeois” and “decadent” lifestyle, and building golf courses was simply out of the question. After China’s reform and opening-up, a Hong Kong business tycoon invested in the first golf course in Guangdong, the richest province in China at the time, and initiated China’s booming popularity with this novelty.

It soon came to the Chinese government’s attention that many golf courses are built at the expense of farmland and forests. Besides, with an annual average consumption of 400,000 tons of water and 156 tons of fertilizer and pesticide for an 18-hole course, environmental impact has become a concern. In 2004 the Central Government announced the “Notice of Suspension of New Golf Course Constructions,” a temporary ban while the government figured out better regulation measures. However, by contrast with the Central Government’s strategy, local authorities have been exhibiting a curiously ambiguous attitude—golf courses continue to be built under an unspoken agreement between local government and developers, as win-win instruments to enhance a city’s image, attract investment opportunities, and boost real estate values. And, needless to say, lots of the local government officials are golf lovers themselves. As an ironic result, during the ten years since the ban was announced, China has seen its fastest growth in golf course history, from 178 to 587.

In July 2014, the Central Government announced the “Notice on the Clean-Up and Rectification of Golf Courses,” under which many built golf courses will face their judgment day, and it remains unknown what the government’s attitude will be toward future courses.

To me, this is the most important question: Are golf courses the right thing to ban? The increasing number speaks for a huge demand from the market as well as the importance of golf courses for local economies; and their popularity will only continue to rise since golf was added to the Olympic programs. As for environmental impact, there are golf courses built on quarries and other deserted lands that have essentially enhanced those places both aesthetically and economically, so one can argue that the overall impact in these cases is positive.

Simply banning golf courses, or ignoring them, will only result in more being built secretly and run unsupervised. Effective protection of farmland, water conservation, and prevention of water pollution can only be achieved by recognizing golf courses as an undeniable demand, and through adopting legislative measures and establishing technical standards that ensure golf courses be located, planned, and built with full ecological awareness.

For now, when landscape architects and planners are frequently tasked with helping Chinese clients sneak in those “green parks,” we should fulfill our responsibility by fully evaluating their ecological impact, and provide the most responsible recommendations when integrating them within our designs.

A golf course built on traditional farmland and forest in Yunnan, China. Image: Google Earth

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One Response to “The Secret Life of the Chinese Golf Course”

los angeles landscape

Thank you so much for the wonderful information .This is really important for me .I am searching this kind of information from a long time and finally got it.
May 6th, 2015 Reply

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Posted by Yitian Wang
in Ecology
on 3 April, 2015

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As architects of the public realm, a critical component of our job is to thoroughly understand the needs of our clients in order to generate a successful project on multiple levels. Design realized without the careful study of who will be using the space and in what ways can result in a ghostly landscape absent its full potential. Therefore, it’s critical that we become intimately familiar with the ways in which a landscape will be used and pay special attention to how it will serve future inhabitants. SWA project history is rife with public landscapes accommodating everything from posh resorts to regenerated river corridors; from this varied experience, as well as in conducting post-occupancy studies, we can make fairly accurate assumptions about how the general public will use our spaces. However, the specific requirements of social impact design directed at underserved communities present another facet of the profession that we may not know quite as well.

The Dallas office recently began work on the planning and landscape for a Homeless Resource Center in Fort Worth, TX. The facility will serve as a critical cog within the support infrastructure for the homeless population, including community dining accommodations, medical and dental services, personal hygiene facilities, educational resources, and interior and exterior community spaces. Initial design charrettes focused on understanding the needs of the local homeless population in order to better serve them. In addition to having volunteered at centers and shelters serving the homeless, the project team conducted an initial phase of research and academic reading of personal accounts to better comprehend the parameters by which the project would be measured. Marked by genuine social investment, and distinguished by its pro-bono financial structure, the project goals were defined so as to design for a transient population harboring a multitude of ailments. These challenges include mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and physical disability brought on by tragic life occurrences such as the loss of loved ones and jobs, domestic violence, and natural disasters. As a result of our findings, the following goals were established at the onset of conceptual design and embedded in the three schemes ultimately presented to the client.

1. Place-making using a gradient of transparency and exposure: a range of spatial conditions throughout the landscape allows for opportunities to gather in groups as well as in more isolated areas. This provision also caters to security concerns by exposing areas of gathering with lighting, planting, and screening strategies.

2. Interjecting a contextual canvas: introducing elements of recognizable urban culture—from artistic expression to interactive opportunities—can help to bridge the gap between a nomadic lifestyle marked by instability and insufficient resources and the regenerative potential of an unfamiliar resource hub.

3. Conveying hopeful undertones: the materialization of hope is perhaps the most important of these. Through etched and projected messages in pavers and on iconic structures, the necessity of an encouraging and supportive atmosphere will be evident. The hope for this project is that it will provide the homeless population with a place suited for them as individuals with promise and determination; these undertones would seek to reinforce not only the goals of this localized project, but the goals working to eradicate a global epidemic as well.

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Posted by Amanda Kronk
in Community, Social Impact
on 27 March, 2015

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When it opens this summer, the 632-meter-high Shanghai Tower will be the second tallest building in the world and the tallest in China. It shares a site on Pudong with two other iconic towers, Jin Mao and the Shanghai World Finance Center, where four different ground levels contribute to a public open space. John Wong,… Read more »

The challenges here were considerable: the green coverage—33 percent was required by code—is extensive, especially with the necessity of planting 100 percent over structure with a soil depth of 1.5 meters. We also accommodated: access for pedestrians, vehicles (private autos and taxis), bus, service, emergency vehicles and a staging area; exit requirements from the level below ground; the building’s variety of uses and multiple entrances—office, hotel, conferencing, retail and visitor access to the observation deck; screening off the large cooling tower; exhaust/intake vents and utilities vaults; and additional requirements to satisfy the mixed-use program.

Our overall design approach was to create a “Tower in the Park,” suggesting the integration of nature and urbanity in a contemporary setting. Terraced ground planes are planted with seasonal trees, shrubs and ground cover, with curved pedestrian pathways referring to the twisted form of the tower structure as it spirals from bottom to top. The north- and east-facing sides of the site contain a paved plaza in front of the retail podium and relate to the neighboring skyscrapers and the area’s urban character. The hardscape paving features special cobble stones for the driveway and patterned cut stone for the pedestrian paths and plaza.

Unique to the Gensler-designed Shanghai Tower are six “sky lobbies” located every 22 floors, which are designed as places for the occupants to gather and relax. Each features planting that corresponds with the landscape in various regions of China. These interior park designs required working early on with the architects and structural engineers to plan for the availability of soil depth (1.5 meters) to accommodate large trees. The trees needed to be lifted by crane to their locations or boxed and transported up to each sky lobby. Plants were selected from an interior palette that is rather limited due to being enclosed by the glass skin insulating the tower core. The materials planted at these significant heights will be protected by the outer skin exposure to high winds at extreme elevations.

The most important consideration in the conceptual approach for supertall landscape design, however, is not just solving issues of environmental appropriateness and sustainability but also focusing on human sustainability, in terms of integrating the design into the community—designing an urban environment that promotes and advances human civilization, fosters innovation, and allows for social, cultural and economic processes to occur and evolve over time. The ultimate success of these iconic buildings and their groundscapes is dependent on how the projects serve their occupants, visitors and the local community. Done well, careful planning of their connectivity and integration into the urban fabric can create world-class structures that last for generations.

Upon the completion of Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 2018, Wong will have designed the landscape architecture for the world’s three tallest buildings.

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Posted by JohnWong
in Tall Building Groundscapes
on 23 March, 2015

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A childhood friend recently posted a photograph of children encircling her elementary school playground. The playground and school are about to undergo major renovations, and the playground will be forever changed. She expressed acute sadness at the thought of this important personal landscape disappearing or being radically altered. It was a beautiful image that clearly… Read more »

What is it about certain places that encourage us to form a strong human attachment to landscapes in a highly personal way? How does a specific space sear itself into our memories and become so meaningful? Even if the landscape is altered or gone, one could argue that the memories of that place can remain intact. But clearly that is not enough without the place itself. Though the memories exist in our mind, they are infinitely more powerful when experienced together with the landscape.

For me, that special place is the old Hotel Lanai in Hawaii. I was born on the island of Lanai, and during the early 1980s the island was entirely owned by Dole, and was a plantation isle, with its economy revolving around pineapple. At that time the only place to go out for a sit-down dinner was the 12-bed Hotel Lanai. As a kid, when we had the occasion to eat there as a family, my parents would let the three kids run around on the large lawn out front. The lawn is surrounded by massive Norfolk Pines, the signature tree of the island. The town is at elevation, and is tiny (just 2,000 people), so the air is cool and moist; it smells like the country and is blissfully quiet. The hotel has old-style charm, but in typical plantation style is unadorned and tidy. The landscape is simple: mostly ferns and ti leaf plants encircling the hotel, a large sloping lawn, and the colossal Norfolk Pines. As kids, while we waited for our parents to call us back in when dinner arrived, we would run around and play games between those monumental pines. We would also lie down on the lawn, look up at the pines—towering masses against the darkening sky—and tell each other stories. For me this place brings back the feeling of togetherness, safety, and beauty.

Even when my family moved from Lanai to Oahu, we continued to make our way back to the island several times a year. Typically, we would do the 30-minute flight on a late Friday afternoon, after the school and work day, and eat dinner at Hotel Lanai before heading to our old neighbor’s house to spend the night. My ritual upon arriving at Hotel Lanai, from elementary school through adulthood, was to sit on that lawn outside the restaurant by myself, look up at those giant Norfolks, and just breathe. Even to this day there is no place that gives me such calm and brings me back home.

It is these sorts of memory landscapes that make our work powerful. It is up to others to form the relationships and personal attachments to a place, but as designers we have the ability to create beauty and to create the opportunity and setting for the occurrences that are so influential to the human experience.

Photograph courtesy of Mekia Ostrem Earle.

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Posted by Ashley Langworhty
in Community
on 13 March, 2015

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Moscow, Russia’s capital and most populous city, having had a tumultuous history since the dissolution of the USSR , did not have the resources to prioritize the design of public space in the last twenty five years. Only a handful of urban spaces were constructed, with most of the effort directed at maximizing commercial space in formerly vast, carless plazas. Soviet monuments were, for the most part, dismantled and moved to a “monument graveyard” on the edge of Moscow’s central “Gorky Park,” located along the banks of the Moscow River two kilometers upstream from the Kremlin.

In the ’90s, Gorky Park, as with any typical late Soviet public space, saw its trash urns, granite statues, outdoor orchestra shells, sparse public restrooms, and identical state-owned ice cream, drink, and tobacco kiosks give way to a flood of haphazardly parked cars and multifunctional kiosks owned by individual proprietors that each blasted its own competing soundtrack and odor. At the turn of the century, expensive and sub-par public port-a-potties betrayed a lack of planning by the city while pet bears on chains, boa constrictors, newly drafted men bathing in public fountains, unregulated roller coasters and amusement park rides crammed tightly together throughout the park territory showcased the wild freedoms of the new order. To top it off, the formerly open public space became a restricted-access amusement park.

What’s surprising is that hidden underneath layers of this Coney Island-like unregulated activity, there were remnants of a Constructivist fairground of 1925 and 1927 which had seen the appearance of pavilions designed by prominent architects such as Konstantin Melnikov. An automobile pavilion, restaurants, follies and public restrooms had been scattered through the site and forgotten. There were also remnants of landscape features from several imperial riverside estates that were merged to form the park after the 1917 revolution.

Gorky Park continued to be overgrown well into the 21st century, until 2010, when a newly elected mayor brought with him a fresh attitude toward the care of public space.

In 2011, the cultural and material buildup of decades of public use of Gorky Park after 1935 was stripped away, dismantled, and destroyed over the course of a single spring, transforming Gorky Park into an free, green public space open to all. At first, the general public’s reaction was mixed. Many were shocked by the minimalism. What layer of history is the most worthy of preserving? Where would tourists now go for their fill of “Russian kitsch”? Slowly, though, the space became reprogrammed with lighter, less technology–heavy activities. It attracted young designers and architecture firms to design unintrusive pavilions. It even asked LDA to do a master plan. So how did this transformation take place?

Mayor Sobyanin appointed Sergey Kapkov, a forward-looking planner, as the director of Gorky Park in 2010. Kapkov’s approach to the transformation was such a success that after its makeover in the summer of 2010, he was made head of the Department of Culture of Moscow and began a project prioritizing the transformation of parks and public space for the public benefit throughout Moscow. More than 20 parks have received a facelift since then, greatly contributing to the mayor’s ratings.

Today Gorky Park hosts even more visitors per year than it did at the height of its rollercoaster era and includes an art museum designed by Rem Koolhaas and a pavilion designed by Shigeru Ban, features the largest outdoor ice-skating rink in Europe during the winter months, and is popular with locals and tourists alike.

Pavilion image courtesy of tsimailo lyashenko & partners architectural bureau.

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Posted by Ksenia Chumakova
in Arts and Culture
on 6 March, 2015

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The Bionic Park: Municipal Spaces in the Digital Era

One Response to “The Bionic Park: Municipal Spaces in the Digital Era”

Clare Bevis

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The Secret Life of the Chinese Golf Course

One Response to “The Secret Life of the Chinese Golf Course”

los angeles landscape

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Anticipating Shanghai Tower

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Memory Landscapes

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The Refinement of Gorky Park

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