Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/ en-us Design Observer Group 2011-02-27T15:48:23-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0 tarig khalid http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/#comments 2011-02-27T15:48:23-05:00 danrugg http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/#comments 2009-11-25T01:00:54-05:00 danrugg http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/#comments 2009-11-25T00:58:22-05:00 website design New York City http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/#comments 2009-11-16T02:34:53-05:00
"The metaphorical implications are clear: just as the landscape of the High Line would be unfixed, so would we-the-public be unfixed — newly awakened to the urban ecology hiding in plain sight."

For me it comes back to the idea of biophilia (thank you David Stairs). It is not hard to realize that human beings have an inborn desire for nature, regardless of what historical trends towards urbanization might seem to say, and this makes attempting to reformat nature to fit into an urban environment seem pointless and obtuse to me. To quote Dr. Manhattan, it's "as nourishing to the intellect as photograph of oxygen to a drowning man." Some amount of good-intention is there, but there's no real hope of providing the kind of interaction with nature that would drive a shift in people's thinking similar to what Andy is discussing here.

Which is not to say that I hate the two projects he discusses. The high line is at least interesting, and the Port Lands is a step in the right direction, if perhaps a little heavy handed.]]> Chris Roy http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/#comments 2009-10-28T00:59:27-05:00
And how dare you compare the Field Operations scheme to the TerraGRAM scheme? Field Operations used similar words, but their entry, and eventual built project, was the absolute antithesis of your #12 citation. It's a beautiful place, but is backward conceptually.]]> faslanyc http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/#comments 2009-10-21T13:05:23-05:00
Cities are robust and resilient (fore example, not based economically on a single crop/factory) and this is a good basis for the argument, not efficiency. Many ecosystems are also robust and resilient (a forest as opposed to a monoculture crop). This is a good argument for cities and could perhaps help to reconcile the author's points to Chris' good counterpoint.

The beginning of the article was extremely sentimental, as well. And ironic.]]> brian http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/#comments 2009-10-19T10:31:44-05:00
It was design that created modern cities, and one principle of it, efficiency, that pushed them well past sustainable levels in the first place. It was design (albeit poor design) that displaced nature for parking garage and ungainly skyscraper. One can argue that what we do now is smarter, more informed, more aware, but cities like Los Angeles, a thoroughly modern city, are inelegantly large and traffic-choked.

Victor Papanek has argued that such problems as traffic congestion arise because planners think too much about solving the existing problem and less about what makes the problem worth solving. I tend to agree with him. The corollary is that, if nature is so crucial to healthy human habitation and if ecological awareness is key to our survival, we should really examine the trend toward urbanization and decide if we shouldn't just take a step backwards and reintegrate society into nature rather than the other way around. It's not necessarily an anti-urban bias, just one pro-nature stance.]]> Chris Roy http://places.designobserver.com/feature/metaphor-remediation-a-new-ecology-for-the-city/10637/#comments 2009-10-14T01:27:37-05:00