36,826 research outputs found
Post-landscape or the potential of other relations with the land
No full textHave we reached a post-landscape condition? Have prevailing visual relations between people and land, exemplified by English traditions of pictorial settings, individual perspectives and enclosed properties, reached a conclusion? Has a particular frame of landscape, which Denis Cosgrove describes as a ‘way of seeing’ (1985, 45), come to a close? Conceptions of landscape, that emerged in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England and that have continued to be reinforced through contemporary architectural representations and designed transformations, package landscapes as scenic backgrounds and frame tracts of land as spatial products. While referring to these dominant relationships with the land, Barbara Bender reminds us that there are many other ways of conceiving of landscapes: ‘when the word “landscape” was coined and used to its most powerful effect, there were, at the same time and the same place, other ways of understanding and relating to the land – other landscapes’ (1993, 2). What she describes as contrasting, and often contradictory, constructs of landscape, defined through individual and societal relations with our environments, have grown and receded in relevance. Landscapes are defined through specific economic, social and spatial contexts. So while dominant pictorial ideas of landscape may endure for some people in countries influenced by Anglo-Saxon traditions, other landscapes are configured through contrasting material, ecological, cultural and symbolic relationships with land. In this chapter I explore two inseparable contemporary London landscapes, Paternoster Square and the Occupy London Stock Exchange (LSX). I question a continuation of these English landscape traditions that embrace: predominantly visual approaches; scenes considered from static positions; and singular perspectives framed as representations and urban spaces, enclosed and transformed through design. Raymond Williams proposes:
It is possible and useful to trace the internal histories of landscape painting, landscape writing, landscape gardening and landscape architecture, but in any final analysis we must relate these histories to the common history of a land and its society. And if we are to understand changes in English attitudes to landscape, in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, this is especially necessary. (Williams, 1973, 120
Working with uncertainties: living with masterplanning at Elephant and Castle
No full textUncertainty is a condition inherent to all landscapes. Despite the availability of large sets of data, the capacity of digital processing, and expanded representational techniques, relations between people and land can remain ambiguous. Practices of mapping and masterplanning mediate specific landscape relations through traditions of surveying land, claiming ownership, and controlling change—practices that include claims to comprehensive knowledge in tension with partialities, omissions, and uncertainties. They are both ways of reconstructing relationships that people have with places, devices that can transform how people see and live their worlds. In this chapter I focus on uncertainties in mapping and masterplanning, exploring the opportunities and difficulties caused by partial decisions and selective omissions in the construction of maps and masterplans. Despite claims to complete knowledge (mapping) or comprehensive redevelopment (masterplanning) both practices frame specific arguments and selectively exclude information, impacting the lives of individuals, communities, and organisations. The focus of this research is the Elephant and Castle area of South London. I reveal how politicians, planners, and developers benefited from uncertainty caused during prolonged masterplanning processes while the daily lives of residents and workers were severely undermined. I also identify how long-established forms of belonging were broken by large-scale and drawn out planning processes. In contrast, I find that practices of collective mapping offer potential to generate shared knowledge of neighbourhoods and strengthen senses of belonging. However, while such inclusive practices can highlight the injustices of urban development the imbalances of power that are bound up with such large scales of masterplanned urban change result in overwhelming and unrelenting disruption to homes and lives. Many residents and traders were denied the right to belong to Elephant and Castle while simultaneously their ownerships, leaseholds, tenancies, and licenses to live and work were taken away
Youthhood
No full textTESTING-GROUND issue 03, Youthhood, examines worlds through youthful eyes, makes evident young ambitions, and questions how we can better empower young people to design cities, landscapes, and a planet that works for them. The issue includes contributions from: Carmel Keren, Jude Daniel Smith, Claire Edwards, Kazeem Kuteyi, Emmanuel Adarkwah, Reza Nik, Dan Cui, Kristofer Cullum-Fernandez, Fida Sassi, Simeon Shtebunaev, Daze Aghaji, Averill Dimabuyu, Sarri Elfaitouri, Rebecca McDonald-Balfour, and Ed Wall.
Rebecca McDonald-Balfour (Author), Jude Daniel Smith (Author), Daze Aghaji (Author), Carmel Keran (Author), Alexis Liu (Author), Dan Cui (Author), Kristofer Cullum-Fernandez (Author), Fida Sassi (Author), Averill Dimabuyu (Author), Ed
Post-landscape or the potential of other relations with the land
No full textHave we reached a post-landscape condition? Have prevailing visual relations between people and land, exemplified by English traditions of pictorial settings, individual perspectives and enclosed properties, reached a conclusion? Has a particular frame of landscape, which Denis Cosgrove describes as a `way of seeing´ (1985:45), come to a close? Conceptions of landscape, which emerged in fifteenth and sixteenth century England and that have continued to be reinforced through contemporary architectural representations and designed transformations, package landscapes as scenic backgrounds and frame tracts of land as spatial products. While referring to these dominant relationships with the land, Barbara Bender reminds us that there are many other ways of conceiving of landscapes: `when the word `landscape´ was coined and used to its most powerful effect, there were, at the same time and the same place, other ways of understanding and relating to the land - other landscapes´ (1993:2). What she describes as contrasting, and often contradictory, constructs of landscape, defined through individual and societal relations with our environments, have grown and receded in relevance. Landscapes are defined through specific economic, social and spatial contexts. So while dominant pictorial ideas of landscape may endure for some people in countries influenced by Anglo-Saxon traditions, other landscapes are configured through material, ecological, cultural and symbolic relationships with land. In this chapter I accept Bender´s assertion of a plurality of landscapes. I also question a continuation of English landscape traditions that embrace: predominantly visual approaches; scenes considered from static positions; and singular perspectives framed as representations and urban spaces, enclosed and transformed through design
Mapping informality
No full textWhile often understood as objective processes both mapping and informality are social constructs defined through a lens of subjectivity. This highlights the problematic nature of mapping the informal – a process loaded with complexity and contradiction. This essay explores Michel S. Laguerre’s book Informal City and a project by Ed Wall and Sam Johnston called Informal Public (completed in 2008 for the London Festival of Architecture) in order to understand the informal and the potential that this has for the contemporary city
Chapter 12. From cleaning to cleansing: maintenance as an urban development practice at Paddington Waterside, London
No full textThis chapter explores unsettling and settling practices inherent in the development, management, maintenance and use of urban public spaces in Paddington Waterside, London. The chapter reflects on the work and critical discourses around the acclaimed Manifesto for Maintenance Art, 1969!, by New York artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, a text that presents tensions within artistic productions between development and maintenance. It questions how maintenance is employed as urban development projects unfold. Through interviews, document surveys and visual analysis the chapter examines relations between processes and products of development and practices of maintenance. At Paddington Waterside, such practices are an inseparable part of urban experience, revealing the extent to which maintenance is intertwined with contemporary urban design and associated with the goal of delivering and preserving exclusive privatized public spaces within masterplanned urban developments
Op-ed piece by Ed King describing the author\u27s visit to a University of Maine co
No full textOp-ed piece by Ed King describing the author\u27s visit to a University of Maine conference called Reading Stephen King: Issues of Choice, Censorship, and the Place of Popular Literature in the Canon. Ed King\u27s fellow attendees stopped talking to him after he admitted that he had never read any of Stephen King\u27s books and was only planning to write about how much money Stephen King makes
Author Ed McBain Book Signing
No full textAuthor Ed McBain hosts a book signing at the Bradenton Area Convention Cente
Blinky Bill, the quaint little Australian /
No full textMuir, 7824; For children.; Also available in an electronic version via the Internet at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.aus-an3281107; Library's SR2 copy is the publisher's presentation copy to the author Mrs Badgery and is the first copy to be printed in the 1st ed. Provenance from the dedicatee, Peter Badgery
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