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T H E

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

R E V I E W

O F

L A N D S C A P E

A R C H I T E C T U R E

A N D

U R B A N

D E S I G N

61
2007

61

Urban space: Public life in the city is constantly changing, which has effects on the citys open
space. Consequently the demands made on urban space are manifold. Whether in historical contexts or in new city districts, it must meet at least one: the provision of usable and aesthetically
attractive places, where urban residents have a sense of wellbeing. Topos presents successful
examples from all over the world, among others from New York, Santiago de Chile and Beirut,
from London, Shanghai and Krakw.

Urban Space

2007

11.12.2007

JA N G E H L PUBLIC SPACES AND PUBLIC LIFE

DES NATIONS

PROJECTS

ISBN 978-3-7667-1759-7

,!7ID7G6-hbhfjh!

K L AU S T P F E R THE SUSTAINABILITY OF CITIES

S A N T I AG O D E C H I L E P L A Z A D E L A C I U DA DA N A

REGENERATION OF THE INNER CITY

Urban Space

ToposTitel.qxd

S P L I T THE RIVA

C R A I G P O C O C K C A R B O N F O OT P R I N T

B E I R U T SAMIR KASSIR SQUARE

L O N D O N BANKSIDE URBAN FOREST

N E W YO R K C I T Y THE SEARCH FOR URBAN SPACE

S H A N G H A I NEW PUBLIC SPACE

G E N E VA PLACE

KRAKW AND SIBIU

M O R O C C O, K E N YA A N D V I E T N A M STRATEGIC URBAN

A N G KO R M E D I E VA L S P R A W L

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URBAN SPACE

EDITORIAL

Robert Schfer

Most of humanity lives in cities. Although

cities with enormous sprawl existed even in
the Middle Ages, as documented by this issues
article on the Cambodian city of Angkor, the
megacities of our time sometimes go beyond
the limits of the imaginable and the manageable. People crowd into cities in their search
for work; many of them have no other choice
if they want to survive. Climate change, food
supply and the lack of water call for intelligent
strategies, as we have attempted to show in
Topos 60.
Beyond such thoughts on the ecology and economics of the city, which we can call ecovalue,
we should not forget to design the city itself so
that it can handle its responsibilities in the first
place. The tasks are manifold. While cities in
countries such as Germany are shrinking and
thus subject to transformation, cities from So
Paulo to Seoul are literally exploding. The
infrastructure and organisation of public life
are not always developing harmoniously and
effectively. Above all, all cities seem to be
swelling according to the old, actually superseded growth pattern. The buildings tower
upwards; the canyons between them are mostly
freed up for motorised traffic.
Probably the worst heritage of Modernism is
the city sacrificed to the automobile. It is a
model that has no future viability, not only
because of the rising cost of oil. People are not
born to be car drivers and yet they all patiently

let themselves get trapped and obey fate. But

now the time has come to reconsider because
imminent challenges will bring new mixed
uses, new management and different organisational forms of everyday life.
A noteworthy study from Great Britain may
provide food for thought in this regard.
Because many children are becoming obese
and inflexible due to lacking exercise (and
incorrect nutrition), urban spaces should be
designed in future so as to encourage exercise,
to make going through town on foot a pleasure, not only for window shopping but also
on the way to school or work. This simple proposal nevertheless seems utopian to some. Yet
city life should not mean breathing bad air,
teetering on the narrowest of pedestrian paths,
trying to find ones way by zigzagging between
motorways. The quality of urban space
includes many things, from a pleasant microclimate to which plants, particularly trees,
make an essential contribution through
spaces for public uses to places where people
can form community, which is after all what is
responsible for the functioning of a city district, city or urban agglomeration worth living
in. Improvements can often be achieved even
with little means. Only there must first be an
intention to change.

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Seite 4

Cover: Plaza Dal, Madrid

Design: Francisco Jos Mangado Beloqui (architect),
Francesc Torres (artist)
Photo: Miguel de Guzmn

36 The Riva: Splits waterfront adjacent to the Palace

of Diocletian, a World Heritage Site, is one of the citys
main public squares. At night,
the Riva becomes a bright

Geraldine Bruneel

Sandro Lendler

promenade.

Scott Eastman

23 Samir Kassir Square, Beirut: the design

of the square revolves around magnificent fig
trees and a pool. The pool separates the square
from the busy street.

46 Sibiu, Romania: Piata Mare, the Large Square, is one

of the newly renovated squares in the historic centre of the
Transylvanian city.

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URBAN SPACE

JAN GEHL

16

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

BRUNO DE MEULDER, KELLY SHANNON

Public Spaces for a Changing Public Life

74

Universal elementary quality criteria for urban open spaces

Contested Sites and Strategic Urban

Projects

Alain Granchamp/Town of Geneva

Morocco, Kenya and Vietnam: urban design as a tool for

negotiation

MOHAMMAD AL-ASAD, FEDERICO ALVAREZ ARRIETA

23

Samir Kassir Square in Beirut

Urban open space in the Lebanese capital

KLAUS TPFER

81
27

The Sustainability of Cities

BRAULIO EDUARDO MORERA

Design of cities, urban agglomerations and megacities for

Plaza de la Ciudadana, Santiago de Chile

future viability

A public squares vocation for urban integration

CRAIG POCOCK

31 Place des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland:

86

ANNE VONCHE

31

coloured light underlines the different parts

and elements of the square.

The New Place des Nations, Geneva

The Carbon Landscape

Carbon footprint and landscape architecture

Switzerland: a symbolic square in front of the UN building

SCOTT HAWKEN

90

The Riva of Split, Croatia

Angkor: Sprawling Forms of a Medieval

Metropolis

Contemporary urban waterfront in a historical context

Research in Cambodia help explain low-density cities

MARTINA PETRINOVIC

36

ANNA SKRZYNSKA

41

NADINE GERDTS

Urban Space in Krakw

97

Witherford Watson Mann

Poland: landscape design in a historical setting

IOANA TUDORA

46

New Urban Life for a World Heritage Site

Currents

The restoration of squares in Sibiu, Romania

6
104

News, Personalities, Competitions, Projects

Public space strategy for Londons Bankside quarter

110

Authors

PETER STEGNER

111

Credits/Imprint

KEN WORPOLE

50 Bankside quarter, London: the re-use of

Landscape Architecture in the United States

Series: The state of the profession around the world

50

viaduct arches supports the regeneration strat-

Calendar, Reports, Reviews

The Bankside Urban Forest

egy of the southern banks of the Thames.

56

Beyond the Familiar

The search for urban space in New York City

ADAM REGN ARVIDSON

66

Landscape Architects to the Stars

Minneapolis: collaboration between star architects and
local landscape architects

Olin Partnership

STEFANIE RUFF, NANNAN DONG

70

Dancing Triangles
New public space in a residential area in Shanghai

97 New Yorks Bryant Park: the Manhattan

landmark regained its former beauty and popular use after comprehensive restoration.

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CURRENTS

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NEWS

NEWS

Hand-built in four months by the

architects Anna Heringer and Eike
Roswag, as well as craftsmen, pupils,
parents and teachers, the primary
school in Rudrapur uses traditional
construction methods and materials
but adapts them in new ways.

Aga Khan Trust for Culture

LE:NOTRE project goes global

Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2007

Nine projects were awarded
the Aga Khan Award for
Architecture in early September. One of the winning
projects was Samir Kassir
Square in Beirut by Vladimir
Djurovic landscape architects
of Lebanon (see page 23).
Two urban design projects
were also granted awards. The
motor for these rehabilitation
projects was not buildings
preservation but the creation
of new economic and social
structures that will restore the
citys vitality. The Nicosia
Master Plan Project treats the
city as a unified entity, implementing works in both parts
of town. New architecture
and conversion projects serve
as catalysts to revive the city
centre.
Further awards went to the
Central Market in
Koudougou, Burkina Faso; the
University of Technology
Petronas in Bandar Seri
Iskandar, Malaysia; the
Moulmein Rise Residential
Tower in Singapore; the Royal
Netherlands Embassy in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia; a school in
Rudrapur in Dinajpur,

Bangladesh; and the restoration of the Amiriya Complex

in Rada, Yemen.
The Aga Khan Award is granted every three years by the
Aga Khan, the Imam of the
Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims.
It distinguishes projects that
set new standards of excellence in architecture, planning, historic preservation
and landscape design in societies where Muslims have significant presence.

Foster + Partners, UK, GDP

Architects Sdn Bhd, Malaysia
(architects), Institute of
Technology Petronas (client)
Restoration of the Amiriya
Complex, Rada, Yemen: Selma AlRadi, Yahya Al-Nasiri (conservators), Government of Yemen,
General Organisation for
Antiquities, Museums and
Manuscripts (client)
Moulmein Rise Residential Tower,
Singapore: WOHA Architects/Wong
Mun Summ, Richard Hassel
(architects), UOL Development
Pte Ltd, Singapore (client)

Award winners:
Samir Kassir Square, Beirut,

Royal Netherlands Embassy, Addis

Lebanon: Vladimir Djurovic (land-

Ababa, Ethiopia: Dick van

scape architect), Solidere (client)

Gameren, Bjarne Mastenbroek

Rehabilitation of the City of

Shibam, Yemen: GTZ Technical
Office and GOPHCY (architects),
Ministry of Culture, Yemen,

(architects), Dutch Ministry of

Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands
(client)
Rehabilitation of the Walled City,

German Federal Ministry of

Nicosia, Cyprus: Nicosia

Economic Cooperation, Local

Masterplan Team (architects),

community, Shibam (clients)

Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot

Central Market, Koudougou,

Communities of Nicosia (client)

Burkina Faso: Swiss Agency for

School in Rudrapur, Dinajpur,

Development and Cooperation

Bangladesh: Anna Heringer,

(SDC)/Laurent Schaud (archi-

Austria, Eike Roswag, Germany

tects), Koudougou Municipality

(architects); Dipshikha/METI non-

(client)

formal Education, Training and

University of Technology Petronas,

Bandar Seri Iskandar, Malaysia:

Research Society for Village

Development (client)

The LE:NOTRE Thematic Network Project in Landscape

Architecture, which had its fifth anniversary in October 2007,
can now celebrate this milestone with the success of a new
funding application. Like Topos, LE:NOTRE is going global.
Under the title of LE:NOTRE Mundus the European Union
has approved a grant of some 250,000 euros to extend the projects scope beyond the boundaries of the otherwise eligible
countries in Europe. Besides extending the geographic and cultural reach of the Network, the new LE:NOTRE Mundus Project
will continue to involve all the existing 100 European university
members in the joint development of new international teaching material on two important global topics to which landscape
architecture has a vital contribution to make: urban landscapes
in the context of the global phenomenon of growing cities and
the worlds threatened cultural landscapes.
The 23 new member universities are in Canada, the USA, China,
South Korea, Thailand, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Israel,
Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Australia and New
Zealand. The first meeting of the new extended LE:NOTRE
Network will take place in Brussels from 13 to 16 March 2008,
hosted by the Erasmus Hoogeschool.
After the European Union funding agencys request to present
the project website (www.le-notre.org) to the Network
Coordinators of the other 38 Thematic Network Projects funded by the Erasmus Program, developing the website has by no
means come to a halt. Perhaps the most important initiative at
the moment is the development of a Europe-wide eLearning
platform. Although still at a very early stage, it points the way to
a future in which the true potential of international collaboration
making full use of electronic communication can be exploited.
Within the European context too, the Network plans to expand
by opening up access to the project, and in particular to the
website, to a wider range of stakeholders. These will include
landscape architecture students, landscape practices and municipal authorities and their landscape teams. If you wish to register on the LE:NOTRE Project website and get a password, please
contact the Network Coordinator (richard.stiles@tuwien.ac.at)
or your nearest LE:NOTRE Network member university.
Last but not least, cooperation between LE:NOTRE and its partner organisations is to be intensified. In addition to EFLA, IFLA
and ELASA, LE:NOTREs partner organisations include Topos as
the official media partner.
Richard Stiles

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NEWS

CURRENTS

ECLAS, European Council of

Landscape Architecture Schools (ed).
JoLA, Journal of Landscape
Architecture. Autumn 2007. Callwey
Verlag, Munich 2007.
www.info-jola.de

International Urban Landscape Award IULA 2007

It was the second time that
the International Urban Landscape Award was granted by
Eurohypo AG in cooperation
with the two journals Topos
and Architektur& Wohnen, a
German residential design
magazine. The distinction
went to Parc Central de Nou
Barris in Barcelona, designed
by the architects Andreu
Arriola and Carme Fiol. Topos
reported on the winning and
nominated projects for the
IULA 2007 in Topos 60. The
certificates were presented at a
gala event in Frankfurt am
Main to representatives of the
City of Barcelona and the
architects on 5 October. The
prize money of 50,000 euros
will benefit the park.

The City of Barcelona will use

it to help finance the conversion of a former agricultural
building on the park grounds.
The plans call for it to be set
up as an environmental education centre.
The patron Klaus Tpfer gave
a ceremonial address on the
subject of Cities and Sustainability. The subsequent podium discussion on megacities
demonstrated the imponderables of urban development,
particularly with regard to climate change and the scarcity
of energy and resources.
An International Urban
Landscape Award IULA 2008
is planned. Themes and eligibility will presumably be
announced in Topos 62.

JoLA 4 published

The award ceremony for the 2007

International Urban Landscape
Award (IULA) took place in
Frankfurt/Main, Germany, on 5
October. The patron Prof. Dr. Klaus
Tpfer presented the award to the
first-prize winners Carme Fiol and
Andreu Arriola of Arriola&Fiol,
Barcelona, and to the representative
of the City of Barcelona.

The new issue of JoLA, Journal of Landscape Architecture edited by ECLAS features contributions from Asia, where urban
development is driving the need for a landscape approach to
urbanism. Kelly Shannon and Samitha Manawadu examine Sri
Lankas reservoir system while Singapore is the focus of Richard
Weller and Steven Velegrinis paper. Marieluise C. Jonas writes
about informal flowerpot gardens in Japanese urban landscapes,
and Bianca Maria Rinaldi focuses on the Cheonggyecheon linear park in Seoul, which replaces a motorway.
With this issue, JoLA demonstrates the importance of intercultural exchange and looking beyond borders. JoLA has already
secured itself a firm position among specialist professional publications and is top-notch as far as layout and presentation are
concerned. Anyone dealing with the subject of landscape in
teaching and research cannot afford not to subscribe to it even
now.

Torsten Silz/Eurohypo

ECLAS Conference 2008: Call for Abstracts

New landscapes new lives new challenges in landscape
planning, design and management will be the theme of the
2008 ECLAS Conference, which the European Council of
Landscape Architecture Schools will hold at the Swedish
University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp between 11 and
14 September 2008.
Proposals for oral or poster presentations on the following topics: design in new urban contexts, new regional and global perspectives, cultural heritage of future landscapes, planting design,
construction and management, communicative approaches and
stakeholder participation, and new approaches to teaching landscape architecture, may be submitted until 21 January 2008.
Please send abstracts (max. 500 words) by email to
eclas2008@slu.se.
For continuously updated information on the conference, see:
www.ltj.slu.se/eclas

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Jan Gehl

Public Spaces
for a Changing Public Life
Public life and urban spaces have undergone dramatic changes corresponding with changes
in lifestyles and society. Simple, but rather universal elementary quality criteria help to analyze,
evaluate and assess squares, streets and other urban spaces. Protection, comfort and enjoyment
are essential for open space design.

During the year 2005 a cross section of public life in the City of Copenhagen was surveyed
and documented in the book New City Life. The
study documented the character and volume of
public life in various parts of the city from
inner city squares and streets to outlying districts and new towns. This survey was the fourth
link in a series of major public life surveys conducted in Copenhagen over four decades (1968,
1986, 1995 and 2005). With these surveys it has
been possible to document how the character of
life in the public spaces has undergone dramatic changes corresponding with changes in lifestyles and with the society situation in general.

16

Previous patterns where streets and squares

were primarily used for activities people had to
do, had by 2005 been gradually changed into
new patterns of activities where recreation, cultural activities and enjoyment played a major
role. Also in this context it was documented how
the quality of the public spaces has gained increasing importance.
In a society situation where public life is
dominated by necessary activities the quality of
the public spaces is not an all-important issue.
People will use the city spaces regardless of quality because they have to. This pattern can be seen
all over the world in countries with less devel-

oped economies. In a society situation where use

of public space becomes more and more a matter of interest and choice, the quality of the
spaces becomes a crucial factor for the death or
life of modern cities.

Wanted: lively, safe and sustainable cities.

After many years of one sided focus on traffic
and automobile issues, quite a few cities, such as
Copenhagen and Melbourne, have by now introduced new planning principles placing priority
on inviting people to walk and bicycle as much
as possible in the cause of their daily patterns.
This reorientation towards the people in the

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WILL OCCUR ONLY

IF HIGH QUALITY
IS PROVIDED
ACTIVE

OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES
(URBAN RECREATION)
PASSIVE
NECESSARY ACTIVITIES

1900

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

WILL OCCUR REGARDLESS OF THE QUALITY

PROVIDED

2000

CAR INVASION
PUBLIC URBAN SPACES
PEDESTRIAN STREETS
TRAFFIC CALMING

cities places strong demands on the planning

and design of old and new districts alike. Careful planning for walking and bicycling is a noble
cause in itself, but will evidently serve a much
wider agenda. In a time where lively, attractive,
safe and sustainable cities, with healthy individual lifestyles have become important political issues, sending a strong invitation for walking and
bicycling to the citizens will be an obvious way
to meet such a policy. So obvious is this route
that it may be difficult to find anyone, citizen or
politician, who in the present day society, will
not want a lively, attractive, safe, sustainable and
healthy city.

The graphic illustration shows the dramatic changes in the character of city life during the 20th century:
essential work-related activities dominate around 1900.The streets are crowded with people, most of whom
have to use city space for their daily activities.The picture has changed appreciably by the year 2000.
Essential activities play only a limited role because the exchange of goods, news and transport has moved
indoors. In contrast, elective recreational activities have grown exponentially. Where the city once provided
a framework almost exclusively for work-related daily life, the city hums with leisure- and consumer-related
activities in 2000.
Recreational activities set high standards for the quality of city space, and can be roughly divided into two
categories: 1) passive staying activities such as stopping to watch city life from a step, a bench or a caf, and
2) active, sporty activities like jogging and skating.
The timeline also shows when the car invasion hit Denmark in the mid-1950s.The pressure of car traffic and
functionalistic city planning in the 1960s triggered a counter-reaction to reclaim attractive city space and a
useable public realm. In the following 40 years this reaction was reinforced, and developed nationally and
internationally in an ongoing process.

17

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Mohammad al-Asad, Federico Alvarez Arrieta

SAMIR KASSIR SQUARE IN BEIRUT

Samir Kassir Square received this years Aga Khan
Award for Architecture. It is part of a series of urban
open spaces in the centre of the war-torn Lebanese
capital. Like any other city, Beirut needs urban
spaces that respond to all sorts of peoples needs.

eirut is in the process of reinventing itself after decades of war and

devastation that have erased a significant part of its urban fabric.
The area of the Beirut Central District was once one of the liveliest and most emblematic quarters of the city. In this sense, the Beirut
Central District has the potential of becoming a host for truly successful
public spaces where all sorts of people, regardless of religious or political
backgrounds can feel comfortable, making these spaces their own.
Like any other city, Beirut needs urban spaces that respond to all sorts
of peoples needs, be it for leisure, commercial, cultural, or political purposes. Also, the need to recuperate some kind of symbolic space that roots
and represents the people of Beirut, their lifestyle and customs, is of the
utmost importance. There is a longing for the city that Beirut once was.
This does not mean that the Beirut Central District should try to recuperate its old physiognomy, but it definitely should try to provide Beiruti representative qualities.

23

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Ken Worpole

THE BANKSIDE URBAN FOREST

The regeneration of Londons Bankside quarter, most famous for the Tate Modern, is being accompanied
by a public space strategy with an ecological approach.The Bankside Urban Forest is a proposal for a
wholly new concept of urban green space networks and linkages.

Bankside is a densely populated and historic quarter on the southern bank

of the River Thames in London.The area is being regenerated, with about 50
projects currently under consideration. Several illustrative projects (dark
green) have been proposed to help bind the public space network together.

50

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his proposal imagines the Bankside public realm strategy as an urban forest rather than a park. There is an important difference. The
term park originates with the Latin parricus or French parc, both
meaning enclosure. The early English deer-parks were royal hunting
grounds and strictly policed, for instance, whereas the forest has always
been regarded as a place of liberty and without distinct boundaries.
Over time, forest space has acquired a set of architectural and topographical associations with a sense of open-endedness and permeability, a
place that can be entered or exited at any point at its edges, and which
visually changes and re-configures itself as the traveller moves through it.
Because of their organic origins, forests offer a multiplicity of paths, routes,
changes of direction, as well as clearings, copses, streams, rides and alles.
A person should be able to walk through a forest on the way from home
to work, the architect Alvar Aalto once said. In his book, Forests: the Shadow of civilization, the American literary critic, Robert Pogue Harrison, has
similarly made cultural claims for the forest as an abiding element in
human experience, even when transplanted into modern conditions: If
forests appear in our religions as places of profanity, they also appear as
sacred. If they have typically been considered places of lawlessness, they
have also provided havens for those who took up the cause of justice and
fought the laws corruption. If they evoke associations of danger and abandon in our minds, they also evoke scenes of enchantment. In other words,
in the religions, mythologies and literatures of the West, the forest appears
as a place where the logic of distinction goes astray.
Thus, there were great strengths in respecting the existing labyrinthine
set of streets and settlements, which inspired the idea of the Bankside forest.
Local residents interviewed for this study have confirmed the importance to
them of the distinctive irregular street patterns of the area, together with the
many courtyards, railway arches, viaducts, bridges and alleyways.
Though the forest idea introduces elements now associated with greening the city, and largely determined by ecological imperatives to counter
CO2 emissions, to lower ambient temperatures, to increase surface water retention and avoid flooding there are equally important social and economic imperatives in the forest strategy too. By adopting a more ecological approach to urban space strategies, there are greater opportunities to

From top: the forest framework is formed by scattered historic places and
small open spaces. Ongoing projects begin to connect the public space network. As the forest matures, significant spaces will be re-used and the intertwining of the forests network will create opportunities for the diverse users.

51

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In 1970, the artist Robert Smithson conceived his Floating Island to Travel
Around Manhattan Island. In 2005, Minetta Brook, with the Whitney Museum
of American Art and Balmori Associates, realized the landscaped barge which
traveled up and down the Hudson and East Rivers in September that year.

Beyond the Familiar

The Search for Urban Space in New York City

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Peter Stegner

In light of a rising demand for new open space in New York

City, a flurry of projects ranging in scale from the multimillion dollar High Line to low-budget community centered
projects show the manifold opportunities being offered, or
waiting for discovery, within the dense urban fabric.

y 2030, New York Citys population is expected to grow by almost

a million to a total of over nine million residents. This development is considered both a success story as well as a major challenge putting enormous pressure on the citys outdated infrastructure and
existing open space system. Mayor Bloombergs NYCPLAN30, which was
introduced in 2006, is articulating a vision for a greener, more sustainable
metropolis. One goal declared in NYCPLAN30 is that every New Yorker
should have access to green open spaces within 10 minutes walking
distance from his or her residence. This goal requires new strategies and
visions for identifying, developing, financing, and maintaining potential
open spaces: an idea that seems to fall on fertile ground just as New
Yorkers have in the past tapped into new territory in searching for,
redefining and reclaiming of urban open space.
Urban space in all five boroughs of New York City Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island is under constant transformation by both highly visible and prominent projects undertaken by the city,
state and powerful developers, as well as lesser known initiatives and interventions developed by dedicated citizens, community groups or nonprofit organizations running often on very tight budgets or with uncertain
outcome. Sometimes both groups of players join together and an idea or
desire expressed by highly motivated and engaged citizens evolves into a
multimillion, city and corporation sponsored development with huge economic and physical impact on whole neighborhoods. This process is currently happening with the construction of the linear park on top of the preserved High Line in Chelsea.

57