Landscape (Sub)Urbanism in Theory and Practice

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Landscape Journal 27:2–08 ISSN 0277-2426 © 2008 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System vival” (2005,xvii) sprawl are ultimatelyaboutourdemocracy andsur- the samebook,Robert Fishman says, “Suburbia and landuse”and urgent issueinAmerican (2005,xvii). In . presents“Sprawl itselfasthesinglemostsignifi . . Sprawl andSuburbia, to answer. take are questionslandscapearchitects can be expected theywill be sited,whowilldesignthem,andwhatform Nelson 2002,85). Where thesenewcommunitieswill alone(Gillham 2002,246; decade ofthe21stcentury den. Twelve millionnewhomeswillbebuiltinthefi new citizens willwantafreestanding houseandagar- rarely mentioned:landscapeurbanism, never. fession andtheacademyof landscapearchitecture are vast array ofliterature onthetopicofsprawl, thepro- T regionalism. Itthendescribesandrefl fromcritical explains howlandscapeurbanismisadeparture of awiderarray of(sub)urbanplanning anddesigntheories ods. Thepaperfi from,more clearly andinrelationto, McHargianplanningmeth- green urbanism, andnew urbanism, andtodistinguishitself socio- ism needstodefi ofsuburbansprawl. patterns Landscapeurban- contemporary landscape architectsplay amoreinfl of landscapeurbanismtosuburbanlandscapesinorderhelp ABSTRACT (Sub)UrbanismLandscape andPractice inTheory topic ofsuburbansprawl. littleaboutthe landscape architects very have written about it.Despite theirconsiderable work insuburbia, and architectural designdiscourse, we don’t hearmuch ban sprawl yet withinlandscape isclearlyimportant, method, criticalregionalism growth, greenurbanism, new urbanism, McHargianplanning KEYWORDS landscape urbanist discourse. of maturation together assuch, thisessay contributestothe andpractice the Australian ResearchCouncil.Bybringingtheory for 40,000peopleinPerth, Western Australia, by fundedinpart master planningprojectfor asuburbanresidentialdevelopment by 60millionbefore theyear 2025.Many ofthese populationisexpectedtoincreasehe American Introducing theHarvard Design Magazine Reader political and aesthetic movements such as smart growth,political andaestheticmovements suchassmart This paper considers theapplicationofprinciples Thispaperconsiders Landscapeurbanism, suburbansprawl, smart positionslandscapeurbanisminthecontext rst inrelationtodominant ne itselfmoreclearly (Figure 1) William S.Saunders writes, 1 More troubling isthatinthe

. The landscapeofsubur- uential roleinshaping ects upona three- cant year rst suburban development?Perhaps suburban typologies work. in Why thenisthelandscape sooftentrivialised members oflarger teams doingsuchinfrastructural chitects now considerthemselves tobeatleastequal image, mostself- butcertainly respecting landscapear- Reed’s “system builder” maybeasomewhatexaggerated are notcurrently recognised asleadersinthefi sted and Vaux’s RiversidetoMcHarg’s The Woodlands— asuburbanpedigreeinheriting thatreaches from Olm- The questiontheniswhylandscapearchitects—despite Reed’s portrayal ofthelandscapeurbanistnow implies. ists, todoandbewhat wouldsaytheyhavealwaystried 2006, 283). sive newpublicworks andcivicinfrastructures” (Reed search, framing, designandimplementationofexpan- tem builder[s]whoseinterests now encompassthere- Reed,to Chris positionthemselvesas whole suburbanplanningprocess. They will,according moregarner signifi hood theywillargue foranddevelopdesign tacticsto consider themselveslandscapeurbanists, inalllikeli- If, however, landscapearchitects engagedinsuchwork in suburbiaisalegitimatelandscapearchitectural craft. cratic pretensions. from itslonggonepastoral idyllandassociatedaristo- ignore thatsuburbiastillgainsconsiderable purchase and muchmaligned socio- ecological merits, onecan’t cadian reference. But despite itstransparent deceptions landscapetheydestroyvery orsomeotherunlikelyAr- self. Indeed, manysuburbsdraw theirnamesfrom the a symbolicpasticheorhaplessremnant ofitsformer is returned tothenewdevelopmentasthematicveneer, eraseslandscape thatthenewsuburbalmostinvariably (Duany 2000,80).In deference toa “sense ofplace,” the ther structurally infl often seemsmerely andapologetic,nei- ornamental suburbia. contemporary Their involvement,however, sprawl repugnant, manyofthemdoagoodtrade in Although manylandscapearchitects mightfi Many landscapearchitects, modern- particularly oftheleftoverThe designanddelivery openspaces uential norecologicallysubstantive cant structural infl Richard WellerRichard

uence over the “urbanistic sys- eld? nd and economies are inherently incompatible with land- PART ONE: LANDSCAPE (SUB)URBANISM IN THEORY scape systems; perhaps other professions maintain Landscape Urbanism hegemony over the development process; perhaps the As a school of thought, landscape urbanism compresses regulatory conditions and a litigious society dampen the polarisation between design and planning in an the will to innovate; perhaps landscape architects fail to effort to combine the strengths of each. It shifts the convincingly represent their holistic world view and its landscape architectural project from an art (or craft) of creative potential. Perhaps all of the above. making beautiful landscapes to one of interdisciplinary As an “ethos,” landscape urbanism is about reclaim- negotiation and the seeding of strategic, development ing structural infl uence over projects (Corner 2003, 58). processes. Just as it has been inspirational, the land- As James Corner explains it, landscape urbanism is con- scape urbanist polemic has also been grandiloquent. cerned with the “vast organizing fi elds that establish new Accordingly, I have tried to condense the rhetoric into conditions for future development” and “orchestrating a set of basic principles without falling prey to reduc- a collective of experts and ideas towards a new synthe- tionism. In short, as I interpret it, landscape urbanism sis” ( 2003, 60). He could be talking of suburbia, but he claims to do the following: isn’t. It is now over a decade since the term “landscape urbanism” was coined, yet the movement remains aca- • include within the purview of design all that is in demic and enigmatic. It is time that landscape urbanist the landscape—infrastructure and buildings, etc., theorizing was scrutinised, clarifi ed, and then tested in and shuffle across scales so as to bridge the divides the working landscapes of suburban sprawl. This is the between landscape design, landscape ecology, and primary purpose of this two- part paper. landscape planning. Part One examines landscape urbanist discourse • bring greater creativity to planning operations and in relation to the dominant suburban paradigms such greater rationality to design operations. as smart growth and new urbanism. It also shows how • conceptualize and then directly engage the city and its landscape as a hybridised, natural, chaotic landscape urbanism has separated itself from the the- ecology. ory of critical regionalism and therefore from a certain • emphasize the creative and temporal agency of landscape architectural romanticism. Part Two then ecology in the formation of urban life as opposed to discusses a master planning project for a suburban de- envisaging an ideal equilibrium between two entities velopment for 40,000 people on the outskirts of Perth, formerly known as culture and nature. Western Australia, from 2004–2007.2 By focusing on • understand and manipulate the forces at work the banal role of public open space, this discussion en- behind things and less with the resultant aesthetic ables readers to appreciate the practical complexities qualities of things. and contradictions of working in suburban landscapes • interpret and then represent landscape systems in the light of landscape urbanism’s loftier theoretical so that these systems can in turn infl uence urban ambitions. Although isolated into separate parts, the forms, processes, and patterns. proximity of theory and practice in this paper prompts • prefer open- ended (indeterminate and catalytic) the reader to form useful convergences. Theory is tem- design strategies as opposed to formal compositions pered and refi ned by practice, and practice is inspired and master plans. by theory. Landscape urbanism, as even this clarifi cation dem onstrates, is (perhaps necessarily) “paradoxical and complex” (Corner 2003, 58). This is not only because the world it wishes to engage with is also paradoxical

256 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 and complex, but because it is grappling with emerging for these agents of change, just a cumulative direc- and difficult new conceptions of both ecology and the tionality toward further becoming. (1997, 81) city—conceptions that by comparison make the scientifi c certitude of McHargian landscape planning, the In confl ating nature with culture, landscape urban- genius loci of critical regionalism, or the petite aesthetic ism naturalises the city, a major and not unproblem- prescriptions of new urbanism, seem all too easy, not to atic theoretical shift with regard to urban history. For say limiting, and ultimately untenable. example, Alan Berger’s recent book Drosscape (2006), Attuned to developments in the natural sciences, which tracks sprawl from coast to North American coast, landscape urbanism’s conception of ecology is that na- is almost a paean to its naturalness—one consequence ture is not directed toward a state of harmonic equilib- of marvelling over it from the air. That the city is natural rium but that it involves more open-ended processes is, in a material if not philosophical sense correct, but it of self- organisation and indeterminacy as described is also a dangerous piece of sophistry in the midst of a by chaos theory. Kristina Hill, for example, explains global environmental crisis that has the sprawling land- that this new paradigm of ecology is different to that scapes of the fi rst world at its root. This naturalisation of which underpinned McHargian planning methods: the contemporary city is problematic because it confers that it forms “a new dialogue between designers and a certain inevitability upon its growth, which in turn can ecologists” (Hill 2001, 93). Hill argues that a spatiality seem to justify its rampant and destructive spread. of fi xed boundaries can no longer adequately defi ne In the Landscape Urbanism Reader, editor Charles ecology: “places must be seen as part of a changing Waldheim declares that “the landscape is the model context in which trends cannot be exactly predicted for contemporary urbanism . . . increasingly character- [and] surprises should be expected” (Hill 2005, 155). ised by horizontal sprawl and rapid change” (2006, 37). McHarg’s understanding of ecology was not that things But apart from Alan Berger’s notion of drosscape, the were static, but his methods for securing a best fi t be- Reader presents scant theoretical or applied work that tween culture and nature were dependent upon clearly explicitly involves designing suburbs or re-structuring determined boundaries and land uses. In accordance sprawl. As Grahame Shane points out, “the recent dis- with Hill’s ecology of fl ow and fl ux, landscape urban- course surrounding landscape urbanism does not yet ism attempts therefore to engage with the openness begin to address the issue of urban morphologies or the and unpredictability of both natural and cultural sys- emergence of settlement patterns over time” (2006, 63). tems. Landscape urbanism therefore engages time as The Reader ends however with an image of sprawl; an well as space. It emphasises the reciprocal creativity of image I fi nd portentous. If it is to become less enigmatic the natural and cultural worlds, confl ating the two into and engage less voyeuristically with conditions of sub- a hybrid that is in turn subject to continual evolution. urban sprawl—as I think it should—landscape urban- Corner, for example, confl ates mind and matter into ism must better defi ne itself in relation to the popular the same poetic scape: culture of the smart growth debates without necessarily simplifying its complicated appreciation of ecology and The process of which ecology and creativity speak are urbanity. fundamental to the work of landscape architecture. Whether biological or imaginative, evolutionary or Smart Growth and Landscape Urbanism metaphorical, such processes are active, dynamic, Many will be familiar with the sprawl debates, but they and complex, each tending toward the increased are worth briefl y staking out. The case against sprawl is differentiation, freedom, and richness of a diversely that it is—like many of its inhabitants—obese. Sprawl interacting whole. There is no end, no grand scheme is unhealthy because it is destructive of agricultural

Weller 257 land and precious habitat. Its non- porous surfaces percent of the North American landmass was urbanised increase runoff that damages waterways, and its large (144). Alternatively, in an equally well- researched book, freestanding homes are energy inefficient. Sprawl The Bulldozer in the Countryside (2001), Adam Rome is car-dependent and compounds global warming. notes that Bruegmann’s 5 percent fi gure was reached by Sprawl leads to social problems because it isolates the 1950s, had climbed to 10.9 percent in the 1970s, and people, in particular women and the elderly. Sprawl had doubled again by the 1990s (264). is thought to lack culture and community because it Not only are statistics malleable, but so too is the lacks density and a sense of place. Additionally, while language used to describe sprawl. Rowe speaks of land sprawl is portrayed as economically rational, the real that is “lost” to development, and Frederick Steiner re- costs are borne by the whole population, not just the fers to 365 acres of land being “consumed” by sprawl ev- sprawlers. Most importantly, neither the ecosystem ery hour (Steiner 2006, xvi). To say sprawl “consumes” nor the infrastructural system can support predicted land, according to Bruegmann, is prejudicial and symp- increases in population if that population sprawls. Fi- tomatic of polarised debate. James Kunstler, one of the nally, sprawl is ugly. more impassioned critics of sprawl claims that it “has The case for sprawl gets a political boost from nearly wrecked the human habitat of North America,” economic liberalism and a suspicion of any regulatory and most of it is “depressingly brutal, unhealthy, and planning that inhibits individual rights vested in land. spiritually degrading” (1993, 10). Yet Bruegmann, (fl y- Additionally, by conventional economic modelling, ing out of Los Angeles), extols the contemporary city as sprawl is comparatively cheap to build and thus demo- “the grandest and most marvellous work of mankind” cratically (equitably) enables people to enter the real (2005, 225). For Bruegmann, Portland’s Urban Growth estate market. To oppose this on either environmental Boundary—one of the most proactive anti- sprawl or aesthetic grounds is elitist. Further, in insecure times, mechanisms introduced in recent times—is at best du- new suburbs (particularly those with walls around bious, whereas for Kunstler, Portland is a model of suc- them) are thought to be safe. Low density suburbia is cess. And so it goes. also thought to be better for children than dense, urban According to Arthur C. Nelson (2002, 86–88), smart neighbourhoods. The suburbs are generally good be- growth is about conserving open space, limiting sprawl, cause they lack congestion, and their distance from ur- compacting mixed- use development, revitalising old ban centres is offset by the fact that many people enjoy centres, enhancing public transport networks, and driving. In any case, cars, like homes, will become more sharing development costs equitably. These principles energy- efficient and less polluting in the future. Finally, are also germane to new urbanism, but where new ur- a freestanding home and a garden is what people want banism is preoccupied with the formal aesthetics of and a suburban home is the epitome of individual, fa- development, smart growth is more concerned with milial, and communal pride. the socio- economic and political processes that give The sprawl debates are often highly emotive and rise to sprawl in the fi rst place. That is to say, smart ideologically skewed, and statistics can cut both ways. growth maintains faith in planning and policy to con- For example, in Sprawl: A Compact History (2005), Rob- trol the city. ert Bruegmann attempts a complete deconstruction of Landscape urbanism has far less faith in control- the aesthetics and morality of the anti- sprawl move- ling urban dynamics, but it shares with smart growth an ment. He claims that since 1945 in North America, more interest in engaging processes rather than superimpos- land has been added to the permanent register of open ing forms. As Corner explains, “The promise of land- space than has been developed, and that by 2005 “by scape urbanism is the development of a space- time even the most generous estimates,” only a mere fi ve ecology that treats all forces and agents working in the

258 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 urban fi eld and considers them as continuous networks radical differences and particularities that each project of inter- relationships” (2006, 30). Nelson says some- or region presents. thing similar, describing smart growth as “a systems Corner goes so far as to say that the city now approach to environmental planning—shifting from “escape[s] design and even more so planning . . . ; [it] development orientation to basins or ecosystems plan- is out of control” (2003, 59). In his estimation, however, ning” (2002, 88–89). this condition is not hopeless and anarchic; rather, it is a In this case, Ian McHarg’s planning method would positive attribute of contemporary urbanity and one to seem fundamental to smart growth’s regional manage- be anticipated and harnessed through highly nuanced ment concerns. Like smart growth advocates, McHarg design strategies. In this paradigm, the designer has believed in the efficacy of the master plan as an expres- to act catalytically, intervening in dynamic processes sion of scientifi cally grounded reason to bring about rather than treating the “city as a static composition an evolutionary reconciliation between economics with the planner as the fi gure in charge” (Corner 2003, and ecology. Despite the best intentions, however, ex- 59). As Koolhaas famously declared design is no longer perience has taught that a universalist method, Car- a matter of asserting a fi nal, formal composition but is tesian omnipotence, and the Big Plan often become now a matter of “staging the conditions of uncertainty” blunt instruments. Anthony Flint, author of This Land, and “irrigating territories with potential” (1996, 969). summarises the demise of faith in planning thus: However, to intervene in states of chaos, which by defi nition means the predictability of unpredictability, Nobody is drawing big plans anymore that have is not easy. One’s interventions in chaotic states need colour- coded zones for where development can and be to more, not less, precise, a point well made by Linda can’t go. Those are the maps that just get put on a Pollack when she talks of a “precise openness” in regard shelf when the next administration comes in. The to work submitted to the Fresh Kills competition (2002, smartest of the smart growth governments are con- centrating on changing zoning, the DNA of growth, 62). As history demonstrates, landscapes have been on steering funding toward infrastructure in built up good places to test strategies that later become urban places and on taking away the constraints that hobble design methods, but urbanism per se is a far more dan- good growth. Consumers have to take it from there. gerous program to now leave open- ended than a piece (2006, 259) of post industrial parkland. Paradoxically, the most suc- cessful urban design movement in the world today— Landscape urbanists such as Alan Berger reach a new urbanism—is one that would leave nothing to similar fi nding: “[t]he polarizing rhetorical arguments chance. of the pro- and anti- urbanization contingencies, as well as dynamic economic process, make traditional New Urbanism master planning approaches for future cities seem ab- The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU, 1993– surd” (2006, 236). According to landscape urbanists, present) outlines its virtues against the dystopian fail- unless it makes allowance for indeterminate contin- ings of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Mod- gencies, the chaos of both the socio- political and eco- erne (CIAM 1928–1953). The CNU is now the only well- logical economies will constantly thwart the master organised, international, easily understood, and highly plan that imposes an unwavering rational order over marketable force in contemporary suburban planning. the future. Applying a single planning method, and one Unlike the “complex and paradoxical” movement of that purports to invariably “get it right” in all circum- landscape urbanism (Corner 2003), the new urbanists stances, would seem not only to oversimplify the world offer a clear and simple manifesto. First, the CNU states but also ignore the temporal fl ux of all things and the that it “views disinvestment in central cities, the spread

Weller 259 of placeless sprawl, increasing separation by race and nifi cant concern about reducing ecological impacts income, environmental deterioration, loss of agricul- or promoting more ecologically sustainable lifestyles” tural lands and wilderness, and the erosion of society’s (65). Green urbanism is signifi cant because it shifts the built heritage as one interrelated community- building emphasis from new urbanism’s preoccupation with the challenge” (Congress for the New Urbanism 2001). Ap- styling of development toward a regional, landscape plying these maxims to the practice of design, Andres planning perspective. Duany and his colleagues recommend that in any given Shifting from new urbanism to green urbanism, project, natural amenities not only should be retained Cynthia Girling and Ronald Kellett, in their book Skinny but also celebrated, that trees be saved and topography Streets and Green Neighbourhoods (2005), take the by respected. Duany argues for large areas of open space now well-known principles of landscape urbanism and to be set aside and made to link into larger open space add some. In prioritising the landscape, they stress that systems and natural reserves (Duany, Plater- Zyberk, suburban developments should have the following: and Speck 2000, 246). Were these principles observed a vision for protecting, restoring and interconnect- more vigorously, many tracts of suburban development ing urban ecological infrastructure; multifunctional undoubtedly would be better places. But is it good green networks at every planning scale—the metro- enough? politan area, the city, and the neighbourhood; a re- Duany rejects sprawl, but in America and Austra- search community and citizenry that understand the lia, where a freestanding home is considered a birth- city’s ecosystem; landscape restoration that repairs right, he fi nds himself more often than not adding to it fragmented ecological structure; and fi nally natural albeit in a manner styled as traditional, walkable, and processes visibly integrated in the design of urban (sometimes) transit- oriented. Even though Duany’s landscapes. (146) residential projects might be regarded by the bourgeoi- sie as more liveable places, it is unlikely that such proj- It is here that debates about urban sustainability be- ects can be taken seriously as a wholesale antidote to come relative. Well- intentioned landscape architects sprawl. New urbanism only alleviates sprawl so long as who wish to open up more habitat and breathe it into one forgets that it now takes close to 12 acres of land to our suburbs could in turn increase the city’s overall sustain one American (Ingersoll 2006, 133).3 Any new sprawl balloon and place even greater demands on both urbanist “village” is in this sense an illusion. This re- private and public transport systems. Not only that, as alisation is the point of departure for the movement of Robert Freestone points out, to develop green urbanism green urbanism. is a far more complex project than simply setting aside generous open spaces: “ecological footprints extend far Green Urbanism beyond any neat notions of a discrete hinterland. . . . While acknowledging that “[p]recisely what green ur- Genuine green cities demand multifaceted processes banism implies is evolving and unclear,” Timothy of environmental management (e.g., low energy usage, Beatley (2000) concludes that a greener city is one that wastewater treatment, pollution controls, recycling, would reduce its ecological footprint, function in a way nature conservation, endangered species legislation, analogous to nature by developing a circular rather than public transportation)” (2002, 98). linear metabolism, strive toward local and regional self New urbanists and green urbanists both agree that sufficiency, and offer its citizens a healthier lifestyle to avoid sprawl means residential density must increase. and environment (5–6). Beatley posits green urbanism The European form of new urbanism advanced by Rob as a signifi cant improvement upon the new urbanism, Krier (2003)achieves such high density but according to which he criticizes for rarely refl ecting “a clear or sig- Girling and Kellett, this is not a model which Americans

260 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 would willingly embrace (2005, 137; Krier 2003). Con- resembles trying to grow a rose by starting with the pat- sequently, North American green / new urbanists have terns of its leaves and petals. . . . You have to study the settled for what they call “compact neighbourhoods,” seed and the soil within which the seed is grown” (2000, communities with a density of between 15 to 30 dwell- 20). In seeking to go deeper into the ground of urban- ings per acre (75 per hectare) as an ideal (Girling and ism, Marshall could be speaking of critical regionalism. Kellett 2005, 96). Girling and Kellet’s research, like the new urbanism From Critical Regionalism to Critical Pragmatism movement in general, ultimately deals with the prosaic A sweeping confl ation of aesthetics and politics, critical dimensions of suburban design and arrives at formal regionalism emerged in the 1980s as an academic archi- prescriptions for its improvement. Such prescriptions tectural project of resistance to what was perceived to be are the stuff suburbia is ultimately made of, and de- the homogenising forces of global modernity. Although spite a declared interest in the background datascape remaining committed to innovative architectural form, of codes, regulations, and policies, landscape urbanists with new urbanism, critical regionalism shared a sense are extremely suspicious of predetermined aesthetic of being a corrective to the placeless abstractions of outcomes. As Corner explains, the “attention paid to both the CIAM and sprawl. the dynamic structures and processes that engender Kenneth Frampton, the theory’s best known ad- future development distinguishes landscape urbanism vocate, hoped for an architecture that would absorb from more object- based ideas such as ‘city-scape,’ ‘in- and adapt the benefi ts of modernity while correcting frascape,’ ‘green city,’ or any other such hybrid image its destructive tendency to proceed with little apparent that derives from an objectifi ed notion of formal ap- regard for environmental or cultural specifi city (Framp- pearance” (2003, 60). ton 1983, 17). Mixed with Christian Norberg Schulz’s Corner’s diminution of aesthetics seems to me to turn to genius loci (the spirit of place), critical region- be exaggerated for polemical impact but, signifi cantly, it alism coincided with landscape architecture’s own de- does coincide with geographer David Harvey’s critique velopment of the idea of achieving a “sense of place” of new urbanism as a utopia of form. Both Corner and through design (Seddon 1972).4 Harvey argue that what is really needed instead is a “uto- According to Ellen Dunham- Jones, during the last pia of process” (Harvey 2005, 25). For them, attention to few decades when sprawl has constituted 75 percent of economic, socio- political, and ecological processes— all new development in the United States, architects, above and beyond urban aesthetics—is the path to a particularly the avant garde, had virtually nothing to do world that is more “socially just, politically emancipat- with it (2005, 4). In the absence of critical architecture ing, and ecologically sane” (Harvey 2005, 25). in suburbia it is somewhat paradoxical that the con- Corner declares that landscape urbanism can servative movement of New Urbanism—which, like achieve this goal “because of its extensive scale and critical regionalism asserts the authenticity of a sense of scope, its inclusive pragmatism and creative tech- place—has been most effective in reforming suburbia. niques, its prioritizing of infrastructure and process, its Well aware of this paradox in 1995 Frampton moved to embrace of indeterminacy and open- endedness, and its position landscape as the “critical” agent of urbanism, vision of a more wholesome and heterogeneous world” stating that “landscaped form” is now of greater impor- (2003, 62). Indeed, but it behoves landscape urbanists tance to urbanism than “the freestanding aestheticized to translate this high mindedness into urban form. If object”(Frampton 1995, 121). they do not, then new urbanism’s path back to the future This turn to landscape by Frampton is both surpris- will remain the only alternative to formless sprawl, and ing and prescient. Surprising, because landscape archi- as Alex Marshall so nicely puts it, that won’t work: “[it] tecture, a discipline charged with asserting the primacy

Weller 261 of the landscape, has arguably failed to so. While seek- temporary interpretation of uncovering existing log- ing aesthetically to increase the environmental and cul- ics of reality and fi nding a site’s capacity. (2005, 147)5 tural resilience of specifi c places, landscape architecture often fi nds itself complicit in the commodifi cation Critical pragmatism empowers and to an extent of those places. Prescient, because out of landscape liberates landscape architecture. As that process un- architecture, landscape urbanism now emerges to reas- folds, however, one wonders to what degree landscape sert the landscape as a fundamental datum for contem- architecture needs to retain and better articulate its dis- ff porary urbanism. ciplinary di erence to brands of architecture and urban Signaling a departure from new urbanism’s nos- design that have recently found the idea of landscape ff talgia and critical regionalism’s inherent romanticism, so useful. And does not that real di erence lie endur- Bart Lootsma captures the zeitgeist in referring to “criti- ingly with an acute sense of site specifi city, a sense that cal pragmatism,” not critical regionalism (1999, 264). the site itself is, as Sebastien Marot says, “the regulatory What landscape urbanists and Frampton can agree on idea of the project” (2003, 7)? In this world view there is then is that the landscape is “critical.” The challenge for no such thing as an anonymous site. landscape urbanism is to demonstrate how the seemingly contradictory notions of pragmatism and criti- PART TWO: LANDSCAPE (SUB)URBANISM cism can productively co- exist. IN PRACTICE Noted for his pragmatic and yet also critical dis- Practical Limitations to Innovation position, Rem Koolhaas describes landscape as an “anonymous, thin, vegetal plane” (Waldheim 2006, 43). In practice it is hard to reconcile the land’s ecological In so doing Koolhaas shifts emphasis from the critical systems with suburban systems. The reason for this regionalist’s idealisation of landscape as a site of resis- is fundamental: ecological systems are organic and tance to the landscape urbanist’s foregrounding of its boundless whereas suburban systems are mechanistic; instrumentality. Similarly for Alex Wall, the landscape ecological systems are radically site specifi c whereas is now an “accelerant,” “matrix,” and “continuous sur- suburban systems are standardised and generic. If one face,” something seemingly available for anything, any- is to design with ecological responsibility and creativity, time (Wall 1999, 253). This conception relieves land- then every site requires a highly nuanced and fl exible scape of its traditional burden as culture’s anchor in a response. Yet, due to the regulations that govern the lay- world adrift, but it reaffirms the landscape, albeit some- out of housing and its related infrastructure, suburban what abstractly, as urbanism’s organisational platform. typologies are, in a word, infl exible (Ben- Joseph 2005, For landscape urbanists (particularly those of a more 117–130). Suburbia’s infl exibility derives from the fact architectural persuasion), the landscape is an opportu- that it is not a single product that can be simply inno- nity for both program and an ecology that can be ra- vated but a complex integration of many products, each tionalised to absorb the indeterminacy of the city. Kelly resisting change in the other. This systemic conserva- Shannon, for example, explains: tism is compounded by the fact that developers, service providers, and ultimately consumers all operate within [T]here is an urge to literally reground the environ- narrow fi nancial margins. Consequently, changes to ment with an intelligence of place—interpreted not suburbia tend to be cosmetic, not structural. so much in the conservative sense of Martin Heideg- Much as landscape architects claim to have a holis- ger’s and Christian Norberg Shultz’s genius loci but tic perspective, there is much in the suburban landscape more in Elia Zenghelis’s [founder with Rem Koolhaas that is beyond their control and outside their expertise. of OMA—Office for Metropolitan Architecture] con- In regard to suburban development, what is broadly ac-

262 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 cepted to be within the landscape architect’s purview cal to the documentation of a case study, the following includes a broad brush response to how a project might description and critique does not follow conventional adapt to existing site conditions, the form that open case study methodology: what follows is a refl ection space systems of the development will take, and how upon the project by one of the authors of the project landscape aesthetics can render suburbia as arcadian. with an emphasis on the relationship between theory The degree to which existing site conditions inform a and praxis.8 development and the form that the public open spaces The University of Western Australia Landscape Ar- will take largely depend, in turn, upon the point at which chitecture department was originally given six weeks in the landscape enters the design process. As Girling and which to develop an initial LSP. Coordinated by the ARA, Kellet stress, “it is possible to design better develop- a team of over 60 consultants representing 38 different ments only if strategically situated, interdependent organisations then took the initial LSP and spent three networks of open space, streets, utilities and land use years (2004–2007) testing and refi ning its ideas, resolv- can be planned and designed together from the outset” ing all aspects necessary to master plan approval and (2005, xiv). Such an improvement then depends upon sub- divisional development. The discussion that fol- the landscape architect’s ability to fi nd ways of recon- lows only pertains to the landscape architecture of the ciling the industrial logic of suburbia with the eco- logic project.9 of the land. Ideally, this needs to occur at both regional The site is 3,750 acres (1500 hectares) of damp, de- and sub- divisional scales, and in such a way that stake- graded, agricultural land on the outskirts of Perth (Fig- holders and the other consultants involved in suburban ures 3a and 3b). The brief called for a master plan that planning and design will support it. would accommodate 15,000 homes at low to medium In the project described and critiqued below, the density to house a population of 40,000 people and to landscape architecture team from the University of be constructed over a 15–year period. Based on popu- Western Australia’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, lation projections, Perth’s latest planning report “Net- and Visual Art were brought in by the client, the Ar- work City” (WAPC, 2004) anticipates the construction madale Redevelopment Authority (ARA), ahead of any of 350,000 new homes in the next 23 years, 40 percent other consultants and asked to develop the project’s of which are allocated to peri- urban sites such as the fi rst concept plan. We were asked to develop a master WUW project.10 The remaining 60 percent are optimisti- plan “as if the landscape really mattered.”6 cally expected to be transit oriented and built into existing developed areas. The Wungong Urban Water (WUW) Landscape According to our mapping Perth has 295,000 acres Structure Plan (LSP) (118,000 hectares) of degraded rural land that could The WUW LSP (2004–2007) was both a professional be reasonably developed without encroaching upon consultancy and a research project (Figure 2).7 The re- wetlands or removing vegetation. At a low density, search question concerned the possibility of adapting this land could easily accommodate up to 1.5 million emergent landscape urbanist theory to the rigours of new homes, circa 3.2 million people. Unless an urban quotidian suburban master planning. The application growth boundary is imposed, this city can and probably of landscape urbanist theory to the WUW project, I will sprawl well into the 21st century. argue, has improved the outcome and concomitantly The site of the WUW project includes a signifi cant identifi ed the need for landscape urbanism to draw on water course and a string of wetlands through its cen- other urban theory to render itself more directly rel- tre. Eighty percent of the metropolitan region’s wet- evant to suburban master planning. Although (in an lands—vital organs in the local ecology—have been abridged format) it contains all the information typi- destroyed, and its rivers have become eutrophic. Like

Weller 263 most peri- urban lands, the site bears topographic scar for environmental protection, a development must also tissue, weed-infested fragments of vegetation, impeded allocate 10 percent of its developable area to POS. This hydrological systems, and unbalanced soils. To guide fi gure should be site-specifi cally derived and fl exible, the creation of the LSP, the following in-house prin- but to provide workable consistency for the industry, it ciples were drafted: isn’t. To create a holistic, interconnected matrix of POS, we took the allowable 10 percent POS allocation and • Protect, interlink, and enhance existing vegetation stretched it into thin “ribbons” across the entire site. A deemed of cultural and ecological value. rule we made for ourselves was that no future resident • Create a holistic matrix of public open space (POS) should ever be more than 650 feet from this POS ma- that transcends individual property ownership and is trix.11 A second rule was that the degree of thinness to robust, simple, and multifunctional. which an open space in a suburban context could be • Integrate with the POS matrix a comprehensive storm water management system as a legible reduced before it was no longer visually and function- infrastructural component of the project. ally viable was around 85–feet wide. It was felt that if • Assert the POS matrix as the primary guidelines for the POS became thinner than this then the space risked subsequent development. being perceived by the public as a drain rather than a • Align streets and housing orthogonally (north- south linear park. Following these rules resulted in the su- and east- west) to maximise passive solar access. perimposition of 26 miles of POS strips spaced 650 feet • Create an iconic site identity not through suburban from one another across the whole site. These strips of pastiche but through the use of substantial plantings POS became known as park avenues. of endemic vegetation. Each 85–foot- wide park avenue is defi ned by four rows of trees which frame a central (35–foot wide) Without fi ll, the water table in this landscape is gener- grassed open space (Figure 4). This open space func- ally too high for houses built on concrete pads, the con- tions as both a passive recreational area and a swale struction technique that dominates the local housing system. In what is a hot site in a hot climate, the ave- market. This, as well as the site’s location at the head- nues also work to channel cool air through the residen- waters of Perth’s riparian system, its remnant wetlands, tial zones, and in summer they function as windbreaks and regional water shortages made water- sensitive defi ltering harsh easterly winds. Rear- loaded housing is sign a dominant theme. prescribed to address the avenues, encouraging com- Immediately we set aside and buffered all the exist- munity ownership and passive surveillance. Adjacent to ing wetlands, riparian zones, and stands of signifi cant one side of the avenue is a small road, ensuring general vegetation. We then needed a simple system of drainage public access. swales that would collect all the storm water from the fu- By virtue of their linearity, avenues encourage ture suburban subdivisions and strip it of pollutants be- people to move along their length, an important consid- fore injecting it back into the aquifer or discharging into eration with regard to high obesity rates. People will also the site’s natural drainage system. This comprehensive be enticed along the avenues because each one leads to drainage system, we concluded, would also function as the Wungong River and, as a rule, to a 200–square foot a POS system. Ideally that system would form an inter- community park, situated at the heart of each neigh- connected matrix across the whole site, transcending bourhood. Similarly, each of the eight schools in the LSP the boundaries of the many smaller subdivisions that is connected to a park avenue, making the POS matrix a would form over the next 15 years in order to complete safe and effective system for children (Figure 5). Some the project. roads necessarily cross the avenues, but they are kept to In Western Australia, in addition to land set aside a minimum. The avenues not only convey storm water

264 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 and people, but wildlife can also utilise this intercon- gued that within the bandwidth set by the avenues, de- nected matrix. Finally, by virtue of their visual clarity velopers were free to brand their project in any way they and functionality, the avenues provide what would oth- so wished and that they needn’t rely on road patterns to erwise be raw suburban development with a distinctive create identity. We argued that the larger sense of place and binding character on a scale commensurate with we were creating at the master plan scale was more im- the development. The simple, low- maintenance typol- portant than the branding of individual subdivisions. ogy of the avenue thus achieves a lot with very little. As opposed to curvilinear road networks or more However, when an archaeological survey of the site eclectic new urbanist patterns what functions best revealed a plethora of important Aboriginal sites and within the stricture of the avenues are simple grids. This these were (rightly) included in the overall POS calcula- too was intentional because simple grid layouts would tion, the total POS fi gure was well over the mandatory maximise orthogonal housing orientation, in turn 10 percent of the developable land.12 Consequently, ev- maximising passive solar energy opportunities. The ery second avenue became a “road avenue,” meaning it LSP aimed to ensure that 90 percent of homes would retained its form as an avenue defi ned by four rows of be orthogonally oriented whereas many sub-divisions trees, but a road replaced the internal open space (Fig- achieve only 60 percent. Developers complained that ure 6). The continuity of the avenues as the structuring this, again, was restrictive. device for the whole development was thus maintained, In the fi nal master plan, however, the avenues on but in the fi nal scheme, residents now would fi nd them- the northern side of the Wungong River are intercardi- selves potentially up to 1300 feet from the nearest park nal, not orthogonal (Figure 8). The reason for this design avenue (Figure 7). was partly that drainage was better served this way, but Because the avenues cut across the boundaries the main reason was that the cadastral boundaries of of the 35 different land holdings that comprise the site the existing land ownership of the site are intercardinal. area, they were understandably perceived by develop- It was considered difficult enough to ensure that the ers as complicating the orthodox development process. avenues would link from one subdivision to another, Striated by the avenues, the LSP was criticised as over- but to add to that the complication of cutting across the determined, infl exible, and hegemonic. Indeed, to an existing grain of land ownership was to make construc- extent it is, but not without reason: the avenues guaran- tion absurdly complicated. Consequently, the consul- tee an overall drainage system, a holistic matrix of inter- tant team explored and resolved ways of manipulating connected POS, and help create a large- scale sense of subdivision design within the intercardinal orientation place—all of which is unlikely to occur in their absence. of the avenues so as to maintain orthogonal orientation To enable a degree of fl exibility, we specifi ed that an av- for the house lots without incurring a signifi cant loss of enue could be adjusted to a distance of 100 feet so as yield for developers . to fi t topographic nuances, but each development must ensure that the avenue enters and leaves any particular THE WUW PROJECT IN RELATION TO THEORY subdivision as demarcated on the master plan. What irked the various developers and their design This paper’s underlying intention to link theory and teams most, however, was that when they tested the praxis prompts two key questions of this project: 1) what paradigm of the avenues, they found that the patterns can we draw out from it in relation to the discourses of roads and housing that they generally superimpose of smart growth, new urbanism, green urbanism, and on sites couldn’t fi t. They argued, somewhat ironically, critical regionalism; and 2) how does this project em- that the avenues limited their ability to create a distinc- body or refl ect back on to the emergence of landscape tive “sense of place” for their particular project. We ar- urbanism?

Weller 265 Smart growth advocates might well have argued (more fully discussed elsewhere)15 conform to new ur- against residential development in the WUW project banist principles. Residential areas are organised in site in the fi rst place. Indeed, the development can not accord with walkable distances to neighbourhood cen- claim to be transit- oriented, nor does it include within tres, streets form interconnected grids as opposed to its bounds any signifi cant employment sources. In view cul- de- sacs, no buildings back onto POS, and generous of its approximately 30–minute drive from the central streetscapes are prescribed. What “sense of place” the business district of Perth and average building density housing stock will achieve remains to be seen, but the of eight homes per acre, each of which will in all like- new urbanist strategy of developing prescriptive aes- lihood have two cars, this development is extending thetic codes (Place Codes) has been adopted in a bid to sprawl, not resisting it. regulate urban form. A regional (smart growth) perspective, however, New urbanism’s stated landscape principles, as can be made to work both ways. For example, the addi- noted earlier, have also been broadly observed (Duany, tion of 40,000 new residents in this site will contribute Plater- Zyberk, and Speck 2000, 246). Indeed, had we not signifi cantly to the vitality of the adjacent township of been able to refer to the “authority” of new urbanism, Armadale, thus affirming Calthorpe’s image of a network it is unlikely that the bold use of POS in the LSP would city or polycentric urbanism. (Calthorpe and Fulton have been accepted. In this regard, while landscape 2001) Also, if such degraded land is not developed, then urbanism may well reject new urbanism’s aesthetics, development will potentially push further into richly it can nonetheless fi nd solid grounding in some of its bio-diverse vegetation north of the city.13 Additionally, broadly accepted structural principles. because of the change of land use from unregulated With regard to both new urbanism and critical small- scale agriculture to well- designed and - managed regionalism’s focus on genius loci to derive form (al- sub- division, considerable money begins to infuse the beit to different aesthetic ends), the master plan’s use site’s degraded ecosystem. Consequently, the quality of avenues bears some connection to the surrounding of the WUW site’s waterways should improve, which in rural landscape. The master plan’s avid protection and turn would have benefi cial downstream effects. enhancement of existing wetlands, its retention of rem- Whether the spaces we have set aside for envi- nant vegetation, and its restriction of all plantings to ronmental protection and habitat linkages do achieve species of provenance should form a coherent registra- viable ecological corridors in the midst of suburbia tion of local landscape character. Furthermore, retain- remains to be seen. Certainly, new urbanist plan- ing sites of Aboriginal signifi cance adds to the project’s ners who generally aim for increased densities and registration of site specifi city. what they believe to be legible urban form regard the The master plan’s insistence on a comprehensive buffers around wetlands and riparian corridors, in ad- storm water fi ltration system, orthogonal solar orien- dition to the 10–percent POS provisions, as excessive. tation, and an interconnected matrix of public open They worry that the landscape spaces being set aside space as the dominant determinants of form, however, in contemporary suburban developments are hard to does shift this project a few degrees from new urbanism maintain, fragment clear urban form, dissipate den- toward green urbanism. Satisfying Girling and Kellett’s sity, and ultimately lack genuine ecological function- call for “strategically situated, interdependent networks ality (Kaufmann, Morris, and Jones 2006, 13).14 In this of open space” (2005, xiv), the avenues ensure that the instance, the clear civic form of the avenues helped al- landscape architecture of this master plan is forceful, lay fears of more amorphous, degraded POS that one pragmatic, systematic, and infrastructural. The unam- so commonly fi nds in suburbia. biguous spatiality achieved through the public open The many planning details of this master plan space matrix sets guidelines for the urbanism to follow.

266 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 In these ways, the landscape architecture of this project is paradoxically best exemplifi ed by Andres Duany and embodies an emerging landscape urbanist “ethos” his colleagues with the following explanation: (Corner 2003, 58) whereby the landscape architect plays a role commensurate with that of a “system builder” [C]onsultants thrive in a swamp of unpredictability. A ff (Reed 2006, 283). In seven tenets set out earlier, land- master plan that o ers clarity is their mortal enemy as scape urbanism conjoins the methods and scales of it immediately diminishes the value of their services. When such a plan is completed, they begin to stir, planning with design; it focuses on the landscape as an warning their developer clients, “Watch out—if that infrastructural system; it appreciates the contemporary plan is passed you’ll lose your fl exibility!” Eventually city as a hybridized, denatured ecology; and it aims for the master plan is rejected and the status quo pre- structural infl uence over contemporary urbanism. All vails. (2000, 180) these landscape urbanist characteristics can be found in the WUW project. Perhaps what is needed in suburbia then is greater Because it restricts rather than liberates develop- freedom at the level of individual expression with re- ment and is in itself formally resolute, the WUW master gard to built form and private property, but greater plan may be seen to differ from current landscape ur- limitation with regard to broad scale ecological site banist discourse on one key point: it rejects landscape conditions. This perspective suggests that landscape urbanism’s penchant for indeterminacy. In the sub- urbanism needs to fi nd its own voice somewhere be- urbs, the city is not “out of control” (Corner 2003, 59); tween the polarisations that Koolhaas and Duany have it is the result of rational decisions, many of which bear come to represent in contemporary urbanism. little regard for the landscape. These decisions can be contested, resisted, and defl ected to more holistic ends only if the landscape architect is able to devise suitable CONCLUSION design strategies. In this project, we needed to impose Thirty years after McHarg proclaimed us “steward[s] of an unambiguous and overarching landscape structure the biosphere” (1969, 5), James Corner, from the same to ensure the protection and creation of landscape Chair, presents the contemporary problem thus: systems (habitat, drainage, and POS) that necessarily transcend individual sub- divisional interests. It is pos- It is both tragic and ironic that as designers we are all sible to argue, as did the developers and their design- ultimately interested in the density of building but ers, that the striation of the WUW site by linear avenues that most who actually accomplish this can only do over- determines the resultant development, but in so through the typically unimaginative and uncriti- suburbia, to merely “irrigate territories with potential” cal techniques of design as a service profession. On (Koolhaas 1996, 969), as Koolhaas would have it, could the other hand, the visionaries it would seem are as mean simply connecting the internet and the sewer- always provocative and interesting but their utopias age and letting development loose. Moreover, suburbia continually evade the problem of an operative strat- doesn’t have much potential in the sense of vibrant ur- egy. (2006, 32) banity that Koolhaas meant when he originally made his famous retort to the new urbanists. In the suburbs, The WUW master plan is not utopian, and in accord lines need to be drawn and certain landscapes desig- with landscape urbanist theory, it has attempted to nated for certain uses. The big plan or the master plan deploy a simple, pragmatic and operative strategy. Fur- is therefore important. Although on most counts I am thermore, while it is being touted as innovative, its es- putting the WUW project forward as a manifestation of sential logic differs little from an established tradition landscape urbanism, our approach to the WUW project of landscape architects bringing open space networks

Weller 267 to the fore in suburban planning. For example, Olm- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS sted and Vaux’s Riverside in Chicago (1869) integrated The author wishes to sincerely thank the reviewers and editor, a generous public open space system (Creese 1985); Elen Deming, for her contributions to both the form and content the Griﬃn’s Castlecrag in Sydney (1920s) related roads of this paper. and buildings to topography (Walker 1994); McHarg’s The Woodlands (1973) paid careful attention to hydrological systems (Forsyth 2005, 161–207); and Village NOTES

Homes in Davis, California (1975) created a strong 1. Notable exceptions are referenced in this paper. Two note- sense of community through the agency of its open worthy books on suburbia by landscape architects not di- spaces (Francis 2003). Upon studying these prec- rectly cited are Cynthia Girling and Kenneth Helphand’s Yard edents, it seems remarkable how advanced they were Street Park: The Design of Suburban Open Space (1994), and or, alternatively, how little landscape architecture in Patrick M Condon’s Sustainable Urban Landscapes: The Sur- suburbia has progressed over the course of the 20th rey Design Charette (1996). 2. This theoretical and practical work forms the core of a larger century. study into a range of development scenarios for Perth (based While it is true that Ian McHarg taught some of on 2050 population projections) funded by the Australian the current proponents of landscape urbanism and his Research Council. “will to power” has even been recharged by landscape 3. Other sources indicate up to double this amount. See http:// urbanism, the intellectual and creative differences www.footprintnetwork.org / gfn_sub.php?content=footprint between the teacher and his graduates remain some- _overview. what obscure. I have alluded to differences throughout 4. Professor George Seddon’s key text Sense of Place (1972) was this paper, but these differences are to my mind best written about Perth, the reprint of which has been enthusi- astically endorsed by Andres Duany. thought of as adding to rather than replacing McHarg’s 5. The Dutch architects MVRDV are exemplary in this regard. methods. Certainly, there are strong continuities be- See Patteeuw (2003). tween the two with regard to scope, philosophy, and 6. Informal conversation between client and consultant, 2004. technique. For instance, both landscape urbanism and 7. The master plan for Wungong Urban Water received the 2007 McHargian planning operate at an urban scale, both Award for Planning Excellence and the President’s Award are driven by the meta- narrative of ecology, and both from the Planning Institute of Australia. prefer to ground the design process in empirical data. 8. For a comprehensive guide to case study methodology, see Together they form powerful theoretical and practical Francis (2001). 9. The design team for the LSP was Professor Richard Weller and tools that could relate equally to smart growth, new Tinka Sack, advised by Sharni Howe and Patric de Villiers, and urbanism, and green urbanism and thus position land- supported by Andrew Nugent, Julia Robinson, and Alexan- scape architects to more forcefully negotiate the condi- dra Farrington. The core consultant team that worked on the tions of contemporary sprawl. LSP from 2004 through to its fi nal master plan status in 2007 Anne Spirn lists three key, unresolved areas of was directed by Matt Taylor and included ATA Environmental McHarg’s legacy: “How to reconcile environmental Scientists, JDA Hydrologists, GHD Engineering, Worley Par- ffi values and human needs, how to give material form to sons Tra c Engineering, and Tempus Archeology. The main planners for this project were The Planning Group. A com- ecological processes and values, and fi nally, how to con- plete documentation of the project is available at http:// www ceive of local actions within a regional context” (2000, .landcorp.com.au / portal / page?_pageid=1033,1&_dad=portal 114). There is no better or more challenging place in &_schema=PORTAL&nav=wungong. which to broach these fundamental issues than in the 10. Both Andres Duany’s new urbanism and Peter Calthorpe’s badlands of contemporary sprawl. transit- oriented development (TOD) have had a major im-

268 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 pact on Perth planning culture. New urbanist principles are ity. In Ecological Design and Planning, ed. G. Thompson enshrined in a comprehensive local planning guideline enti- and F. John Steiner, 80–108. New York: Wiley & Sons. tled “Livable Neighborhoods,” and TOD is now enshrined at a ———. 1999. Eidetic operations and new landscapes. In Recover- regional scale in Network City (WAPC, 2004). See http://www ing Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Archi- .planning.wa.gov.au / publications / liveable / LN_ed2.pdf. tecture, ed. James Corner, 153–169. New York: Princeton 11. Anecdotal evidence from research being conducted into Architectural Press. suburban lifestyles and health by the University of Western ———. 2003. Landscape Urbanism. In Landscape Urbanism: A Australia’s School of Population Health indicate that people Manual for the Machinic Landscape, ed. Mostafavi Mohsen will use POS more frequently when it is closer by. and Ciro Najle, 58–63. London: AA Publications. 12. It is unprecedented in Australian suburban development to ———. 2006. Terra fl uxus. In The Landscape Urbanism Reader, ed. have mapped and preserved sites deemed of such signifi - Charles Waldheim, 21–33. New York: Prince ton Architec- cance. tural Press. 13. The South Western Zone of Western Australia in which Creese, Walter L. c1985. The Crowning of the American Landscape: Perth sits is classifi ed as one of the world’s 33 biodiversity Eight Great Spaces and Their Buildings. New York: Prince- “hotspots,” meaning it contains unique and threatened bio- ton University Press. diversity (Mittermeier 1999, 404). Duany, Andres, Elizabeth Plater- Zyberk, and Jeff Speck. 2000. 14. The riparian zone through the midst of the WUW project is Suburban Nation—The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of 330 feet wide, and wetlands are buffered by 200 feet of reveg- the American Dream. New York: North Point Press. etated land wherein storm water is carefully managed. Dunham- Jones, Ellen. 2005. Seventy- fi ve percent: The next big 15. See http: //www.landcorp.com.au / portal / page?_pageid=1033 architectural project. In Sprawl and Suburbia: A Harvard ,1&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&nav=wungong. Design Magazine Reader, ed. William S. Saunders, 1– 20. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fishman, Robert. 2005. Beyond Sprawl. In Sprawl and Suburbia: REFERENCES A Harvard Design Magazine Reader, ed.William S. Saun- ders, xi—xviii. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Beatley, Timothy. 2000. Green Urbanism: Learning from European Flint, Andrew. 2006. This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Fu- Cities. Washington, DC: Island Press. ture of America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Ben- Joseph, Eran. 2005. The Code of the City: Standards and the Press. Hidden Language of Place Making. Cambridge, MA: MIT Forsyth, Ann. 2005. Reforming Suburbia: The Planned Communi- Press. ties of Irvine, Columbia, and the Woodlands. London: Uni- Berger, Alan. 2006. Drosscape. In The Landscape Urbanism versity of California Press. Reader, ed. Charles Waldheim, 197–217. New York: Prince- Frampton, Kenneth. 1983. Towards a critical regionalism: Six ton Architectural Press. points for an architecture of resistance in Postmodernism. ———. 2006. Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America. New In The Anti- Aesthetic, ed. Hal Foster, 16–30. Seattle: Bay York: Princeton Architectural Press. Press. Bruegmann, Robert. 2005. Sprawl: A Compact History. London: ———. 1995. Toward an urban landscape. In Columbia Docu- The University of Chicago Press. ments of Architecture and Theory, vol 4, 83–93. New York: Calthorpe, Peter, and William Fulton. 2001 The Regional City: Columbia University. Plan ning for the End of Sprawl. Washington, DC: Island Francis, Mark. 2001. A case study method for landscape architec- Press. ture. Landscape Journal 20 (1): 15–29. Condon, Patrick M. 1996. Sustainable Urban Landscapes: The ———. 2003. Village Homes: A Community by Design. Washing- Surrey Design Charette. Vancouver: University of British ton, DC: Island Press. Columbia. Freestone, Robert. 2002. Greenbelts in city and regional planning. Congress for the New Urbanism. 2001. Charter of the new urban- In From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer ism. http://www.cnu.org / charter. Howard, ed. Kenneth C. Parsons and David Schuyler, Corner, James. 1997. Ecology and landscape as agents of creativ- 67–98. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

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270 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 Figure 1. Typical West Australian Suburbia. (Photomontage by Andrew Thomas, 2007.)

AUTHOR RICHARD WELLER is Professor of Landscape architecture at the University of Western Australia where he special- izes in both the theory and practice of design. He is author of the book Room 4.1.3: Innovations in Landscape Architecture, published by Penn Press, and is currently working on planning options for the city of Perth in 2050.

Weller 271 Figure 2. Location of the WUW Case study. (University of Western Australia, Landscape Architecture Program)

272 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 Figure 3a. Initial Landscape Structure Plan. (University of Western Australia, Landscape Architecture Program)

Weller 273 Figure 3b. Initial Landscape Structure Plan, program layers. (University of Western Australia, Landscape Architecture Program)

274 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 Figure 4. Section through a park avenue. (University of Western Australia, Landscape Architecture Program)

Weller 275 Figure 5. View inside a park avenue. (University of Western Australia, Landscape Architecture Program)

276 Landscape Journal 27:2–08 Figure 6. Section through a road avenue. (University of Western Australia, Landscape Architecture Program)

Figure 7. Overviews of avenues spaced at 650 feet and 1300 feet. (University of Western Australia, Landscape Architecture Program)

Weller 277 Figure 8. Final master plan for Wungong Urban Water as derived from the Landscape Structure Plan. (University of Western Australia, Landscape Architecture Program)

278 Landscape Journal 27:2–08