333-2-Weller.indd 1 3 - 2 - W e l l e r . i n Landscape Journal 33:2 ISSN 0277-2426 d d

©!2014 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

1 , biodiversity biodiversity geodesign, design, planning, urbanism, , landscape KEYWORDS outlined. are department landscape UPenn’s at undertaken being regard this in directions research the and depletion biodiversity of crisis global current tothe related then is stewardship of - a h p emerging interdisciplinary m fi the is e as stewardship, of r concept broader a and l deeper u c i t r discus is urbanism landscape a p h t i opened up in late 20th century , w d e z that design and planning between ofrift the out emerged i r a it As m (UPenn). m architecture u Landscape of s Department Pennsylvania’s e of r University the part, from a entirely, large not but in y emerging g thought of o lineage l the on o sis d o h planning t e McHarg’s of m extensions and to Reactions architectural discourse. landscape inform to continues legacy this how and worldview McHarg’s in constructed are with of discussion how nature ecology and examined, critically is McHarg, Ian by conceived as Stewardship, sustainability. of state landscape ideal an to leading stewardship large-scale of agent the as serve to tion: refl wide-ranging a is paper (1914–2014),this Pennsylvania of University the at education architectural landscape of ABSTRACT RichardWeller Century 21st the in d’être Raison Architecture’s Landscape on Reflections Now? Stewardship ection upon landscape architecture’s highest ambi- Stewardship, ecology, IanMcHarg, Written on th e occasion of the centenary th centenary on the Written of occasion e eld of Geodesign. The theory theory The eld of Geodesign. sed and situated within the the within situated and sed of of 1924, Robert Wheelwright, co-founder and co-editor York New tothe Toabout it. in letter a Times in wit, something do to able are we that state repeatedly of, because we, unlike any other profession I am aware acute particularly is situation the architects landscape but for incapacitated, of feeling ashamed notbe need one apocalypse ecological the of face the In INTRODUCTION and that is landscape architecture.” works nature the preexistent with of man co-ordinate to been has objective main whose profession one but is “there that noted (UPenn), Pennsylvania of University at the architecture landscape of program fi the and architect landscape of the rst director Landscape Architecture Quarterly It takes a lot of hubris toIt takes even alotofhubris to thinkofourselves (McHarg ,1992, 124)consciousness. its and is hisrole—steward biosphere ofthe This apperception. from derived management, dependent upon it but has the responsibility for entirely system and isofthe He ofit. conscious and regulation, ofits capable man isanenzyme that considers Naturalist the then superorganism, asasingle viewbiosphere the can If one and infi remote the wewant Do earth. the stewards of as hopeless task. (Lovelock, 1988, 228) to thanto a such them conscript fate people for worse no be can There stewards earth. ofthe to become humans expect than gardener a as to succeed goat a expect sooner would I health...? Do we want to be made accountable for its nitely dif cult task of managing the earth? earth? the managing of task cult , a practicing practicing a , 11/23/15 3:19 PM / 2 3 / 1 5

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P M Devoting his entire career to this very idea, Ian Intentionally or otherwise, the International McHarg, who assumed the Chair at UPenn in 1954, Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) does said it was our imperative to “green the earth, restore not use the word ‘stewardship’, but it does state that the earth [and] heal the earth” (1992, iv). In his landscape architects are “called upon to contribute magnum opus Design with Nature, McHarg refers towards safeguarding the viability of the natural repeatedly to the ideal human as the “good steward” environment and towards developing and maintain- (1992, 29, 53, 101, 123,124, 197). In 1984 his successor, ing a humane built environment in cities, towns and Anne Whiston Spirn concluded her prescient urban villages” (IFLA). The calling to which IFLA refers is study, The Granite Garden, with the edict that the that of creating an ecologically benign global civiliza- redesign of the city was not just a matter of aesthetics tion. McHarg called it a “command” (1969, 122). and economics: the very survival of the human race Interestingly, the Chinese Society of Landscape was at stake (1984, 275). And to this day, introducing Architects (CSLA), whose jurisdiction will do more a new compendium of his own writings, James Cor- than anywhere else on earth to make or break civiliza- ner, (Chair at UPenn from 2000–2012) asserts that tion’s prospects of sustainability, refrains from biblical landscape architecture can provide “the very bedrock, injunctions on the matter. According to their website, matrix and framework upon which a city can thrive the CSLA is merely concerned with the “preservation sustainably with nature” (2014, 11). of national natural, cultural and historical resources” The tenor of these individual proclamations is and building an “eco-friendly and beautiful habitat” also enshrined in the various charters of landscape (2013). China’s most celebrated landscape architect architecture’s professional organizations. For example, Kongjian Yu, however, is less circumspect. In his the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) monograph, near a photograph of himself with Ian says that its mission “is to lead, to educate, and to McHarg, Yu writes: participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of our cultural and natural environ- Every hour three species disappear. We must ments” (2013a). Furthermore, their Sustainable Sites redefi ne what seems pleasurable and beautiful to Initiative recommends “in all aspects of land devel- us—especially in landscape architecture—itself a opment and management [we should] foster an ethic crucial profession in the struggle for sustainable of environmental stewardship — an understanding ecology. . . . Both global and local conditions that responsible management of healthy ecosystems compel us to embrace an art enmeshed with improves the quality of life for present and future gen- fostering survival, promoting land and species erations” (2013b). stewardship (2012, 44). The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) also stands by stewardship, explicitly Today stewardship in common parlance means defi ning it as the activity of “taking responsibility for variously to serve and to manage. In landscape and management of the landscape through master architectural discourse since McHarg, it means of planning, design, recycling, conservation, regeneration, course to oversee the large-scale relations between and restoration” (2013). AILA goes on to state that natural and cultural systems. Writing in this journal “as a matter of urgency” Australia must plan “an in 1988 Robert Scarfo traced the etymology of the integrated national spatial framework for landscape- word to 8th century England where the stigward scale conservation and regeneration” (2013), a scale was a keeper of pigs (60). Scarfo organized the of work to which I will return later. Similarly, the predominantly agricultural history of stewardship into Aotearoa-New Zealand Landscape Charter explains four historical phases; the immediate, the transitional, that stewardship is “a responsibility to nurture the the separate, and the external. Along this transect continued health and diversity of landscapes, and he identifi ed that the distance between the subject ensure the sustainable integration of protection, (steward) and the object (land) has increased over time. production, recreation, and habitation values for all According to Scarfo, as a fundamental characteristic living things” (New Zealand Institute of Landscape of modern professionalism we now fi nd ourselves in Architects 2013). the phase of being predominantly “external” to the

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 2 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM land we purport to steward. He argues, however, that diagnosis and the remedy. Twenty-fi ve years on we can this degree of separation from that which we purport ask what landscape architects have done and are doing to care for isn’t theoretically contradictory and needn’t about a planet Lovelock believes to be now terminally lead to superfi ciality. It is, for Scarfo, precisely the ill and one still under the mismanagement of a society combination of our capacity for a relatively objective McHarg considered pathological. large-scale temporal and spatial overview (af orded by In order to better inform debate about this large being external to the object), along with some degree topic, this paper reviews landscape architecture’s of the site-specifi city (personal experience and careful self-declared mandate of stewardship. It does so site analysis), that is best suited to the ecological and by examining Ian McHarg’s legacy and tracks a social challenges the world now faces. (67) lineage of thought that emerged, not exclusively, but Typically, when the word stewardship is uttered infl uentially through UPenn’s landscape program. landscape architects either nod approvingly or roll This rumination is inspired by my assumption of their eyes. On the one hand, our declarations of stew- the Chair of this program on the occasion of its ardship distinguish us as a profession and are propor- centenary (1914–2014).1 Later, I relate the theory tionate to the magnitude of the ecological crisis. On of stewardship to global biodiversity depletion the other, claims to stewardship are, as James Lovelock and describe a current research initiative, which indicated at the outset, just hubris: in our case a small aims to apply design intelligence to zones of profession with an inferiority complex inspired by a confl ict between urban development and habitat charismatic leader (McHarg 1920–2001) continuing conservation at a scale commensurate with the crisis. to make infl ated statements about both its purpose and its capacity. Like no other, the word stewardship hangs over landscape architecture with moral gravi- MCHARG’S THOUGHT tas, casting the shadows of what Daniel Nadenicek Ian McHarg’s Design With Nature not only crystallized and Catherine Hastings described so succinctly as the the burgeoning environmental zeitgeist of the 1960s and “separation of words and work” (2000, 160). 1970s, it also provided a metaphysical purpose and McHarg and Lovelock are, however, just dif erent practical method by which human reason could fi nally sides of the same coin: while McHarg’s vision of stew- reach a rapprochement between modernity and natural ardship is arcadian and ennobling, Lovelock’s descrip- (landscape) systems. Insofar as he believed in a grand tion of its impossibility is a dystopian ploy to shock us synthesis of culture and nature yet to come, McHarg into temperance so as to avoid further climate change. was a romantic, but, unlike romanticism, it was the In any event, with atmospheric carbon levels now over scientifi c method in the form of rational (regional) 400 parts per million, a global population expected planning and not idiosyncratic, artistic inspiration to peak at circa 10 billion this century, and an eco- that would bring it about. Although oftentimes he system in triage, it would seem we have no choice but displayed the traits of an ideologue, McHarg was a to engage in some form of both locally and globally complicated thinker and his impassioned writings are coordinated stewardship. The question then is to what redolent with many of the still unresolved intellectual degree landscape architects are involved in this process and creative tensions between art and science at the and to what degree our actions are precautionary or heart of the discipline he came to represent. reactionary. Disgusted by Judeo-Christianity’s founding nar- Despite the hubris of stewardship, Lovelock does rative of dominion and its other-worldliness, McHarg express some faith in human agency when he writes articulated a vision of oneness with the Earth instead in his 1988 biography of the planet, The Ages of Gaia, of the “Creator”. Refl ecting the target of his critique that in order to solve our global problems “we need a and the scale of his thinking, McHarg’s language was general practitioner of planetary medicine” (1988, 171). of biblical proportion, something both atheists and Seemingly oblivious to the role landscape architects theologians would, for dif erent reasons, take issue think they can play in this regard, he asks “Is there a with. For example, in this journal in 1985, Nancy doctor out there?” (1988, 171). Had McHarg read this Denig penned a stern rebuke to McHarg, arguing plea he would surely have of ered Lovelock both the he had misunderstood and misrepresented the Bible

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 3 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM in general and Genesis in particular. Denig argued and Thomas Berry. Arguably, to dress and keep it is that dominion does not automatically infer exploita- another way of saying “design with Nature” and so tion; rather it is the expression of custodianship and, McHarg’s relationship to Christianity is somewhat as such, signifi es the responsibility bestowed upon confounding for his critics. humanity for all that God has created. As she explains, Philosophically, McHarg’s worldview is Aristo- “[e]xploitation is one of the consequences of other telian, not Platonic. His world is biological, creative, courses that man is free to choose—the course of pride and teleological. For McHarg creativity is not just or of greed or of distorted theology, for example, but what artists do, it is the way the world works. Crea- it is not the way laid out for man in the Bible. Judeo- tivity is evolution’s mechanism for resisting entropy Christian man is called, instead, into a relationship or, as he put it, “raising matter up” to new levels of with nature founded upon dominion, stewardship, and order (negentropy) (1992, 53). Creativity is the func- co-existence”. (1985, 103) tion by which organisms achieve form and that form The theology of stewardship becomes more is a direct result of the reciprocal “fi tting” of organism problematic when we consider that the Christian Right to environment. Recognizing this, caring for this, and of American politics can also use the term to describe fi tting in with this is, for McHarg, humanity’s ultimate their own sense of destiny. For example, Dr Michael purpose (1992, 196–197). Cof man who, according to his own website is “a As any thinking landscape architect must, respected scientist and ecologist,” is a lobbyist against McHarg struggles with the philosophical and practi- global environmental policy that he believes infringes cal problem of how to place human consciousness on national sovereignty and individual property within evolution. His preferred evolutionary theorist rights.2 As the President of Environmental Perspec- is Lawrence Henderson (1878–1942) who, like James tives, Inc. (EPI), and Executive Director of Sovereignty Lovelock with his Gaian theory some time later, International, Cof man says he provides “solutions to declared that evolution’s engine is not just individu- environmental problems based on Judeo-Christian als being selected, but the collective nature of the principles of stewardship as contrasted with panthe- biosphere self-creating the optimal conditions for life istically-based (sic) environmentalism”. Cof man’s (1913). For McHarg, Henderson’s symbiotic version of big achievement in this regard was his persuasion of evolution and notion of the earth as a superorganism Congress not to sign the United Nations’ Convention deepened the meaning of Darwin’s otherwise mecha- on Biological Diversity (CBD)—a critically important nistic system of selection (1992, 46). convention to which we will return in more detail As Robert Cook has recorded, the holistic notion later.3 As it happened, along with the United States of fl ora and fauna constituting a superorganism was only fi ve other nations rejected the CBD: Andora, Iraq, popular in the fi rst half of the 20th century (2000, Somalia, Brunei, and East Timor.4 Cof man is now 119). The collective idea of the superorganism then actively working against North American rewilding became the ecosystem, which Eugene Odum, writing initiatives, best personifi ed by his alter ego, Dave Fore- in 1954, described as inherently predictable, self- man, head of the Rewilding Institute, which aims to regenerative and ultimately climactic and stable. This return 50 per cent of North America to wilderness.5 image of nature as a harmonic and directional system Larger questions of Christianity’s causality to or is one in which, for McHarg, industrial, urban cul- complicity with the ecological crisis notwithstanding, ture was an aberration in the natural order of things. Denig, in her response to McHarg, turns our atten- As Cook explains, in this old paradigm the infl uence tion to the second reading of Genesis where we are of human culture is largely perceived as negative, a instructed not to dominate ‘The Garden’ but to “dress disturbance that undermines the tendency of the eco- and keep it”.6 This “narrative of stewardship” as Caro- system toward equilibrium. (120) lyn Merchant refers to it (2003), weaves an alternate In McHarg’s schema, human consciousness history of Judeao-Christian thought stretching from should follow the logic of nature’s harmonic system. St. Benedict and Francis of Assisi to Thomas Aquinas In the fi rst of many paradoxes in McHarg’s think- and, in our times, magisterial (environmental) think- ing we are being asked to rationally accord with a ers such as Rene Dubos, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin system that fi nds its harmony through irrationality

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33-2-Weller.indd 4 1/26/15 8:19 AM (unconsciousness). If, however, we collapse the nature/ calls the Naturalists, he notes that despite their many culture divide upon which this particular paradox rests virtues they are fundamentally fl awed because they can then it is possible to think, as James Lovelock does, only act on “impeccable evidence”, and yet the world that it is not just we who are sentient, it is the earth they interpret is, as he puts it, “fi nally unknowable” itself that, through us, has become sentient. The pale- (1992, 125). And so for the logic of designing with ontologist Tim Flannery takes this to its logical conclu- nature to hold together, McHarg had to not only valo- sion when he writes that: rize nature but also overlook the problem that nature is inevitably a cultural construct. Just as it has been [I]f the global human superorganism survives and for the environmental movement at large, for McHarg evolves its surveillance systems and initiatives postmodern sophistry was not going to get in the way to optimize ecosystem function [it] raise[s] the of ecological salvation. And he was probably right that prospect of an intelligent Earth—an Earth that it shouldn’t. would through her global superorganism [humans], Things get more convoluted when he explains that be able to foresee malfunction, instability, or other the legal system of this fi ctional society is determined danger and to act with precision. If that is ever “in favor of the natural,” but in the very next sentence achieved the greatest transformation in the history says “there is no unnatural” (1992, 125). The only pos- of our planet would have occurred (2012, 279). sible conclusion he can draw from this paradox is that “scientifi c knowledge is incomplete and will forever be In this grand narrative, consciousness as humans so, but it is the best we have” (1992, 29). Indeed; but, experience it is not an aberration; on the contrary, it as Anne Spirn concluded nearly a decade later in writ- is sanctifi ed in terms of evolution. As such, McHarg’s ing about the Department he led for almost 30 years, theory is complete and his enlightened Adam can McHarg exaggerated the rectitude of science and mis- return to the garden as its designated caretaker. And appropriated it as a determinate of culture (2000, 112). this is precisely what McHarg means when he declares As she explains: that humanity is “splendidly equipped to become the manager[s] of the biosphere; and give form to that [W]hen McHarg calls ecology “not only an symbiosis which is his greatest role, man the world’s explanation, but also a command,” he confl ates steward” (2007, p. 71). ecology as a science (a way of describing the Despite this neat and self-serving formulation world), ecology as a cause (a mandate for moral of human destiny and purpose, paradoxes don’t just action), and ecology as an aesthetic (a norm for disappear. McHarg can never account for why his beauty). It is important to distinguish the insights Adam (or rather Eve) has, as history attests, so reso- ecology yields as a description of the world, on the lutely refused to fi t into the garden. Moreover, if nature one hand, from how these insights have served as over time designs itself to fi t together then how do we a source of prescriptive principles and aesthetic explain all its absurd excesses at the species level and values, on the other. (Spirn, 2000, 112) calamities at the ecosystem level? McHarg’s end point of nature and culture reconciled through the applica- Due to modernity’s association with oppressive, tech- tion of reason is also based on the spurious assumption nocratic reason and its failure to deliver the enlight- of their separation in the fi rst place and, fi nally, his ened utopia it had promised, postmodern scholarship case for design with nature rests on scientifi c principles generally approached any form of totalized vision or that could be turned just as easily to support the case grand narrative such as McHarg’s with suspicion, if for design against nature—all depending of course on not derision. Ursula Heise, Professor of English and how one defi nes Nature in the fi rst place. Sustainability at UCLA summarizes it thus: Amidst his general tenor of certitude, there are moments in Design with Nature when McHarg real- [T]he basic goal of cultural studies for the last izes his biological determinism is inherently contradic- twenty years has been to analyze and in most tory and philosophically problematic. For example, cases, to dismantle appeals to “the natural” or while describing a fi ctional superior culture whom he “biological” by showing their groundedness in

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 5 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM cultural practices rather than facts of nature. The the department’s overwhelming preoccupation with thrust of this work therefore, invariably leads objective mapping. Turning McHarg’s realization to skepticism about the possibility of returning that “there is no unnatural” on its head, in 1988 Olin to nature as such or of the possibility of places argued that whilst nature should indeed remain the defi ned in terms of their natural characteristics that fundamental source of landscape architectural inspi- humans should relate to (2008, 46). ration, the artistic ways in which this well-spring could be interpreted should be “as broad and varied Consequently, the cultural climate of postmodernity in scope as that of the numerous landscapes, things, that dominated design schools in the last decades of and events in the universe” (1988, 150). Two years the 20th century generally frowned upon McHarg’s later, also from within UPenn’s own ranks, McHarg’s ‘positivist’ planning method. Whereas McHarg student James Corner published a pivotal two-part thought obeisance to his method transcended the paper—again in this journal—that explicitly aimed expression of individual artistic subjectivity, post- to recover the landscape architectural design project modernists saw it as not only diminishing the liberty from science and return it to art (1990). Corner claims of art, but a perpetuation of the myths and dangers of to have read McHarg’s Design with Nature fi ve times objective knowledge and its instrumental application in his fi rst year at UPenn and his entire corpus of both that had characterized modernity since the scientifi c written and designed work since can be interpreted as revolution of the 16th century. I was part of that cri- a reaction to—and ultimately respectful critique of— tique: for better or worse, we all wanted to make our McHarg’s oeuvre (Corner, 2014). own maps, not tracings (Weller, 2004). In 1994, as if to pull the pendulum back from McHarg with an equal and opposite force, UPenn then appointed the eminent garden historian John Dixon PEDAGOGY AT PENN Hunt as Chair. Hunt oversaw a design renaissance at Although it served well to underpin the analysis Penn; one actively promulgated by young faculty such stages of professional environmental planning and as Corner, Anuradha Mathur, and Dilip da Cunha became perfunctory in that regard, by the mid-1980s who all drew inspiration from post-structuralism at UPenn and schools around the world, the applica- and the “paper architecture” that covered the walls tion of McHargian planning had become mechanistic of design schools at the time. For Hunt, Corner, and and increasingly unable to yield anything other than Mathur, the landscape is a palimpsest that writes us prescriptive and static large-scale land use maps. as we write it, the two in a constant state of becoming. Simultaneously—following the money—the profession Landscape is as much mind as it is matter and, if that shifted its focus away from regional planning toward is true, then landscape architecture necessarily involves civic space. McHarg’s successor Anne Whiston Spirn the exploration and expression of both. (chair from 1987–1994) realized the need to connect Corner refers to this dynamic interplay as “the the disparate scales of design and planning and, along landscape imagination” (2014), a surfacing of that with them, the dif erent spheres of art and science that which was repressed in McHargian planning, and by now threatened to tear apart the otherwise holis- it became the centerpiece of landscape architectural tic theory of landscape architecture. Consequently, education at Penn for the next two decades (1992– through her writings and her research in Philadel- 2012). What was a large-scale biophysicial problem for phia’s neighborhoods, Spirn led the way back into the McHarg became a question of site-specifi cally nuanced ecological and social complexity of the city and with cultural critique, a case of plotting not planning for it opened the door to the semiology of design. (Spirn, Corner and Mathur. As such, over the course of the 1984) last two decades, history, cultural geography, land- Along with Spirn, Laurie Olin, who has taught scape design, , and a concern for repre- design studios at UPenn since 1974, also realized the sentation all fl ourished at Penn, but planning per se need to balance the art and culture of design with withered.

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 6 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM DESIGN/PLANNING every aspect of a community’s material, political and As Spirn and others have identifi ed and variously tried spiritual well-being. Central to this is Joan Nassauer’s to mend, the cost of these tensions between planning emphasis on stewardship as literally the act of caring. and design was a discipline split. On the one side the She argues that the small radius and emotional sub- planners, following the higher truth and “deeper form” jectivity of caring for the people and places around us (Lyle, 1991) of nature’s lineaments in order to save can build in scale and impact through social networks the world. On the other the designers, arguing that so as to bridge the local and the regional, if not the the aesthetics of environmentalism are as important global. (2011) as the thing itself (Meyer, 2000) and that you cannot Richard Forman’s seminal contributions to our save the world with the same technocratic rational- understanding of landscape ecology are well known ity that created the problem in the fi rst place (Corner, and his recent book Urban Regions (2008) extends 1991, 159–161). Whereas McHarg’s followers thought McHarg’s vision by systematically measuring the design was only truly meaningful when it expressed ecological consequences of dif erent forms of urban the deep processes that shaped the earth, designers growth. His latest work Urban Ecology: The Science such as Martha Schwartz, Diana Balmori, Kathryn of Cities (2013) links the scale of landscape ecology Gustafson, George Hargreaves, Peter Walker, Laurie to that of urban design and of ers a comprehensive set Olin, Christophe Girot, Paolo Burgi, and Peter Latz of principles and methods with which to improve the argued variously for the importance of poetics, history, ecological health of urban environments. spectacle, and individual creative agency in their work. Through consistent conferences and publications Along with many others, these designers resurrected both Julius Fabos and Jack Ahern continue to advance landscape architecture as an artistic enterprise from landscape conservation and restoration through the what Marc Treib described (somewhat superfi cially) theory and practice of creating greenways (Fabos, et al as McHarg’s “anti-aesthetic” (49) and what Elizabeth 2013). In documenting the growth of this movement, Meyer referred to as the fi eld’s “invisibility” (2000, Ahern puts forward the Wisconsin Heritage trail, some 190). With this design renaissance the profession has 300km of connected landscape corridors designed by rapidly earned a global reputation as the purveyor of Phil Lewis in 1964, as a prototypical project (2004). artful and urbane public space, but the price paid was Greenways were then given the imprimatur of the that the ecological reach of such work was primarily White House in 1987 when the President’s Commission restricted to the symbolic order of things. In short, on Americans Outdoors declared that they would signifi cation replaced stewardship. thread “. . . through cities and countrysides like a Away from the spotlights of design culture, giant circulation system” and “give every American landscape planners and academics such as Phil Lewis, easy access to the natural world”. (Hellmund and Julius Fabos, Dana Tomlin, Joan Nassauer, Freder- Smith, 2006, 32) Writing in 2006 Paul Hellmund and ick Steiner, Carl Steinitz, John Tillman Lyle, Jack Daniel Smith estimated in the United States alone there Dangermond, Jack Ahern, Robert Thayer, and Rich- were over 3000 such greenways. As the 2013 Fabos ard Forman have all contributed, over many years, to Conference on Greenways confi rms, the theory and critiquing, refi ning and furthering McHarg’s method- practice of designing these systems is now a mature ology and vision. For example, as the title suggests, and vibrant international movement and, as I will Frederick Steiner and George Thompson’s Ecological argue below, greenways (or ecological networks as Design and Planning (1996) brought together both they tend to be referred to in European discourse) artistic and instrumental approaches to ecology and are needed on a global scale if we are to secure some expanded the intellectual range of the discipline. Fol- semblance of a biodiverse ecosystem this century lowing the success of his fi rst book Gray World–Green (Fabos et al, 2013). Heart: Technology, Nature and the Sustainable Land- As documented in his magnum opus A Frame- scape (1997), Thayer’s more recent book Life Place: work for Geodesign: Changing Geography by Design Bioregional Thought and Practice (2003) attempts (2012), Carl Steinitz has in the course of a lifetime to demonstrate how a bioregional sense of place can of methodological experimentation, considerably shape not just settlement patterns at a large scale, but expanded and refi ned the frontiers of McHargian

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 7 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM planning. Along with Jack Dangermond he refers to of design and planning and it is only then that we will this as “Geodesign,” defi ned as “a design and plan- be able to address the combined problems of climate ning method which tightly couples the creation of change, environmental degradation and poverty.” design proposals with impact simulations informed (2007, 95) History teaches that technology and design by geographic contexts, systems thinking and digital will not solve the world’s problems as Geodesign “digi- technology.” (Flaxman, 2012, 12)7 Steinitz explains topians” (to coin a term) say it will, but their belief that Geodesign is not a new profession or a newly that we are at the beginning of a revolution in terms of designed thing. Rather it is a rubric under which col- how much of the world we can measure, what we can laborations between landscape architects, planners, model, and what we can then do with that informa- geographers and GIS technicians take place. (2012) tion is of profound importance for both the theory and Although a proliferation of terms can have the adverse practice of landscape architecture and its mandate of ef ect of devaluing landscape architecture, by rebrand- stewardship. ing landscape planning as Geodesign, Steinitz and Dangermond do a canny thing. The term works to THE URBAN QUESTION amalgamate the sciences with the humanities and to Somewhat indicative of landscape architecture’s combine both with the proactivity and creativity of sluggish intellectual pace is the fact that it was some design. As an expression Geodesign seems to of -load 40 years after the publication of Design With Nature the self-righteousness and religiosity of “stewardship” that the fi rst relatively thorough deconstruction of and resituate it within the lighter techno-utopianism of McHarg’s philosophy and method was attempted. contemporary digital culture. In 2010, University of British Colombia landscape By virtue of the technology that underpins it and academic Susan Herrington found that McHarg had the interdisciplinary platform it creates, Geodesign misinterpreted Darwin, idealized the stability of encourages design intelligence to move away from the ecosystems, and failed to appreciate that mapping is object and toward the systemic nature of things. And not the whole truth. Herrington also explained how this, I hasten to add, need not be and is not intended McHarg’s admiration for the English garden as a to be an anti-aesthetic project; rather, I think we can precedent for “designing with nature” was contradic- now agree that the aesthetic and the systemic are tory and that by extension his planning methods ulti- inextricably interwoven in the complex nature-culture mately aided and abetted low-density sprawl. (2010) of the contemporary landscape. This is largely what On the question of sprawl, Herrington is now MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism Research Direc- joined by Andres Duany (spokesman for the Congress tor Alan Berger means by ‘systemic design’ which, as of the ) and one of McHarg’s own he points out below, builds on, rather than negates students Ignacio Bunster Ossa (now Principal with McHarg’s legacy. Wal lace Roberts Todd—formerly Wallace McHarg Roberts and Todd). Both argue that whenever density [T]he next great project for landscape architects is reduced because of landscape planning’s privileg- is to pick up the pieces of regional systems left in ing of landscape systems over compact urban form, the wake of economic schema, political indecision, one risks not seeing the forest for the trees. (Duany ad hoc development, a negligent public and fl awed and Talen, 2013, Bunster-Ossa, 2014). Bunster Ossa, environmental health policy. Our challenge, if we along with a chorus of others, argues for high-density are to build something greater out of the detritus environments with sophisticated green infrastructure that escaped McHarg’s grasp, is to intelligently as opposed to the sprawling metropolis replete with interpret the systematic thinking brought forth by vast open spaces. him (2007, 7). Whilst McHargian planning could lead to a sprawled landscape (The Woodlands in Houston is a Dirk Sijmons, curator of the 6th International Archi- compromised example of this), Kathleen John-Adler tecture Biennale in Rotterdam (appropriately titled of Rutgers draws to our attention lesser-known papers “Urban by Nature”) writes that Berger’s theory and by McHarg where, contrary to the contempt for the practice of systemic design “. . . entails a reunifi cation city that he expresses in Design With Nature, he

8 Landscape Journal 33:2 advocates for medium density, modern courtyard hous- woven across megaregional territories. Peter Calthorpe ing as an ideal synthesis of culture and nature which describes this new landscape as one where “[m]ore would amplify urbanity and restrain sprawl. (2013)8 than stand-alone ‘sustainable communities’ or even In consideration of these papers John-Adler fi nds that ‘green cities’ we now need sustainable regions—places McHarg was fundamentally concerned for “the quality that carefully blend a range of technologies, settlement of open space, not its quantity” and that his career was patterns and lifestyles” (2012, 14). In his book Urban predominantly a quest for “the ideal confi guration of Green: Architecture for the Future, journalist Neil open space and built form” (2014, 204). In this sense Chambers brings this idea to life: McHarg was less a conservationist pitted in an epic struggle against the city; he was a prototypical land- The end goal would be to have revitalized region[s] scape urbanist. support tens of millions of people while producing In a deft semantic move Charles Waldheim, natural niches for multiple ecosystems of native at a small symposium in Chicago in 1996, spliced plants and animals to fl ourish and abound, where ‘landscape’ and ‘urbanism’ together and in doing so agriculture, infrastructure, and power production compressed the binary coding of nature and culture is integrated into nature in a way that enriches that had so strongly shaped landscape architecture’s rivers, forests, economics, and communities. . . . identity, and arguably McHarg’s worldview, up to Biologists, engineers, ecologists, architects, that point.9 For the landscape urbanist the city is not zoologists, designers, hydrologists and a host of antithetical to nature: it is a new nature. Writing in other disciplines would need to work together to 2011, Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid refer to this restore multiple eco-zones (2010, 178). new nature as ‘planetary urbanization’ and describe it as follows: Technology and human nature are never so benign, but Chambers’ idea that human agency can be a construc- The situation of planetary urbanization means that tive rather than destructive part of bioregions is the even spaces that lie well beyond the traditional city philosophical prerequisite for new material practices. cores and suburban peripheries- from transoceanic This is precisely what McHarg meant by designing shipping lanes, transcontinental highway and with nature; it is what Steinitz means by Geodesign, railway networks, and worldwide communication and it is what I consider to be landscape urbanism’s infrastructures to alpine and coastal tourist real potential. (Weller, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2013) enclaves, “nature” parks, of shore fi nancial centers, Just as McHarg did, landscape urbanists look agro industrial catchment zones and erstwhile to science for inspiration; but instead of a nature “natural” spaces such as the world’s oceans, that was predictable, what we found appealing and deserts jungles mountain ranges, tundra, and relevant was the fact that it was not. A recognition atmosphere—have become integral parts of the and acceptance of indeterminacy in both cultural and world wide urban fabric. (2011, 12) natural systems is not to abandon clearly conceived futures, rather it is to open design and planning With the systematic reach of the global city in mind, to probabilities as opposed to master plans which the conceptual development of landscape urbanism assert a fi xed and fi nal form. Following on from was also promulgated by what Robert Cook described Cook, Kristina Hill explains that a spatiality of fi xed as the new paradigm in ecology, wherein ecosystems boundaries (McHargian predeterminations based are understood as inherently chaotic and humans are on static mapping overlays of dif erent subjects) accepted as a part and parcel of both their history and can no longer adequately defi ne ecology. She says: their future. For Cook, as for landscape urbanism, “places must be seen as part of a changing context this new paradigm “challenges any clean distinction in which trends cannot be exactly predicted [and] between culture and nature”. (2000, 121) It follows surprises should be expected” (2005, 155). then that cities can no longer be conceived as tightly As such it is no longer a case of circumscribing bounded cultural enclaves set against landscape development here and not there and then expect- backdrops; rather they are now extensive networks ing the world to blithely conform. Rather, the

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 9 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM designer/planner seeks to use the temporal and spatial BIODIVERSITY dynamism of both the ecological and developmental Global population is expected to grow for most of systems to catalytically infl ect the course of events the 21st century, stabilizing at somewhere around 10 within a range of possible futures. Rod Barnett of billion people. (UN, 2012a) In theory, population will Washington University broadly accounts for this devel- stabilize (and then decline) predominantly because of opment in design thinking over the last two decades in urbanization: that is, in cities individuals have greater his new book Emergence in Landscape Architecture, access to education and family planning and the con- where he writes: straints of spatial congestion and economic competi- tion discourage large families. If these 10 billion people Cities are being understood as open, non-linear can be fed and a functional dimension of the world’s systems enriched like ecosystems by disturbance biodiversity simultaneously protected, then there is and dependent upon feedback loops to achieve the historical prospect of humanity becoming the fi rst greater levels of complexity and resilience, species to escape the Malthusian law of diminishing landscape architects working in the urban realm returns. This eventuality might ultimately be what are harnessing the metaphors of fl ow and self McHarg meant by “fi tting,” albeit now on entirely organization to develop new kinds of solutions to technological and urban terms. growing urban problems. (2013, 88) In order to feed 10 billion people we will need to either extract twice the current global yield from the Frustratingly vague as this will be to the planner still same agricultural area or clear more habitat. (Evans, wedded to linear processes, the inquiry that the but- 1998) We will probably have to do both. Adams (2012) terfl y ef ect of chaos theory opens up is useful both estimates that approximately 31% of the earth’s ter- conceptually and practically because it reverberates restrial area (four billion hectares) is covered by forest. between the scale of design and the scale of plan- (UN, 2012b)10 A recent report in Science concluded ning. This is important for several reasons. First, from that between 2000 and 2012, the world lost 2.3 million Google Earth to tipping points in complex systems, a square kilometers of forest and only added 80 million: foregrounding of scalar gradation and systemic inter- a net loss of 1.5 million. (Hansen et al, 2013) This connectivity approximates the way we now think the trend is likely to continue. cultural and natural world works (Meadows, 2008). Inversely, the Aichi Biodiversity target of the Second, we are now more acutely aware of the need United Nation’s Convention on Biological Diversity to adapt to the spatial and temporal dimensions of (CBD), to which 194 nations are signatories, stipulates climate change which is forcing the movement of all that by 2020, 17% of the world’s habitat be legally species at both local and bioregional scales (Opdam, protected. (CBD 2011a) Currently 13% of global habi- Luque, and Jones, 2009) Third, there is a mounting tat is under some form of protection according to the need to reconcile top-down global environmental International Union for the Conservation of Nature policy settings with the specifi c (chaotic) nuances of (IUCN). Four percent might seem relatively modest local cultural landscapes. Fourth, if we accept that until you consider that it equates to 1,739,589 Central urbanization is the dominant cultural force of the 21st Parks. (Weller and Hands, 2014) Where nations do century, as landscape urbanism says we must, then we not have 17% of their original habitat to protect—and need to engage that phenomenon on its own logistical most do not—then the convention sets a target of 15% terms and those terms are now being played out simul- habitat reconstruction. (CBD, 2011a) Most impor- taneously across local, megaregional, and global ter- tantly, according to the CBD 17% protected habitat ritorial scales. As Richard Forman advises, it is “[only] cannot be achieved simply by setting aside a large area by recognizing and addressing landscape changes of land in say, Siberia. Rather, the convention man- across dif erent scales (perhaps at least three) [that] dates that protected areas be both representative of the planners and designers [can] maximize protection of world’s 867 ecoregions and that this habitat be inter- biodiversity and natural processes”. (Dramstad, Olson connected into coherent ecological networks. (CBD, and Forman 1996, 130) 2013) As Erle C. Ells explains:

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 1100 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM “[t]he critical challenge therefore is in maintaining, semblance of spatial planning. And, when they do, enhancing and restoring the ecological functions they tend to be thick green lines or fuzzy airbrushed of the remnant, recovering, and managed novel zones superimposed over maps at a scale so extensive ecosystems formed by land use and its legacies as to be meaningless. For example, in the world’s 35 within the complex multifunctional anthropogenic biodiversity “hotspots” (Figure 1), where biodiversity landscape mosaics that are the predominant form is by defi nition most unique and most threatened of terrestrial ecosystems today and into the future”. (Mittermeier, 2011), only 12 of 104 nations who preside (2013, 179) over this territory have spatial plans for large-scale ecological networks.12 Typically, attempts to reconnect fragments of extant This suggests that despite agreeing to targets that habitat in highly modifi ed landscapes run against the have explicit spatial consequences for land use, gov- grain of the cadaster, confl ict with political boundar- ernments are unwilling and or unprepared to engage ies, and clash with agricultural logistics and infra- in such planning. It also might mean that landscape structure. Therefore, whilst areas of relatively pristine architects are not yet organized to of er their services habitat require protection and management practices on this topic or to do so at this scale. This also indi- largely determined by a site’s extant composition, cre- cates that there is a signifi cant disconnection between ating landscape connectivity on a scale commensurate landscape architecture and the global conservation with the CBD targets is a project of great novelty.11 ef ort and community, who are otherwise extremely Indeed, if the CBD targets are taken seriously then active and well organized in this regard. Indeed, when they imply a landscape project of unprecedented scale I recently met with the head of the CBD, Braulio F. requiring immense political, entrepreneurial, and cul- de Souza Dias, in Montreal to discuss this very issue, tural imagination; in a word, stewardship. he indicated that he was unfamiliar with the capabili- Pre-eminent in this regard are the Dutch, who ties of landscape architects and had never heard of Ian have been actively planning and constructing a McHarg. This is our problem, not his. National Ecological Network (NEN) of protected At UPenn we are conducting preliminary mapping areas and ‘robust corridors’ since 1990. (Jongman and to ascertain the dif erence between the CBD target of Bogers, 2008) This national planning is supported by 17 per cent protected habitat and what (according to a ‘defragmentation plan’, which addresses the specifi cs GIS data) is actually protected on the ground today. of how ecological corridors transcend jurisdictional The fi rst phase of this mapping focuses on the 425 boundaries and physical impediments to link existing ecoregions that constitute the world’s 35 hotspots (see fragments of habitat into a coherent national matrix. Figures 1–3). This base mapping is intended to lay a Although small, rich, and culturally inclined towards foundation upon which interdisciplinary teams could such rational planning, the Dutch example is exem- begin work to develop accurately spatialized trans- plary because it is not just about linking remote areas national land-use plans that visualize exactly how to of mountainous wilderness but rather about reorga- apply otherwise abstract biodiversity conservation tar- nizing an entirely novel, national ecosystem so that gets (see Figure 3).13 Whilst applicable primarily at an urbanism, agriculture, and biodiversity can coexist in a ecoregional scale, this research also aims to integrate mutually benefi cial manner. planning for biodiversity protection and landscape In 2001, Graham Bennett and Piet Wit reported to connectivity with dif erent urban growth scenarios the IUCN that there were at least 150 active ecological that meet population forecasts in given regions. As network projects of a landscape or regional scale studies by the Yale School of Forestry estimate, there around the world (Bennet and Wit, 2001). No doubt will be approximately another 1.2 million km2 of land there are now many more. However, unlike the Dutch subsumed into urban development globally by 2030 who not only have a national (and fi nanced) plan but and much of it in the world’s biodiversity hotspots also a plan that is nested within the superstructure (Seto, Gü neralp and Hutyra, 2012). In this regard, as of the Pan European Ecological Network (PEEN), well as mapping the biodiversity target shortfalls at the an overwhelming majority of the 194 nations who ecoregional scale, we are mapping the main cities in are party to the CBD 2020 Aichi targets have no the world’s biodiversity hotspots (176) and identifying

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 1111 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM Figure 1 Location of the 35 biodiversity hotspots in the world relative to areas of protected habitat (IUCN categories I–VI).

12 Landscape Journal 33:2

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 1133 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM Figure 2 A map of the Indo-Burma hotspot. The scale bar on the bottom of the hotspot map indicates the dif erence between the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity’s 17% (Aichi) target of protected habitat (IUCN categories I-VI) and the amount of habitat that is currently protected.

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 1144 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM Weller 15

333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 1155 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM Figure 3 This map shows the 33 ecoregions within the Indo-Burma hotspot. The amount of land needing to be protected and/or restored (dark green: IUCN categories I–VI) within each ecoregion in order to realize the 2020 17% Aichi target is identifi ed. Light green represents land area that is neither urbanized nor under intensive cropping and has potential to become viable habitat.

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 1166 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM Weller 17

333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 1177 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM Figure 3 (continued) This map shows the 33 ecoregions within the Indo-Burma hotspot. The amount of land needing to be protected and/or restored (dark green: IUCN categories I–VI) within each ecoregion in order to realize the 2020 17% Aichi target is identifi ed. Light green represents land area that is neither urbanized nor under intensive cropping and has potential to become viable habitat.

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 1199 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM zones where their pre-urban growth is on a collision to help develop spatial plans that show how the ubiq- course with remnant habitat. As the International Fed- uitous forces of urbanization and its related industrial eration of Landscape Architects lobbies UNESCO for and agricultural infrastructure can be reconciled with a ‘Global Landscape Convention,’ surely the hotspots biodiversity. warrant our immediate and globally coordinated Understandably, the retort will be that this is attention. More important than yet more conventions hubris (again) and that, in any event, there is no mar- and declarations, we need design intelligence to be ket for landscape architecture at the larger scale. To on the ground and deeply embedded in these crisis the latter, it is the academy’s role to go where the landscapes. profession cannot af ord and open new research agen- das, which should in turn lead to new markets. To the former, to now draw a line around landscape architec- CONCLUSION ture at the scale of urban public space or recoil into The conclusion to the recent Global Assessment of the local in spite of the global on the very occasion of Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services globalization’s cultural, political and economic hege- report stresses the now common view that cities can mony would be a mistake of historical proportion. only be a part of a larger agenda of environmental Worse, this will be accused of a return to planning stewardship: again forsaking artfulness for instrumentality. As I have consistently argued, landscape architecture is As centers of human innovation, and perhaps the an art of instrumentality and the discipline, like the most active frontier of our impact on the planet in landscape itself, is no longer neatly divided by scale shaping its landscapes and seascapes, cities of er and method. (2004, 2006) Of course, we use dif erent arenas for enormous opportunities to reimagine methods at dif erent scales and for dif erent programs and invent a dif erent kind of future with room for but, as I have tried to develop in this essay, in accor- humans and other species to thrive. Cities may dance with global culture, global ecology, and emerg- well be the ground where we secure a globally ing technologies, what we once called landscape design sustainable future—one that builds on nature- and landscape planning lie on a continuum of design based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation, intelligence. McHarg called it stewardship and others and establishes responsible environmental now call it Geodesign or landscape urbanism, but in stewardship at the heart of public interest. this century, the world should come to know it simply (Elmqvist et al, 2013 740) as the increasingly broad and important practice of landscape architecture. There is no doubt that landscape architecture today is thoroughly committed to the city; indeed, in a fl ourish rivaling McHarg, Charles Waldheim claims that ‘land- NOTES scape architects are the urbanists of our age’ (2014). 1. For documentation of the history of the landscape program Landscape architecture’s urban achievements since at the University of Pennsylvania see: Weller, Richard and McHarg are considerable and will continue, but the Meghan Talarowski., 2014, ‘Transects: 100 Years of Land- scape architecture and Regional Planning at the University theory of landscape urbanism upon which Waldheim of Pennsylvania, Applied Research + Design Publishing, San makes this claim is cut short if it only pertains to the Francisco. scale of urban design and the discipline becomes overly 2. http://www.epi-us.com/cof man/cof man.htm preoccupied with the city at the urban design scale. 3. http://www.newswithviews.com/Cof man/mike4.htm Landscape urbanism’s most powerful insight is that 4. http://www.cbd.int/information/parties.shtml ‘the city’ is ecological and that it is not a discrete object 5. http://rewilding.org/rewildit/ but now a global system without edge. The greater 6. As Bruce Hull (2006, 127) explains, the instruction to potential for landscape urbanism therefore is to scale “dress and keep” the garden has also been translated vari- up to Brenner’s ‘planetary urbanization’ and link the ously as “till” “serve”, “care” and “guard” the garden. Either McHargian tradition of large scale landscape planning way, this second narrative explicitly places us in some form with the global conservation and scientifi c community of stewardship role, whereas the fi rst does not.

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 2200 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM 7. This defi nition is credited to both Michael Flaxman and to reduce the risk of extinction of “more than half of our Stephen Ervin; See; Steinitz, Carl. 2012. A Framework for natural heritage” (ibid., 37). In Figure 3, the scale bar at Geodesign: Changing Geography by Design. Redlands, CA. the bottom of each hotspot ecoregion map indicates the Esri Press. p 12. dif erence between the United Nations Convention on 8. The papers are ‘‘Open Space and Housing’’ (1955), ‘‘The Biological Diversity’s 17% (Aichi) target of protected habi- Court House Concept’’ (1957), and ‘‘The Humane City’’ tat and the amount of habitat that is currently projected. (1958). The calculation of protected areas is based on the fi rst 4 9. As a matter of historical accuracy the term landscape of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s urbanism was in the air in the early 1990s and existed as (IUCN) 6 protected area types. The six types are: 1a, Strict such before it was heralded in the United States in 1996. Nature Reserves; 1b, Wilderness Areas; 2, National Parks; For example, the Australian academic Peter Connolly 3, National Monuments; 4, Habitat and Species Manage- said in a 1994 presentation at RMIT that a “language of ment Areas; 5, Protected Landscapes (modifi ed landscapes landscape urbanism barely exists and needs articulating”. of cultural, ecological, and scenic value); and 6, Protected Connolly also championed the notion of ‘landscape as Areas with sustainable use of natural resources. From a urbanism’ in his 1995 essay, ‘101 Ideas About Big Parks’, strict biodiversity conservation perspective, categories Kerb: Journal of Landscape Architecture, no 1, Melbourne: 1–4 are favored in the literature. See: http://www.iucn.org RMIT University Press. /about/work/programmes/gpap_home/gpap_quality /gpap_pacategories/ 10. Defi nitions of what constitutes forest cover vary between nations and between organizations, but generally the mini- mum requirement is 10% tree cover in landscapes where trees can reach fi ve meters in height. REFERENCES 11. Chief editor of the journal Landscape Restoration Richard Adams, Emily A. 2012. World Forest Area Still on the Hobbs and his colleagues defi ne novel ecosystems as “a Decline. http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C56 system of abiotic, biotic and social components (and their /forests_2012 [June 20, 2013]. interactions) that, by virtue of human infl uence, dif er Ahern, Jack. 2004. Greenways in the USA: theory, trends and from those that prevailed historically, having a tendency to prospects. In Ecological Networks and Greenways: Concept, self-organize and manifest novel qualities without intensive Design and Implementation, ed. Rob Jongman and Gloria human management. Novel ecosystems are distinguished Pungetti, 34–53. New York: Cambridge University Press. from hybrid ecosystems by practical limitations (a com- American Society of Landscape Architects. 2013a. http://www bination of ecological environmental and social thresh- .asla.org/AboutJoin.aspx [June 20, 2013]. olds) on the recovery of historical qualities.” (Hobbs et al. ———. 2013b. The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and 2013. 58) Performance Benchmarks. http://www.sustainablesites 12. The 12 nations are Myanmar, India, Laos, Brazil, Sudan, .org/report/Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks.pdf Palau, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, Peru, Nicara- [June 20, 2013]. gua, and Georgia. Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. 2013. Sustainable 13. The global conservation community generally recog- Settlement, Green Infrastructure. The Australian nizes the existence of 35 biodiversity hotspots in the Landscape Charter. http://www.aila.org.au/charter/ world. In 1988 Norman Myers identifi ed 10 global bio- [June 20, 2013]. diversity hotspots featuring exceptional concentration Barnett, Rod. 2013. Emergence in Landscape Architecture. New and endemism of plant species under unusual threat of York: Routledge. destruction(Myers 1988). Since that time the hotspots concept has gained signifi cant momentum in redefi ning Bennett, Graham, and Piet Witt. 2001. The Development and global environmental priorities and focusing global con- Application of Ecological Networks: A Review of Proposals, servation ef orts. Today a total of 35 biodiversity hotspots Plans and Programs. IUCN Report, B1142. Gland Switzerland: are recognized worldwide. Together, these areas contain at IUCN World Conservation Union and AIDEnvironment. least 50% of the world’s total plant species and 42% of the Berger, Alan. 2007. Preface. In Ian McHarg: Conversations with world’s terrestrial vertebrates as endemic (Mittermeier et Students: Dwelling In Nature, ed. James Corner and Brian al. 2004). The original and unique habitat in these hotspots Hawthorne and Lynn Margulus. New York: Princeton is at least 70% depleted and is under imminent threat of Architectural Press. total destruction due to habitat fragmentation related to ———. 2009. Systemic Design Can Change the World. Amsterdam: urbanization, agriculture, and related economic activities. Sun Publishers. Originally representing 16% of the Earth’s surface, the Brenner, Neil, and Christian Schmid. 2011. Planetary unique habitat of these 34 hotspots have diminished to just urbanization. In Urban Constellations ed. Mathew Gandy, 2.3%. Consequently, research and activism have primarily 10–13. Berlin: Jovis Verlag. focused on the urgency of preserving this biodiversity

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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 2211 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM Bunster-Ossa, Ignacio F. 2014. Reconsidering Ian McHarg: The Elmqvist, Thomas, Susan Parnell, Michail Fragkias, Julie Future of Urban Ecology. Chicago: American Planning Goodness, Burak Guneralp, Maria Scewenius, Marte Association, Planners Press. Sendstad, Peter J. Macotullo, Karen C Seto, Robert I Calthorpe, Peter. 2012. Urbanism and Climate Change. In McDonald, and Cathy Wilkinson. eds. 2013. Urbanization, Sustainable Urbanism and Beyond: Rethinking Cities for the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Future, ed. Tigran Haas, 14 –17. New York: Rizzoli. Opportunities—A Global Assessment. Dordrecht, Chambers, Neil. 2010. Urban Green: Architecture for the Future. Netherlands:Springer New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Evans, Loyd, T. 1998. Feeding the Ten Billion: Plants and Population Chinese Society of Landscape Architects. http://www.chsla.org Growth. 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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 2222 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM Hobbs, Richard, J., Eric S. Higgs, and Carol M. Hall. 2013. Novel Conan, 133–161. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Ecosystems: Intervening in the New Ecological World Order. Collection. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell. Opdam, Paul, and Dirk Wascher. 2004. Climate Change Hull, Bruce, R. 2006. Infi nite Nature. Chicago: The University of Meets Habitat Fragmentation: Linking Landscape and Chicago Press. Biogeographical Scale Level in Research and Conservation. International Federation of Landscape Architects.2013. http:// Biological Conservation 117:285–297. www.ifl aonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&view Opdam, Paul, Sandra Luque, and K. Bruce Jones, 2009, Changing =article&id=34&Itemid=57 [June 20, 2013]. Landscapes to Accommodate for Climate Change Impacts: International Union for the Conservation of Nature. 2013.http:// A Call for Landscape Ecology. 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333-2-Weller.indd3-2-Weller.indd 2233 11/23/15/23/15 33:19:19 PPMM United Nations. 2012 b. World Population Prospects. The 2012 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research underpinning Revision. See: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/index.htm. the section ‘Biodiversity’ in this paper and the related [September 8, 2014]. fi gures were produced by Dr. Tatum Hands, Claire Hoch Waldheim, Charles. 2014. Claiming Landscape as Architecture. and Matt Wiener. I am grateful to Landscape Journal’s In Cities and Nature, ed. Frederick Steiner. Lincoln Land editors and reviewers for useful feedback. Institute. In Press. Weller, Richard. 2004. Room 413: Innovations in landscape architecture. Philadelphia, PA: Penn Press. AUTHOR Richard Weller is the Martin and Margy ———. 2006. An Art of Instrumentality: Thinking Through Meyerson Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Landscape Urbanism. Charles Waldheim (ed), Landscape Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University Urbanism: A Reference Manifesto New York: Princeton of Pennsylvania. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Architectural Press. University of Western Australia and former Director of ———, 2008. Landscape Sub-urbanism: Towards a Theory and the Australian Urban Design Research Centre and the Practice of Landscape Architecture in Contemporary design fi rm Room 4.1.3. He has received a consistent Suburban Conditions. Landscape Journal 27(2): 255–270. stream of international design competition awards at ———. 2009. Boomtown 2050: Scenarios for a Rapidly Growing City. all scales of landscape architecture and urban design. Perth, Australia: UWA Publishing. He has published 4 books and over 80 single-authored ——— and Julian Bolletter. 2013. Made in Australia: The Future of Australian Cities. Perth, Australia: UWA Publishing. papers. His current research concerns regions where ——— and Tatum Hands. 2014. Building the Urban Forest. rapid urban growth and biodiversity are in direct Scenario Journal. See: http://scenariojournal.com/article confl ict. He was honored with an Australian National /building-the-global-forest/ Teaching Award in 2012. Wilson, Edward.O. 2006. The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth. New York: W.W Norton and Co. Zachos, Frank.E., and Jan Christian Habel, eds. 2011. Biodiversity Hotspots: Distribution and Protection of Conservation Priority Areas. Luxembourg: Springer.

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