Operative Landscapes

There are infinite ways to build a community, yet the defining feature of any community is characteristically the landscape. Whether it is a park, a river corridor, community gardens, a plaza or a streetscape, the public spaces where people interact provide a shared sense of ownership, and the qualities of these spaces influence how the communities evolve. In a systematic overview, following the workflow sequence of open space projects, the book explores the various types and levels of intervention: from masterplanning to guerilla gardening and from land reclamation to building in existing fabric. Case studies mostly from North America, Europe and Asia accompany the introductory essays. The emphasis is on strategies of interaction between landscape projects, building development and urban planning, resulting in neighborhoods and city quarters that offer a higher quality of life. Beyond trendy theories on landscape urbanism or landscape infrastructure, this book offers an unideological view on the pragmatic potentials of landscape design for enhancing the built environment.

One of the main problems and aims of nature conservation in Europe is to protect semi-open landscapes. The development during the past decades is characterized by an ongoing intensivation of land use on the one hand, and an increasing number of former meadows and pastures lying fallow caused by changing economic conditions on the other hand. In several countries the estabishment of larger "pasture landscapes" with a mixed character of open grassland combined with shrubs and forests has been recognized as one solution to this problem. The book gives an overview of the European projects concerning to this topic - nature conservation policy and strategies, scientific results and practical experiences creating large scale grazing systems.

Nordamerika - Kolonialzeit - Landschaft - Raumkonzepte - soziale Konstruktion.

This is a manual investigating the subject of urban ecology and systemic development from the perspective of architectural design. It sets out to explore two main goals: to discuss the contemporary relevance of a systemic practice to architectural design, and to share a toolbox of informational design protocols developed to describe the city as a territory of self-organization. Collecting together nearly a decade of design experiments by the authors and their practice, ecoLogicStudio, the book discusses key disciplinary definitions such as ecologic urbanism, algorithmic architecture, bottom-up or tactical design, behavioural space and the boundary of the natural and the artificial realms within the city and architecture. A new kind of "real-time world-city" is illustrated in the form of an operational design manual for the assemblage of proto-architectures, the incubation of proto-gardens and the coding of proto-interfaces. These prototypes of machinic architecture materialize as synthetic hybrids embedded with biological life (proto-gardens), computational power, behavioural responsiveness (cyber-gardens), spatial articulation (coMachines and fibrous structures), remote sensing (FUNclouds), and communication capabilities (Ecological Footprint Grotto). Supporting the authors’ own essays and projects are contributions from key innovators in contemporary architecture and urban design: Michael Batty, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Michael Weinstock and Patrik Schumacher.

A dictionary for a world whose cities are linked by fiber optic cables and whose citizens are virtually global, a world where airports are meeting places and meetings take place via web conference, the Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture in the Information Age.

Now in its 39th edition, Spon's External Works and Landscape Price Book 2020 offers the only comprehensive source of information for detailed external works and landscape costs. It covers all the items to be found in hard and soft landscape contracts, and forms an indispensable reference book for quantity surveyors, landscape architects, contractors and local authority managers – essential for compiling estimates, specifications, bills of quantities and works schedules – no matter what the size of the project being undertaken. Use the access code inside the front cover of the book to get set up with an ebook of this 2020 edition on the VitalSource® Bookshelf platform, available for access and use until the end of December 2020. This NRM edition provides a detailed breakdown of preliminaries in a series of cost models for different projects It also Includes several new items: Recycled versions of a number of landscape materials and systems – especially retaining walls, fencing and barriers, ground protection grids, and street furniture; New equipment for playgrounds Aggregates Haddonstone balustrades, and New flag and block product ranges of Marshalls paving, especially permeable formats All the standard features that you expect from SPON'S EXTERNAL WORKS AND LANDSCAPE PRICE BOOK remain: - material and measured work prices covering contract items from preliminaries and site clearance and encompassing the core external works activities with full breakdowns into labour, materials and other components - detailed guidance on wage rates, landscape consultants’ fee scales - an extensive Approximate Estimates section for rapid spot estimating - updates, free of charge, twice a year – see inside for registration details. Updates are available online at www.pricebooks.co.uk