LED Online Seminar 2017 - Working Group 3

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Dear working group members. This is your group page and you will be completing the template gradually as we move through the seminar. Good luck and enjoy your collaboration!

Assignment 1 - Reading and Synthesizing Core Terminology

  • You can read more details about this assignment here
  • Readings are accessible via the resources page

Step 1: Your Landscape Democracy Manifestoes

Step 2: Define your readings

  • Please add your readings selection for the terminology exercise before April 12:

A: Landscape and Democracy - Mapping the Terrain

  • Mira Hennerkes
  • European Charter on Participatory Democracy

Landscape Concepts:

  • Sobhan Saadat
  • Lynch, Kevin. (1960): The Image of the City

B: Concepts of Participation

  • Edvin Memić
  • Day, Christopher (2002): Consensus Design, Architectural Press

C: Community and Identity

  • Melanie Schnürer
  • Welk Von Mossner, Alexa (2014): Cinematic Landscapes

D: Designing

  • Mira Hennerkes
  • Hester, Randolph (1995) Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sustainable Happiness

E: Communicating a Vision

  • Melanie Schnürer
  • Storytelling example from the Scottish Islands

Steps 3 and 4: Concepts Selection and definition

  • Each group member selects three relevant concepts derived from his/her readings and synthesize them/publish them on the wiki by April 30, 2017
  • Group members reflect within their groups and define their chosen concepts into a shared definition to be posted on the wiki by May 10, 2017.
  • Other group members will be able to comment on the definitions until May 20, 2017

Concepts and definitions

Author 1: Sobhan Saadat

  • Legibility of City (Lynch, Kevin. (1960): The Image of the City, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press)
    • A legible city would be one whose districts or landmarks or pathways are easily identifiable and are easily grouped into an overall pattern
  • Environmental Images (Lynch, Kevin. (1960): The Image of the City, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press)
    • Environmental images are the result of a two-way process between the observer and his environment suggests distractions and relations, and endows with meaning what he sees. The image so developed now limits and emphasizes what is seen, while the image itself is being tested against the filtered perceptual input in a constant interacting process. Thus the image of a given reality may vary significantly between different observers.
  • Five Elements of City Image (Lynch, Kevin. (1960): The Image of the City, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press)
    • The city can be simplified into its five basic elements: 1.Paths 2.Edges 3.Districts 4.Nodes 5.Landmarks

-PATHS are the roads which runs throughout the city mesh. It can be resembled to channels for watching a movies, a user can choose between different alternative of paths. -EDGES are everywhere in a city it can be a narrow stream beside a street or be the set of buildings that define fringe of a neighborhood. Edges are the boundaries of different kinds inside a city either in small or large scale. -DISTRICTS are clusters of similar blocks which are easily distinguishable from the rest of the clusters. Within the same district several common characteristics are dominant and observable. Districts can form in any shape in the city mesh which are recognizable with their specific Edges or boundaries from the other Districts. -NODES are the point references in the city which are penetrable. A square can be a node in a city which is used by users and one can enter to or exit from. A motorway intersection can also be a node in city, where two streets (paths) meet each other. -LANDMARKS are also point references in a city however, they are not penetrable. Landmarks are addressable. A monument for instance in a city can be a landmark which plays a significant role in being addressable of a territory which is itself an extensive topic.

Author 2: Edvin Memić

  • Concept 1
    • If several people have different opinions about something, does that mean that they need to seek a compromise, although the compromise is kind of giving up from own opinions. But if it will lead to a better situation in general, this is not a bad solution. (Day, Christopher (2002): Consensus Design, Architectural Press)
  • Concept 2
    • Voting is not good because of the fact that majority opinion is used, while minority opinion is rejected, although sometimes it may be better. (Day, Christopher (2002): Consensus Design, Architectural Press)
  • Concept 3
    • Consensus is best for making decisions. When a consensus is reached, the decision is made step by step, the opinion of individuals is reconsidered, and the best solution for the group is accepted. Although it takes more time. (Day, Christopher (2002): Consensus Design, Architectural Press)

Author 3: Mira

  • European Charter on Participatory Democracy in Spatial Planning Processes
    • Recall and call for values and tasks that are associated with democratic participation
    • Definition of a 'common ground' and reinvigorating a 'democratic ethos'
    • Framework, that promote the visibility, recognition and importance of the social role in planning processes through the following topics: Aim, Involvement and Representation, Information and Education, Operational Rules, Access and Expression, Continuity, Relevant Experts, Decision-making Authority, Monitoring of the implementation of the Charter, Awards, Relationship with other instruments
    • Considering participation of individuals in public life, local social stability by democratic legitimacy
  • Hester, Randolph (1995): Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sustainable Happiness
    • "Use of non-renewable resources result in short-term freedom but long-term consequences"
      • To provide resources (e.g. food), community-based living forms are no longer needed
      • Individually shaped ways-of-life, individual security, independent identities
      • Freedom from environmental constraints, no connection between environmental issues and daily life to secure livelihood
    • Anomie: weak community-based standards/ rules/ guidelines -- State of confusion about how to act towards (sustainable) communities and landscapes
    • Community and Environment: new relationships with both are needed
    • Guideline on how to change the habit, necessary to break the negative cycle of decreasing sustainability and disorientation
    • Three distinctive traits: enabling form, resilient form, impelling form
      • Enabling form: Principles can help design enabling places
      • Resilient form: Increase of resilience to become sustainable and free from bioregional limits; repair natural systems that has been stressed and mix land use
      • Impelling form: increasingly difficult to address sustainability through national mandate - choice impels, priority framework, continuous experiments, active responsible ("not in my backyard")


Author 4: Melanie Schnürer

  • Essential features (Welk Von Mossner, Alexa (2014): Cinematic Landscapes, In: Topos, No. 88, 2014.)
    • Essential features of a narrative film are, besides the natural and built environment, also the authenticity of the landscape, which plays an active role in a fiction film. "Beasts of the Southern Wild" (a film by Benh Zeitlin) is a good example for such a cinematic narrative.
  • The space (Welk Von Mossner, Alexa (2014): Cinematic Landscapes, In: Topos, No. 88, 2014.)
    • The space, which represents the cinematic environment, is the space in which the action takes place; in the film language this is called "setting". This room has to be carefully constructed, and for the cinematic environment all kinds of tricks are used.
  • Realization of a visually spectacular backdrop (Welk Von Mossner, Alexa (2014): Cinematic Landscapes, In: Topos, No. 88, 2014.)
    • In the past, a landscape was created on a soundstage of a film studio for the realization of a visually spectacular backdrop for a narrative; today such scenes are replaced by computer animations. The actors shoot in front of a green screen.
  • City and urban design framework (Storytelling example from the Scottish Islands)
    • For cities, it is important to gain an overview by creating an urban design framework that can be used to coordinate the existing projects and then use this as the basis for future development documents and master plans for the individual sites.
  • Working with other studies and initiatives (Storytelling example from the Scottish Islands)
    • WMUDs, which had created the urban design framework, worked in parallel with other studies and initiatives (e.g. Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI), Pierhead Project) to submit a proposal to the city on how to improve the contrasts between the individual elements.
  • Future of the city (Storytelling example from the Scottish Islands)
    • In order to obtain a good result, for the future of the city, one must think about various questions, e.g. How does the city look like in a few years?; How can other districts be integrated? ... Such questions are answered either positively or negatively. Sometimes a compromise must be sought for some questions.

Step 5: Reflection

The mainstream of the all thoughts and concepts in this context are directly or indirectly orienting around including others in the design. The Democratic participation of the people, organizations and communities who are sharing a landscape is crucial for a better, inclusive and divergent implications. However, it is an inherent challenge to gather all the key players on the same table and meet their interests. In this regard, some instructions must be taken into account in order to avoid any deprivation. For instance, a new approach other than voting is needed to consider the minorities as well as majorities in the design; an innovative approach like workshop which calls everyone's idea in the procedure. Apart from that, throughout the planning and design procedure, the current situation should be considered but more importantly the "future applicability" of it should be seen. In order to obtain a good result, for the future of the city, one must think about various questions, e.g. How does the city look like in a few years?; How can other districts be integrated? ... Such questions are answered either positively or negatively. Sometimes a compromise must be sought for some questions. Nevertheless, it is always a threat to mislead from the main direction of the design or planning, due to the vast number of criteria or exceptions from many actors. Thus, it is a good idea to keep the framework within a balance between every single categorized factors, from agendas and interests to the actors.

Step 6: Revised manifestoes

  • please look again at your initial manifestoes and update them with any new aspects/prespectives you have taken up during this seminar

Assignment 2 - Your Landscape Symbols

  • You can read more details about this assignment here

Landscape Symbols Sobhan Saadat

Landscape Symbols Edvin Memić

Landscape Symbols Mira

Landscape Symbols Melanie Schnürer

Landscape Symbols Haroldo

Assignment 3 - Role Play on Landscape Democracy "movers and shakers"

  • You can read more details about this assignment here

Assignment 4 - Your Landscape Democracy Challenge

  • You can read more details about this assignment here
  • Each group member will specify a landscape democracy challenge in his/her environment

Landscape Democracy Challenge; Sobhan Saadat

Your references:

  • Internal reports and Newspapers/Websites
  • Personal Observation

Landscape Democracy Challenge: Edvin Memić

Your references:

Landscape Democracy Challenge Mira

Your references: www.kvg.de

Landscape Democracy Challenge Melanie Schnürer

Your references:

Landscape Democracy Challenge 5

Your references:

  • ...
  • ...

Assignment 5 - Your Democratic Change Process

  • You can read more details about this assignment here
  • After documenting and reflecting on your challenges you will continue jointly with one of these challenges and design a democratic change process

Your Democratic Change Process

Reflection

Our ideas based strongly on theoretical frameworks with two focus questions:

  • How to involve people?
  • How to shape the process to find a consens?

While the powermap is based on a classical strakeholder analysis, the finding of the further methods and about the timeframe was more difficult and group discussions took place several times because of the varity of possible tools/methods. We formed two categories ("Prorities" and "Still in change") to apply the identifyed methods. Especially the time plays a crucial role in our challenge. Summarizing, the varity of planning tools and methods we associate with "landscape and democracy" increased and we varifyed, that simple methods (like walks) can have great and challenging effects

Your references