Although landscape urbanism is most often referenced with regards to post-industrial sites of the West, an argument will be made for landscape urbanism as a strategy for the new colonization of territories in the poorer, developing world. It will explicitly confront the ‘generic city’ discourse of Koolhaas and – through several projects in Asia – reveal how landscape urbanism strategies can serve as a form of resistance to the otherwise homogenizing forces of the prevailing ad-hoc project modus that is driven by the near-universal endorsement of the neo-liberal urban development paradigm. The projects will reveal how urban visions and strategic urban design projects can make more evident the area’s inherent qualities and creatively marry ecological, infrastructural, flooding and programmtic issues by solutions that cut across sectoral divisions. They underline the present-day possibilities for landscape urbanism and point to a basic challenge for designers – to recognize and build upon the existing landscape intelligence and nuanced micro-logics and develop (infra)structures that can guide urban growth.LANDSCAPE URBANISM AS RESISTANCE
Although landscape urbanism is most often referenced with regards to post-industrial sites of the West, an argument will be made for landscape urbanism as a strategy for the new colonization of territories in the poorer, developing world. It will explicitly confront the ‘generic city’ discourse of Koolhaas and – through several projects in Asia – reveal how landscape urbanism strategies can serve as a form of resistance to the otherwise homogenizing forces of the prevailing ad-hoc project modus that is driven by the near-universal endorsement of the neo-liberal urban development paradigm. The projects will reveal how urban visions and strategic urban design projects can make more evident the area’s inherent qualities and creatively marry ecological, infrastructural, flooding and programmtic issues by solutions that cut across sectoral divisions. They underline the present-day possibilities for landscape urbanism and point to a basic challenge for designers – to recognize and build upon the existing landscape intelligence and nuanced micro-logics and develop (infra)structures that can guide urban growth.
