Towards Evolutionary Design Approach: Izola Project

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1 Towards Evolutionary Design Approach: Izola Project Dušan STUPAR 1 Introduction In the last two decades, one strain of contemporary theory and practice has moved beyond a visual and functional understanding of the designed landscape and explores the limits of landscape as a temporally and spatially open system. This approach towards landscape parallels new conceptions of order and systems in several cultural fields from ecology to meteorology, computer science to urban planning, and animal behavior to organizational management. These new conceptions, collectively known as complexity theory, afford landscape architects new techniques for conceiving of designed landscapes and for structuring their habits of work, focusing on designing landscapes as evolutionary systems. 2 Contemporary Design Approach For the profession of landscape architecture, these new understandings of landscapes as complex evolutionary systems highlight three previously neglected issues: uncertainty, processes and relationships. These new theories are dealing with issues of designs which are open-ended, incorporating diverse approaches and uneven levels of interventions and management. They focus on frameworks that adapt to changing conditions rather than formcomposed to conform to an aesthetic whole. These types of projects demand a new design approach that can be extracted from the several landscape design projects, now evident in competitions and work-in-progress in several countries. Martin Prominski in his arcticle Designing Landscapes as Evolutionary Systems highlights three general themes which may have relevance for a design theory addressing evolutionary aspects: Design and Ecology; Evolution and Uncertainty; and Systems and Aesthetics. His analytical approach focuses on a landscape as an evolving system instead of a static image a spatial and temporal terrain, which is: continuously changing in an unpredictable way, steered by the relations of the site with its specific context. These new contemporary design projects deal with the problem of determinacy vs. indeterminacy, the integration of time in design and systemic openness for changes in the design environment. Furthermore, they express comprehensively the ability of design to deal with complexity, uncertainty, uniqueness and value conflicts. Landscape architecture has produced some remarkable concepts in recent years that can be illustrated with several contemporary projects which express a professional shift towards designing evolutionary systems: Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, New York, with the concept Lifescape from an interdisciplinary team directed by landscape architect James Corner; Drawn from the Clay, created in the 1990s by the Dutch office Vista; many proposals made for Downsview Park International Design Competition in 1999 with the

2 138 D. Stupar winning entry Tree City by Bruce Mau Design and Rem Koolhaas/OMA; as well as several other projects carried out in the last two decades. The proposal by the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.) for the Park de la Villette competition in Paris in 1982 was perhaps the first landscape architectural design that was specifically designed as an adaptive, evolutionary system. With its openness towards adaptability, the park challenges traditional pictorial expectations and serves as a good example for an evolutionary approach which is able to deal with indeterminate processes. It sets up an initial framework from which the site can evolve and adapt to become a more and more diverse environment. It offers an overall identity but is at the same time flexible in order to accommodate unforeseen future needs. A matrix of layers with specific formal and organisational guidelines is designed which then allows for the unfolding of uncertain processes. As Prominski explains, This approach could be called Limited Selforganisation, where the limits set by the designer are the key for a successful evolutionary design. 3 Izola Project Different open-ended design approaches are oriented toward new landscape parallels concepts, known as the complexity theory - a part of the Sciences of Complexity, the main scientific inquiry in the last decade. While they are still in their infancy, and as there are many different theories about complex systems, one of the possible approaches towards designing landscapes as evolutionary systems can be made while focusing on partly proposed conceptions and transforming them into landscape architectural vocabulary. The proposal by Stupar Landscape Architects for the Izola park competition in Slovenia in 2007 was specifically designed as a response to unpredictable behavior of complex systems, collectively known as the Chaos Theory. The proposal 518 highlights chaotic movements of users and changing conditions of the programmatic site scheme inspired by two crucial characteristics of the Chaos Theory: attractors and bifurcation. It suggests a method that combines structural specificity with the programmatic indeterminacy while using mobile infrastructural elements that adapt to the demands of the users in specific context of event. The design concept consists of an overlay of four layers: 1. Structure is the ground layer designed by natural elements that adds to spatial diversity of the site, forming from big open spaces and flat promenades to shady private plots with walls and steps, etc. 2. Material is the layer of different zones that mark the places of different activities, by using different materials to separate them such as grass, wood, water, sand, pavement etc. 3. Infrastructure is the network of paths, boulevards, waterfront, playgrounds, terraces that form the deterministic infrastructural objects that are the basis for the last layer.

3 Towards Evolutionary Design Approach: Izola Project Kiosk as mobile small-scale elements such as bars, shops, toilets, etc. are distributed according to program, season and the previous three layers. Fig. 1-2: Ground Plan, Kiosks The concept is based on two, conceptually contradictory design approaches. On the left you can see the first one, made of first three layers: Structure, Material and Infrastructure (Fig. 1). Deterministic spatially static part is essential for structural development of the site, and it is the ground base for all the unpredictible needs of the future. The second design approach, the Kiosk layer, is the most important for the flexibility of the design. Its programmatic indeterminacy and mobile characteristics can follow different needs of the site, by adapting to spatial conditions and specific programs such as volleyball tournaments, exhibitions, market place etc (Fig. 3-6). What is the difference between the evolutionary approach of the proposal and a well designed multipurpose public space? This strategy has a fixed form that solves all the existing problems of the site, but it is spatially and temporally open for the adventures of the future. The kiosks, small-scale urban elements, are specially designed to adapt different needs of the future owners, programs and users. With their programmatic indeterminacy and mobile characteristics they set a crucial change in understanding processuality as a part of a designed project. The process, in this particular concept, is not something that is undefined and left for future generations, but it is integrated into the design concept as an important part of the spatial design. With its openness and adaptability, the project challenges traditional pictorial expectations and serves as an example for an evolutionary approach which is able to deal with indeterminate processes.

4 140 D. Stupar Fig. 3-6 (from top left to bottom right): Music Festival, Exhibition, Outdoor Cinema, Beach

5 Towards Evolutionary Design Approach: Izola Project Conclusions & Outlook Landscape Architecture, the profession which is responsible for the demanding task of designing these evolving systems, has produced some conceptually remarkable projects in recent years. The paper discusses some examples of contemporary landscape architecture which offer insights in designing evolutionary systems. These projects deal with spatial and temporal openness and uncertainty in their conceptions, and are influenced by the contemporary scientific inquiry of Sciences of Complexity. These types of projects, now evident in competitions and works-in-progress in several countries, demand a new methodology, new vocabulary and a process-based, not product-based, approach. 5 References Baljon, L. (1992). Designing parks. An examination of contemporary approaches to design in landscape architecture. Amsterdam, Architectura & Natura Press Berrizbeitia A Re-placing Process. In: Large Parks. Julia Czerniak and George Hargreaves (ed.). Princeton Architectural Press. Corner, J. (1997). Ecology and landscape as agents of creativity. In: Thompson G. / Steiner F. (Eds.) Ecological Design and Planning. New York, John Wiley & Sons: Corner, J. et al. (2001). Lifescape. In: [10/2004] Meyer E. K Situating Modern Landscape Architecture: Theory as a bridging, mediating and reconciling practice in Theory of Landscape Architecture: A Reader. Simon Swaffield, ed.. University of Pennsylvania. Prominski M Designing Landscapes as Evolutionary Systems. Design Studies Vol.8 (3) 2005: Venturi R Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York, MoMA