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PracticeChris Reed

EPOKA UniversityFaculty of Engineering and ArchitectureDepartment of Architecture

ARCH 415 – Landscape ResearchLecturer: M.Sc. Valbona Koci

Fall Term, 2012

Fitim Miftari,02020911

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Introduction

• Contemporary landscape practices are witnessing a revival of sorts, a recovery of broader social, cultural and ecological agendas.

• Public works historians Stanley K. Schultz and Clay McShane state that: "Twentieth century economic and political administration

emphasized several characteristics, including a centralized permanent bureaucracy staffed by skilled experts, and a commitment to long- range, comprehensive planning."

• The projects sponsored by such administrations were • highly technical, • specialized by discipline,• economically driven and • discreetly bounded.

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Introduction

• Public works evolved from:• publicly initiated social reforms • multidimensional mega-projects • dispersed, networked initiatives

• Gradually landscape architects relinquished their social relevance, gaining unparalleled social status. Thus, public works eventually congealed into one of two molds: • as decorative arts • as science based planning methodology.

• Four case studies are used to illustrate the development of public works management structure.

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CASE STUDY 1NINETEENTH CENTURY CITIZEN-INITIATED REFORM AND CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

• Early public works were not centrally organized, they grew due to:• Public pressure exerted upon a central government• Private institutions geared toward the delivery of a new public service

• Boston : In 1796, Aqueduct Corporation petitioned Massachusetts General Court for a charter to supply drinking water to Boston from Jamaica Pond.

• Boston : A citizen petitioned the same court to clean waste from streets and gutters to prevent disease.

• New York : Doctors, lawyers, businessman established Citizens’ Association to conduct an investigation in the physical fabric of the city in order to initiate government sponsored sanitary improvements.

• Philadelphia : Political and business leaders, prompted by citizens and private publications, commissioned the country's first Waterworks to prevent epidemics.

• Social reformers, health workers, business leaders, landscape architects, engineers and civic groups invented the public works project

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CASE STUDY 2METROPOLITAN DISTRICT COMMISSION (MDC)

• Open spaces was the first priority of MDC (1919), for most the twentieth century it was responsible for:

• Provision of safe drinking water• Treatment of wastewater• Care and upkeep of open-space resources• Establishment and management of regions parkways

• It has now been dismantled into at least three separate and specialized state agencies. 5

Metropolitan Sewage District

(1889)

Boston Metropolitan

Parks Commission

(1893)

Metropolitan District

Commission or MDC.(1919)

+ =

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CASE STUDY 3HOOVER DAM

Hoover Dam during construction

6Hoover Dam today

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CASE STUDY 3HOOVER DAM

• 1942 – largest construction undertaking in the history of US

• Unprecedented scope and technical difficulties• It took a coalition of six companies to secure the winning bid – Six Companies

• Many new inventions• New construction techniques emerged• An entire new city – Boulder City – was built in Nevada desert to house, feed and

educate 5000 workers and their families• The project became a public employment initiative

• The project was used as a model for future government sponsored work programs

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CASE STUDY 4ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network)

• The predecessor to the current internet - ARPANET• Not a public work project directed by a

centralized authority.• A new, networked model for project

development

• Coalition of multiple entities:• Governmental

• Advanced Research Project Agency• National Physics Laboratory

• Academic/Institutional• MIT• Stanford

• Private/Corporate• Honeywell• IBM

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• Early characteristic of public works projects was the rise of professional engineer in social status and municipal ranks.

• The professional engineer carried with it the pretense of the de-politicization of public works projects since the most qualified of scientists and engineers were argued to be beyond the realm of politics.

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• By 1940’s, public works assumed a military imperative.

• “much of the works done by the Works Projects Administration in peacetime years was later recognized as military value to the nation”• Airports• Military establishments• Roads and highways

• The scale and complexity of military-related products reached a point where government could not handle the task itself- relied on private industry.

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• During the 1930s and 1940s the works projects administration programs and initiatives employed thousands of citizens during a time of economic depression and recovery.

• The federal government now acted as employer and contractor on its expanding roster of projects and services provided to the public.

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• Stan Allen argues that architecture and urbanism, and by extension landscape should be "less concerned with what things look like and more concerned with what they do";

• He outlines an " infrastructural urbanism" that • Is strategic, • Operates at large scales, • Is made physical/material when it encounters a local.

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DEPARTURE POINTS – FOUR TRENDS1. Blurring of distinctions between traditional fields of practice

• No traditional separations between disciplines hold

• New public works are marked by the integration of:• functional, • social-cultural, • ecological, • economic,• political agendas.

• Limited resources demand that interventions satisfy multiple goals.

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DEPARTURE POINTS – FOUR TRENDS2. Appropriation of infrastructural strategies and ecological tactics for new civic programs

• Infrastructure:• Conceived as rational, absolute and utilitarian• Can be transformed toward social, cultural, ecological and artistic ends

• Landscape/architectural/urbanistic project can be conceived as:• Functional infrastructures• Ecological machines that process and perform• Public spaces that literary “work”

• Value for performance rather than sculptural characteristics.

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DEPARTURE POINTS – FOUR TRENDS3. Activation of multiple, overlapping networks and dynamic coalitions of constituencies

• Many have recognized the decentralized or splintered characteristics of service-provision and decision-making

• Local municipalities:• Limited resources to fulfill expanding public needs• Are subject to political and administrative changes

• However, funding and organizational resources are not only available for centralized municipalities. • Community groups, art organizations, research centers have access to

funds, thus have power for implementing public work projects.

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DEPARTURE POINTS – FOUR TRENDS4. Catalytic and responsive operations

• Long term implementation may depend on short term initiatives• Change public perceptions• Generate political will

• Implementation scenarios must be responsive• Accommodate potential changes• Diverge from a step-by-step implementation formula• Allow open-ended futures

• Project with duration of ten or twenty years:• Must acknowledge the potential impact of changing markets and

political agendas• Are simply beyond the control of consultants and clients at the time

of project initiation

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Conclusion• Landscape urbanism lays new ground for design and urbanistic

practices:

• Performance-based• Research-oriented• Logistics-focused• Networked

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References• Reed, Chris. 2006. Public Works Practice in The Landscape

Urbanism Reader, ed. Charles Waldheim, NewYork: Princeton Architectural Press, pp. 265-285

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