LANDSCAPE, INFRASTRUCTURE, INTERVENTION

Columbia University GSAPP Fall 2006

GSAPP A4623 Friday 11-1 Rm 412
Kate Orff ko2111@columbia.edu


This seminar aims to explore how the physical,
material and conceptual understanding of
landscape can enrich current forms of
architectural and urban design practice, and
to introduce landscape thinking into students'
design vocabularies. Given that topography and
ecology are two discourses that increasingly
impinge on the fields of architecture and urban
design today, it may be argued that landscape in
the broadest sense of the term begins to assume
a new stature as a design discipline, both literally
and metaphorically. This is particularly apparent
where landform and built form are combined
together in infrastructural interventions at an
urban or regional scale.


A parallel objective of the seminar is to begin to develop a shared language and historical narrative based in an
understanding of the urban territory as landscape, and to create a ground for practice that recognizes, as Bob
Somol puts it, "the proliferation of the urban everywhere."

To this end, students will be asked to produce an investigative work to include images, drawings, and text of one
urban landscape project in the form of 10-15 pages, due Exam/paper week. This report will be developed by each
student in conjunction with his or her project oral presentation.

Class meetings are organized topically and will alternate between two types. One type works with readings
drawn from landscape architecture, art, ecology, and geography, and is anchored by presentations by invited
speakers and class discussion. These sessions will be punctuated by student presentations of related projects,
which approach these issues through the concrete parameters of built work.




Sept 08
Seminar 1 NO CLASS: UD field trip
Get the reader from Village Copier or Seminar Shelf. Prepare 3 questions for class
discussion on the readings for Seminar 2, below

Sept 15
Seminar 2 Introduction: the landscape idea
Reading: Cosgrove, Dennis. 'The Idea of Landscape' Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape,
New Jersey 1985.
Schama, Simon. Landscape and Memory, Vintage Books, 1995, Introduction
Frampton, K. 'Toward an Urban Landscape' Columbia Documents Volume 4
Angelil and Klingmann, 'Hybrid Morphologies: Infrastructure, Architecture, Landscape'
in Daidalos 73, 1999.
Reference reading: 306090 07, Landscape within Architecture, David L. Hays, Editor


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Sept 15
Seminar 3 Mapping terrains
Reading: Corner, James. Chapter 10, 'The Agency of Mapping' in Mappings, 1999.
Burns, C. 'On Site: Architectural Preoccupations' in Seminar Reader.
Venturi Scott-Brown, Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas in Seminar Reader.
'Urban Operations" Rem Koolhaas, in Reader
Cosgrove, D. Introduction, 'Mapping Meaning' in Mappings, 1999\
Reference reading: Kwinter, Sanford. Soft Territories
Reference projects: Taking Measures Across the American Landscape, A. McLean & J. Corner
Biodiversity and Landscape Planning: Camp Pendelton, Steinitz et al.
Long Range Planning for Harvard University, OMA/AMO


Sept 22
Seminar 4 The American Landscape
Reading: Marx, L. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America
Berger, A. Reclaiming the American West (Princeton Architectural Press, Nov. 2002)
Gandy, Matthew. Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in NYC, (MIT Press, 2003)
Introduction
Marx, L. 'The American Ideology of Space' in Denatured Visions
"The Sublime in the Wilderness" p 13-17 in The American Landscape, PAP 1995
Jameson, F. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, 1991.
Reference reading: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter IX
Christopher Tunnard, Boris Pushkarev, Man-Made America: Chaos or Control? (1963)
Field Trip Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American
Landscape, exhibit on view at the Cooper Hewitt through October 22

Sept 29
Seminar 5 Landscape Infrastructure: The Evolution of New York
Reading: Yaro R. and Hiss T., 'Region at Risk: The 3
rd
Regional Plan for the New York - New
Jersey - Connecticut Metropolitan Area' Island Press, 1996. www.rpa.org
Sept 23
Rosenzweig and Solecki eds. Climate Change and a Global City: The Potential
Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, New York, CEI 2001.
"Landscapes of the New Deal Era" p, 121-147 in The American Landscape, PAP 1995
Reference reading: Caro, R. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, 368-385.
Kenneth Frampton, "Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of
Resistance," The Anti-Aesthetic, ed. Hal Foster (Port Townsend, Washington: Bay
Press, 1983.
MVRDV: The Regionmaker : Rhein Rhur City, Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2004
STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Oct 06
Seminar 6 Central Park and the Idea of Public Space
Invited Speaker: Betsy Blackmar, Author 'The Park and the People: A History of
Central Park, Cornell Univ Press, 1992.
Reading: Chapter II, Sections 5 and 6 'The Greensward Plan and Its Creators' and 'Building for
Public and Posterity.'
Adriaan Geuze, 'Moving Beyond Darwin' in Modern Park Design: Recent Trends.
Article #17

Oct 11 630pm
Seminar-Makeup Catherine Mosbach / Mosbach Paysagistes
Reading: Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape, Introduction and p84-89
Prepare 3 questions for Ms. Mosbach
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Oct 13
Seminar 7 Field Trip to Central Park. Meet at the Dairy at 11 sharp bring: camera, sketch pad,
plans and sections
Reading: Zapatka, C. "Pastoral Reserves of the 19
th
Century City" p. 27-42
Reference reading: J. Simpson, Art of the Olmsted Landscape: His Works in New York City, The Arts
Publisher, Inc., 1981.
A Clearing in the Distance: F.L. Olmsted and America in the 19
th
Century, 163-186



Oct 14 Nature Now: Urban Park as Cultural Catalyst
Symposium Prepare 3 questions for Matthew Gandy and Daniel Botkin
Botkin, D. Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the 21st Century (1990 and 1992,
Oxford University Press); Introduction

Oct 20
Seminar 8 Regenerative Landscapes: Designing the Ground
Reading: Urban Land is a Natural Thing to Waste Alan Berger
Czernak, Julia. 'Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice'
A Picturesque Stroll around Clara Clara, Yves Alain Bois, Article #12
Howett, Catherine. 'Ecological Values in 20
th
Century Landscape Design'
'Testing the Waters: AMD & ART' Article #15 in Reader
Kirkwood, Niall ed. 'Manufactured Sites' Chapter 10 Overview: design practice
STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Oct 27
Seminar 9 Designing the Globe: Waste landscapes, Tidal Power, Carbon Sinks,
And Other New Earth Projects
Has the notion of global environmental change shifted from the realm of science to
the realm of design?
Reading: Win-Win Ecology, Michael L. Rosenzweig, Oxford, 2003
How to Cool a Planet by William J. Broad NYTimes June 27, 2006
Andrew Revkin, MANAGING PLANET EARTH; Forget Nature. Even Eden Is
Engineered, The New York Times, August 20, 2002
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail J. Diamond. Prologue and Ch 16,
The World as a Polder
Reference reading: Ian McHarg, Design with Nature (1969)
Reading: Smithson, Robert. 'A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects' and "Frederick
Law Olmsted and the Dialectical Landscape " in The Writings of Robert Smithson.
STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Nov 03
Seminar 10 Infrastructural Landscapes I
Invited Speakers Sandro Marpillero & Linda Pollak, Principals, MP Studio
Reading: Berrizbeitia and Pollak, Inside Outside: Between Architecture and Landscape, 1999.
'Infrastructure' p.152-174

Nov 10
Seminar 11 Infrastructural Landscapes II
Reading: 'Future Transport in Cities' Brian Richards, in Seminar Reader
'Hyperrealistic Shock Therapy' Interview w/Adriaan Geuze and
Allen, Stan 'Infrastructural Urbanism' in Scroope 9
Mostafavi, M. 'Urbanism as Landscape' AA FILES 42
'Put not Your Trust in Nave Gardens' Desvigne & Dalnoky, Article #19
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Lootsma, Bart. 'West 8 and the Dutch Landscape' in Het Landschap. Four International
Landscape Designers, deSingel exhibition catalogue, 1995.
Reference Projects: Seoul Project, Florian Beigel
TGV Stations, Desvigne & Dalnoky
Strasbourg Park & Ride, Zaha Hadid
STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Nov 17
Seminar 11 Urban Transformations how to regenerate the image and identity of the city
Reading: Somol, Robert E. 'Afterword' in Stan Allen/Points + Lines : Diagrams and Projects for
the City, Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.
Pollak, Linda. 'City-Architecture-Landscape' Article #22
Girot, Christophe. 'Towards a Landscape Society' in Contemporary Landscape
Architecture in Europe, Birkhauser, on Seminar Shelf
Reference Reading: Sebastian Marot, (Sub)Urbanism (2002)
Charles Waldheim, Decamping Detroit
STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Nov 24 No Class Thanksgiving Holiday


Dec 01
Seminar 12 Conclusions
Round-table Discussion
Reading Frampton K. 'Catalytic City'
Frampton, K. Megaform as Urban Landscape Lecture 1999
Marx, L. The Machine in the Garden, Oxford 1964
"Landscaped form as the fundamental material of a fragmentary urbanism is of greater
consequence than the freestanding, aestheticized object."
-KF, Columbia Documents 1995

Dec 15 Exam & Paper Week
Project Investigation final reports due Friday Dec 15
th
.


Course Requirements:
Students are expected to do all of the assigned reading, to actively participate in class discussion, and to prepare
questions for invited speakers. Students will be asked to work either individually or in teams of 2 to present an
investigation and critical understanding, to include drawings and text, of one urban landscape project. This
assignment will take the form of both a class presentation and a paper, which includes text, images, diagrams,
plans, and sections as necessary to describe the physical, conceptual and operational aspects of the project.
Some class time will be dedicated to desk crits on this exercise. Students may also be asked to prepare a series
of brief issues papers or question sets based on reactions to specific readings and lecture topics, as well as the
Nature Now Symposium on Oct 14. One seminar reader, which includes most of the required reading, will be
available on reserve in the library.

Students should consider purchasing these books for background reading and reference materials:
Corner, James, ed. Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, 1999.
Berrizbeita and Pollak, Inside Outside: Between Architecture and Landscape, Birkhauser, 2001.

The books listed below will be placed in the Graduate Reading Room on Seminar Shelf ___ in Avery Library.

Caro, R. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, 368-385
Desvigne & Dalnoky: The Return of the Landscape, Whitney Library of Design. 1997.
"Hargreaves: Landscape Works," PROCESS: Architecture 128, Tokyo, Japan, January 1996.
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Marx, L. The Machine in the Garden, Oxford 1964
McHarg, Ian. Design With Nature, 1969.
Richards, Brian. Future Transport in Cities. 1999
Tunnard Man-Made America, Yale 1963
Wrede, Stuart Adams ed. Denatured Visions MOMA New York, 1991.
Weilacher,U. Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art Birkhauser, Switz., 1996.
Zapatka, C. The American Landscape, Princeton Architectural Press, 1995.

Communication:
My office hours are Friday 1-2pm, but can generally be found during lunchtime before studio, and by appointment.
Email communication is welcome at any time to ko2111@columbia.edu
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