Evaluating Natural Elements Potential in Urban Landscape MRSS 1123 – SUSTAINABLE URBAN LANDSCAPE DESIGN

DR. WAN NURUL MARDIAH WAN MOHD RANI

Introduction : Nature and Urban Setting Nature is being redefined to qualify for restoration of green coherence in city’s surface, by transforming into an innovative system of urban defragmentation.

The re-insertion of natural elements into the unlimited city fabric generates unprecedented spatial coherences.

In urban setting, nature emerges as the new trivial aesthetic vision for urbanized fields, bearing new meanings and cultural expressions.

Nature and open urban spaces as elements of the urban landscape are keys to improve the quality of life of urban dwellers regardless of their cultural or social status.

Natural landscape elements in urban surroundings must be taken into account in urban planning policies to reflect the needs, economic possibilities and customs of the city’s inhabitants.

Urban nature is important in all of its manifestations, from private gardens, tree plantations and city parks to land used for recreational purposes in or near the city. This wide range of options permits users to select what is best for them and make nature a part of their daily lives.

Nature elements of neighbourhood also supports the community identity.

History Natural Landscape

◦ Use of trees and other plants in urban areas has a long history

◦ The three major social roles played by the urban forest before the twentieth

century were as a natural element in a humanized landscape, as an

aesthetic object in the urban landscape, and as a social object expressing power relations within urban society.

Benefits of natural elements The expected benefits of such natural elements (greenways, neighbourhood parks, street trees) cannot be easily identified separately.

It is a 'package' of benefits which improves the quality of life as well as peoples’ health, which gives space for recreation and enables to consume aesthetic quality. All this supports the community identity

Benefits of Natural Elements in Urban Setting (cont.)

Improve overall Quality of Life

Health and wellbeing

Accessible green space creates opportunities for recreation and exercise increases children’s creative play, social skills and concentration

span.

Natural green spaces reduce stress and encourage relaxation providing a sense of freedom and exhilaration.

Social cohesion

Natural green spaces can encourage greater social interaction. More active use of green spaces, including streets and communal

spaces, can contribute to a more lively public realm -a key urban design

objective;

Participation

in the design and stewardship of green space can help strengthen communities. Nature reserves can create life-long learning about nature.

Benefits of Natural Elements in Urban Setting (cont.)

Economic value

Street trees and views of natural landscapes and waterways can increase property values by between 6% and 18%;

Shoppers may also be willing to pay up to 10% more to shop in tree-lined streets;

Ecologically self-sustaining landscapes can significantly reduce management costs;

Green environment can help to promote physical activity having an impact on health costs.

Features of Natural Landscape Among them:

◦ Mountains

◦ Lake

◦ Canyon

◦ Forest

◦ River

◦ Valley

◦ Pond

◦ Swamp

◦ Hill

◦ Stream

Belum Rainforest Resort

Natural Landscape Character Natural Landscape Beauty

1. The picturesque

2. The stark

3. The idyllic

4. The bizzare

5. The majestic

6. The graceful

7. The delicate

8. The serene

Landscape Form The use of trees in urban environments in the European and North American cultural tradition has taken place largely in the context of four landscape settings:

(1) private residential gardens,

(2) linear promenades,

(3) small squares, and

(4) large parks.

Landscape Form – Private Residential Garden Individual houses with their gardens have always been important sites for urban vegetation. In medieval Europe, backyard gardens growing fruits, vegetables, and herbs were the predominant landscape form of the urban forest.

However, most towns had defensive walls which limited the areas available for gardens and for urban growth.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries new weapons and siege tactics required that walls be made much larger than in the Middle Ages and it became increasingly expensive to build new walls farther out to accommodate urban growth .

As growth was constrained, population density increased and the space available for private gardens decreased.

A few large private gardens remained in most cities and some new ones were built on the urban periphery, but for most of the larger cities of Europe the years from 1600 to 1800 saw decreases in small private gardens. It was not until cities finally outgrew the confines of old walls that the small private garden returned in importance as a site for urban forests.

Individual houses with their gardens have always been important sites for urban vegetation.

In medieval Europe, backyard gardens growing fruits, vegetables, and herbs were the predominant landscape form of the urban forest. However, most towns had defensive walls which limited the areas available for gardens and for urban growth.

Landscape Form – Linear Promenade

Rows of trees used alongside walls, streets, and waterways have been important elements of the urban forest since the time of the Renaissance. From various early forms have evolved modern types of promenades, boulevards, and tree-lined streets (Lawrence 1988).

Landscape Form – Small Squares

Within the dense urban areas of medieval towns, there were few open spaces and even fewer of these contained plantings.

Most market squares were paved, though some that were adjacent to churches contained a tree or two, usually with religious symbolism and some churchyards, whether used as cemeteries or as gardens, functioned as quasi-public garden squares. But most medieval urban open spaces were devoid of vegetation (Zucker 1959).

Berkeley Square, London

laid out in the eighteenth century, was originally a private garden reserved for estate tenants but is now open to the public.

Washington Square, Chicago used as public square for public speeches

Landscape Form – Urban Park The largest areas that contain vegetation in the built-up areas of most cities today are large parks.

Some of them appear very natural, with their lakes, rolling lawns, and groves of trees. Almost without exception these are creations of the nineteenth century, their trees planted carefully to imitate nature on land that was previously in very different condition.

Role of urban park – Refer to Journal Paper : The role of urban parks for the sustainable city

Roles of natural elements in urban context - Trees

Trees as a natural element in a humanized landscape

As a natural element in an artificial environment, trees play two related roles:

◦ they are ecological organisms, subject to and influencing environmental conditions around them, and

◦ they are symbols of nature in the abstract, representing a wide range of real and imagined natural forces.

Central Park, New York

Trees as an Aesthetic Object in Design Compositions

Most planted urban vegetation contains some of the aesthetic quality of the garden,

and this gives the city some of the qualities of a garden, as a pleasant place to be enjoyed

in a relaxing way (Figure 3-3). It changes the mood of the urban landscape and makes it

a place where beauty and grace become public values. Promenades and parks can be

seen as large ornaments in the overall composition of the urban landscape. Sometimes

they are its greatest beauties. When the British writer Arthur Young traveled through

France in 1787, he found little to admire in Poitiers, "which is one of the worst built towns

Trees as a Social Object Expressing Power Relations

Like other urban amenities, the urban forest and the places where it is present are social creations and they respond to social patterns of power and influence. These are most often seen in the ownership of and rights of access to the places that contain the urban forest.

As public amenities these places are often unequally available to different social groups, and as private amenities they are usually unequally distributed within the urban landscape.

It is important to keep two questions in mind when looking at urban amenities: who caused them to be created, and who has access to them.

Sometimes the answers are clearly evident and sometimes one has to dig a little deeper to reveal the social forces behind the plants that compose the urban forest.

Case study 1: Playscape/Playground

Natural environment as a playground and learning arena is a way of rediscovering nature’s way of teaching or ‘learning from nature’.

Importance of the natural environment as a part of children’s growth and development – key importance : the importance of green structures and loose parts and multivariable possibilities for versatile play.

Different landscape elements afforded different and specific possibilities for play. It was proven that there was a positive relation between play activities and the diversity in vegetation types and forms.

Example: Steep slopes were linked to sliding and steep rough cliffs were associated with climbing.

These functions have proved an impact on motor development in children as well as preventive health effects.

In conclusion, natural landscapes represent potential grounds for playing and learning hence, support to be given for future policy and planning of outdoor grounds for children.

Role of natural elements to solve significant urban problems

Disaster risk reduction

Climate change affect

- urban heat island affect

- flood risk

Building urban resilience

FRIM, Kepong

There is good evidence that protected areas, planned as part of larger and connected conservation networks, offer practical, tangible solutions to the problem of species loss and adaptation to climate change (e.g., Hannah et al. 2002).

protected area as “a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values” (Dudley, 2008), with nature conservation the priority objective.

BIG U, Manhattan Design by Bjerk Ingels

Ecosystems and biodiversity are not just victims of climate change, but can also play a critical role in mitigation and adaptation.

While the primary focus of climate change strategies is likely to remain on cleaner energy technologies and reduced emissions of GHGs, there is increasing recognition that natural habitats, and in particular protected areas, can make a significant contribution to mitigation by storing and sequestering carbon in vegetation and soils, and to adaptation by helping societies to respond, and adapt, to the changes that are occurring (Dudley et al. 2010 World Bank 2010a, MacKinnon et al. 2011).

Protected areas contribute to adaptation strategies by: ◦ Protecting and enhancing vital ecosystem services such as water

flows and water quality;

◦ conserving habitats that maintain nursery, feeding and breeding areas for fisheries, wildlife and other species on which human societies depend;

◦ reducing land degradation and protecting water sources

◦ reducing pollution and maintaining coastal protection and natural mechanisms of flood control; and

◦ protecting reservoirs of wild crop relatives to enhance agricultural productivity and crop resilience

(Source, World Bank 2010a)

Wetlands protect water quality by trapping sediments and retaining excess nutrients and other pollutants such as heavy metals. These functions are especially important when a wetland is connected to groundwater or surface water sources (such as rivers and lakes) that are in turn used by humans for drinking, swimming, fishing, or other activities. These same functions are also critical for the fish and other wildlife that inhabit these waters.

Wetland ecologists have already documented the following environmental benefits of wetlands: water purification, flood protection, shoreline stabilization, groundwater recharge, and streamflow maintenance.

Wetland ecologists have already documented the following environmental benefits of wetlands: water purification, flood protection, shoreline stabilization, groundwater recharge, and streamflow maintenance.

Conclusion It is important that urban landscapes include green spaces in order to satisfy urban dwellers’ need to be in contact with nature. This need must be reflected much more clearly and categorically in urban planning policies to ensure that cities are liveable and urban landscapes are attractive for people.

Reference List Ulrich, R. 1986. Human Responses to Vegetation and Landscape. Landscape and Urban Planning, 13: 29–44.

Fjortoft, I. and Sageie, J. 2000. The natural environment as a playground for children . Landscape description and analyses of a natural playscape. Landscape and Urban Planning, 48:83-97

McHarg, I. L. (1969). Design with Nature.

Norton, B. A., et al. (2015). "Planning for cooler cities: A framework to prioritise green infrastructure to mitigate high temperatures in urban landscapes." Landscape and Urban Planning 134: 127-138.

Andrew Coutts, et al. (2013). Green Cities and Microclimate –

Interim Report 2. Melbourne, Australia