Edges in Landscape


The initial edge; leading to the topic of edges in landscape and the planned and unplanned.





How can architecture hold and transform edges to unify spaces while at the same time maintaining identity, diversity and sense of place and belonging? When do edges contribute to spatial equity and when do they harm these pursuits? In an attempt to answer these questions, I have with this research explored the topic of edges in landscape and edges impact on moving through the city of Bergen. Working with the concept of the terrain vague I'am exploring the possibility of spatial equity as an aim. In order to achieve this equity, the juxtaposition between boundaries and borders are introduced. My work is a dialogue and discussion between the clear and defined and the unclear and undefined. It's discussing the open form in its transition of becoming as the edges are decaying and developing. With the concluding tools and interventions, I hope to propose an for moving through the terrain vague at Nordnes in Bergen. The proposed edge will clarify and define the space and relationships making the site easier to navigate and understand. The work is to be seen as an process through Open Work, as defined by Umberto Eco, "The Open Work and its Constraints". In order to examine the impact of edges on the site, selected readings have been studied to help define and understand edges in architecture. The term edge, border and boundary have been explored in the readings of Richard Sennetts; “Edges in Nature”, Inge E. Boer;  “Uncertain territories, Boundaries in cultural analysis” , Jane Jacobs; “Death and Life of Americans cities” and Kevin Lynch; “The image of the city”. As well as the definitions and discussion on spatial edges by John Motloch in “Introduction to Landscape Design"; The argument of planned and un-planned edges have been looked into in order to read the existing spatial sites. These are edges appearing in the form of walls, fences, decay and a result from force of nature to name a few. The unplanned egde have a quality of openness in its state of transitioning where the transitioning allows for different forms of reading the space. The outcome of some of the work have led further to discussions on how we see the world as a separation between the man-made and natural, while there might not be a distinction between the two as discussed by I.G. simmons.

[...] leading to the realisation that we cannot in principle distinguish between the constructed nature of our intelligible world and the independent structure of the brute world.


Maria Kaika examines how the nature/society dualism emerged historically as part and parcel of modernity’s Promethean project. The analysis imparts the nature/city divide as a spatial expression on the nature/society dualism, and explores how this dualism affected decisions, visions and practices for the production of modern cities. Explorations with edges on site, precedent study, collages, mappings, fabric modeling and 3D–modeling have also been carried out as a process in order to be able to understand the consequences of edges in our landscape. These explorations have opened up a way of reading the edges as static and dynamic, as inclusive by their diversity and in some cases excluding by their strong identity.

Footnotes

  1. Simmons, I. G. Interpreting Nature: Cultural Constructions of the Environment. London: Routledge, 2003. 
  2. Kaika, Maria. City of Flows: Modernity, Nature, and City. New York: Routledge, 2005. 
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Editing the mesh object to a loft-structure to manipulate and transform the existing edge.