Contradiction and consistency: Deconstruction of landscape bridges based on multiple temporal-spatial scales

Abstract

This study explores the essential issues pertaining to a landscape bridge based on a multi-scale methodology, in view of the paucity of design theories for contemporary landscape bridges. We contribute to reinterpret landscape bridges on their physical temporal-spatial scales, instead of from perspectives of individual disciplines or their mechanical cooperation. Envisaged in a new systematized framework, we elaborate the dominant and their opposite counterparts of landscape bridges from a binary deconstruction point of view, i.e., (1) Development and retrogression on the temporal scale, (2) connection and separation on the spatial topographic scale, (3) skyphilia and topophilia on the spatial landscape scale, and (4) extroversion and introversion on the spatial architectural scale. The deconstructed multifaceted scales are instrumental in understanding landscape bridges from various perspectives, with a pyramid model proposed afterward to mediate the discovered oppositions and stimulate the cross-scale interactions. Various possible design paths could be derived from this well-organized and openminded multiple system, which is initially expected in this study to inspire bridge designers with dissimilar backgrounds and calls for a wider ramification.

Key words： Landscape bridges; Bridge design theory; Deconstruction; Temporal-spatial scales; Multi-scale integration