For the field of national territorial planning, to identify and delimit redlines is the primary step to preserve valuable natural and cultural assets from human interventions, harmonizing human-nature and urbanrural relationships. In the reality, however, the dogmatic planning and design concepts, irrational construction standards, and unscientific and rigid management requirements that ignore the diverse localities, market rules, and stakeholders’ needs usually make the implementation outcome runs the opposite to what was wished, leading to “redline dystopias” called by the author that are damaging our homelands. This article presents a dialogue between the author and a farmer in Qicha, Hainan, to reveal how a “capital farmland dystopia,” one of the redline dystopias, comes into being, appealing for a profound re-examination and reflection in the planning and design professions.
Brownfield restoration has become a frontier topic in the research on urban ecosystem governance. Optimizing brownfield ecosystems through proper bioremediation approaches can provide urban landscapes and habitats with sound ecological potentials. Currently, the lagging theory and technique development of brownfield vegetation restoration, the species selection based on single causality, and the neglect of community structure and ecological functions formation have become major bottlenecks of brownfield restoration. Introducing the mechanisms of the assembly of plant communities for theoretical support, this paper proposes a novel technical framework of herbaceous planting for the ecological restoration of urban brownfields, which includes micro-topographic design, adaptive species selection, symbiosis structure design, building quasi-nature community structure, and in-situ planting. This research selected a brownfield site located in Hechuan District, Chongqing City for the application of the herbaceous planting, and evaluated the ecological benefits after restoration. Results showed that severely degraded brownfield vegetation has turned into an herbaceous community with a multi-species symbiosis and a stable structure, effectively optimizing its ecological functions such as stormwater retention and biodiversity conservation. This research can provide scientific evidence and a referable technical paradigm for urban brownfield restoration, and also contribute to the enhancement of urban ecological networks and ecosystem resilience.
After the “imported” urban forms, which originated from foreign cultures, were transplanted into Chinese cities, they generate brand-new urbanscape but suffer from a lack of cultural roots and a disconnection with the mainstream of contemporary urban planning. Thus, their current value and potential in urban renewal are questioned. The study takes the circular–radial space from the Baroque cities as an example to clarify the motivation of its import from the west to northeast China. It further clarifies their adaptive changes in form and function in the local urban context, through a case study on Dalian City.
The study finds that different geometric patterns of existing circular–radial space were influenced by European, American, and Japanese urban planning theories to varying degrees, but with equal emphasis on symbolism and functionality. Their implementation in Dalian has a continuity in time and space. But due to the changes in topography, traffic, and planning concepts, their forms and functions tend to be independent, their connection weakens, and their importance recedes after the street network. The circular–radial space in Dalian led to distinctive urbanscape. But during their inheritance and transformation, the rationality of new forms and functions, as well as the necessity of continuing the initial ones need to be dialectically considered, so as to avoid dogmatic revival and antique reproduction.
Finally, the study reconsiders the concept of “localization” of “imported” urban form, and constructs a general research pattern to provide a new perspective for understanding the transformation of similar types of urban forms.
Pro-environmental behavior (PEB) can help facilitate sustainable development, and PEB intervention strategies are developed to guarantee PEB effects. However, in most cases PEB intervention is attached less importance than environmental education. There is no specific programming for PEB intervention, and a full-cycle framework for planning and design that includes site operation and maintenance stages is still absent. Based on literature review and the authors’ experience on environment education activities, this article summarizes the PEB intervention strategies applicable to landscape planning and design, and comes up with a planning and design framework for environmental education sites, which consists of stages of site investigation, PEB intervention planning, development of design briefs, facility planning and design, maintenance and management programming, post-occupancy evaluation, and adjustment. The framework would provide guidance for the landscape planners and designers to improve PEB intervention effects, and offer new insights and tools for site operators and researchers.
Today integrated regional development becomes a national agenda of China. The Demonstration Zone of Green and Integrated Ecological Development of Yangtze River Delta faces a task of exploring a more effective and localized coordination mechanism for the implementation of cross-administrative-area synergic projects under the current administrative regimes. This article reviews the current practice of cross-administrative-area synergic development at home and abroad, and summarizes corresponding mechanisms and key issues; then by focusing on the case of the Yuandang Lake Synergic Eco-Development Pilot Project that sits on the junction of Shanghai City and Jiangsu Province, this article sorts out the key issues and the solutions at each project stage, and proposes the “3P3S” coordination framework for the implementation of cross-administrative-area synergic projects. As an exploration of spontaneous bottom-up approach—instead of administrative orders—the “3P3S” coordination framework can efficiently promote project implementation under the current administrative regimes, providing reference for synergic implementation of regular cross-administration-area projects.
The Canadian landscape has typically captured a global imaginary of a pristine wild, but how might its urban designed landscapes be distinctly understood? Foregrounded by the landscape transformations accelerated by climate change, the book Innate Terrain: Canadian Landscape Architecture, edited by Professor Alissa North from the University of Toronto, highlights landscape architecture projects situated on the unique Canadian terrain. Providing further provocation on Canadian landscape architecture, Innate Terrain seeks to fill the literary gap on contemporary landscape perspectives, distinguishing Canadian landscape architecture from global practice, and particularly, its well-documented American counterpart.
Landscape architecture in the Canadian context has evolved and established its own distinct identity, one imbued with national and local sensitivities. Informed by diverse environmental and cultural contexts, Canadian-designed landscapes reflect and refer to the prevailing ecosystems of Canada’s innate terrain. Contrary to the preceding International Style, landscape architecture projects in Canada have adopted the ethos of Critical Regionalism in the second half of the 20th century. Contemporary Canadian practitioners are designing landscapes that are deeply informed by their surrounding geographical context while emphasizing cultural specificity. Central to this cultural specificity, addressed by a new generation of landscape architects, is the increasing recognition of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge within the discipline. Canadian landscape architects have collaborated with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities, including the keepers of this knowledge, to develop land management strategies and design landscape interventions.