The land, so heavily charged with traces and with past readings, seems very similar to a palimpsest. To set up new developments, to exploit more rationally certain lands, it is often necessary to modify their substance in an irreversible manner. But the land is not a throw-away wrapper or a consumer product which can be replaced.
Every land is unique, whence the need to ‘recycle’, to scrape clean once more (if possible with the greatest care) the ancient text where men have written across the irreplaceable surface of the soil, in order to make it available again so that it meets today’s needs before being done away with in its turn(…). The land as a palimpsest, Andre Corboz
LESSONS TO KEEP ON LEARNING
First of all, this is an open piece of closing remarks. It is under construction, and I hope to keep on adding lines. I will need time to revisit the topics we have touched, to finish and add more readings, to apply all of that, hopefully, in the future.
Looking back to the semester I think it has been all in all a very good experience.From day one until a couple of weeks ago we have been approaching Nature and City from different disciplines and perspectives.
If defining Nature was a challenging task for the first day, I remember even more vividly the intimate atmosphere in the second class when each of us introduced him/herself to the group. I was fascinated with the diversity of the people sited around the table, but even more, I was astonished with the paths that each person in the class had followed to reach this place. I had never before done such an exercise, and it was really exciting.
Agenda for the future. The need of
- Reading the history of the site and be aware that our intervention is adding a new layer in that process.
- Designing processes: phasing is not a linear process, so we need to consider transitions and loops.
- Reading all the scales our intervention is affecting. Considering management.
- Stop separating nature from city. The challenge is to integrate them both, and we need to start training all the different constituencies involved in the process of defining what the urban environment in the future is to be.
- Promoting environmental awareness, using education in traditional and new ways, media, and any new way helping to reach the wider number of people possible.
- Including humans in the ecological processes as another component able to produce major changes, changes for good and for bad.
- Considering the importance of communicating our work to the broader audience possible.
- Reflecting on the interpretation of what we read, learn, design. Educating perception.
If anything, our time calls for integration of knowledge and all disciplines to face local and global challenges. We all agreed that the class was beneficiating from a unique mixture of people with diverse backgrounds. That means wider and deeper understanding of all the issues involved in the definition of our environment. Generalists and specialists have come together in this class, all at different points in our respective careers, all with a promising future to help reinventing the structures that we have inherit and are not working properly well. The education of individuals to promote interdisciplinary professional practice builds the promise of a better future.
SUGGESTIONS
Assignments:I discover this class because a few years ago a professor recommended me the book The Granite Garden; the book took me to the author and then came the class. The book is a reference for me any time I explore the relationship between city and nature: city Design is all about it for me.
When I first looked at it, one of the things I found extremely useful was the way the bibliography was organized. It is a sort of annotated bibliography organized following the chapters or major issues developed in the book. It offers a key to later navigate through a wider set of references. I thought, and still think, that this is a great resource.
Well, here my suggestion. I think it would be great to collaborate in updating the bibliography of The Granite Garden. The aim would be to incorporate two new entries per student during the semester [the readings currently in the course are worthwhile keeping]. The idea is that each student could elaborate a short entry with the specificities of the new source. As we have talked in class, some areas have not evolved that much since The Granite Garden was written, other have. Anne could guide the choice of books to be added.Ideally, at the end of the next semester the bibliography would include updated entries: all class would be collaborating to update The Granite garden. And why not, Anne could decide to include it in the website… It is a superb resource for scholars.
Weekly class structure:
As other colleges have suggested I will suggest ‘maximizing Anne as a resource’. A short lecture at the beginning of the class will help framing the topic or, on the contrary, widening the scope of the readings to be discussed. Given the duration of the class this could happen at the beginning in the first case, or at the end of the class in the second.The discussion-based class structure works really well, that is something great about this seminar.
Further contact:
Could there be any way to track the group in the future? A kind of collective blog where we all could participate with links to the rest? I know that not all of us will be the same active in updating the data, but it could remain as an easy device to place our future contributions to the field…
