Artificial landscapes: Nature as urban object

Banou, Sophia

Abstract

This paper will focus on the objectification of nature within architectural and urban design in order to define and examine a new ‘iconic’ (Jencks, 2006) turn of architecture, towards the integration of nature as a token of sustainability. The paper will argue that there is an increasing normalisation of design projects that rely on an iconographic fetishization of nature as object and image rather than a symbiotic counterpart to the manmade.

Through a critical-historical review of architectural approaches to and imaginaries of ‘nature’, from Le Corbusier’s idea of the ‘urban jungle’ (Koolhaas, 1994) to Superstudio’s speculative designs Continuous Monument (1969) and Supersurface (1971), the paper will frame the juxtaposition of architecture and nature within urban design practices. The growing treatment of the natural as architectural matter and object will be further framed through the analysis of two recent case studies of urban interventions: the Marble Arch Mound in London, designed by MVRDV Architects (2021), and the Little Island at Pier 55 in Manhattan (2021), designed by Heatherwick Architects, as representative of an iconographic approach to the natural, which clashes with concepts of sustainability in design, especially in the context of the current discourse and action pertaining to the climate emergency.

The paper will demonstrate how rather than nurturing and engaging with the natural element through active occupation and principles of environmental sustainability, the two case studies add to a tradition of architectural projects that either put nature on display, as an object of visual intrigue and symbol of sustainable design, or as cases of extreme technification of nature. In both cases, the paper will underline the necessity to address such phenomena of ‘simulation’ (Baudrillard, 1994) and the issues they raise about the integration of publicness and nature within the urban, in relation to design approaches, planning policy and professional regulation.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: RAPS Eindhoven 2022: Entanglements
• Start Date: Nov 11, 2022
• End Date: Nov 12, 2022
• Deposit Date: Nov 15, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 16, 2022
• Keywords: iconicity, green spaces, public spaces, professional regulation, nature
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10142289
• Related Public URLs: http://www.arena-architecture.eu/news/raps-radical-entanglements-eindhoven-2022-nov-11-12/