IN-PERSON: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

The presentation outlines design concepts resulting from the project Landscape in Motion (Dall’Ara & Kloetzel, 2020, AMPS Proc. Series 20.2: 161-172), which involves creative research in the fields of landscape architecture and performing arts, specifically site dance, and acts as an interdisciplinary inquiry into the relationship between the human scale and urban infrastructures. Within the project, through movement, the body acts as a perceptual tool to explore the way we interact with and live in the city environment – “life in the landscape” – and to reveal the potential of urban infrastructures for their environmental and social value. The richly layered Inglewood and Ramsay communities in Calgary (AB, Canada) served as a fascinating testing ground. In addition to underscoring the role of cognitive experiences, sensory impressions, and sense of place and community, we worked on finding new perspectives on ecology and archaeology of urban landscapes by imaginative application of more-than-human lenses and expanded phenomenology. By means of this interdisciplinary work, key aspects of the landscape architecture approach were amplified as if through a magnifying glass. These include an appreciation of simplicity by design but also, conversely, by abstaining from intervening or building; a celebration of the vulnerability and power of the human body, by creating accessible, comfortable and welcoming spaces; respect for the environmental and socio-cultural values inherent in the place’s ecology; the potential of the landscape’s materiality in engaging tactility and other sensuous stimuli; the above-mentioned principles synergistically contributing to our cities’ livability.