Table of contents for N. 103 in Topos

Trees have long been part of the dominant understanding of our own, man-made world. In the past, they had often been represented in a rather melancholic way, as objects of human ruthlessness, victims of our environmental rampage. This perspective, however, has changed in recent years. Not because the environmental concerns raised since the 1970s have proven overrated. They have not, and climate change is real. And yet, our perspective of these specific verticalities has broadened. And this has to do with social theory. With actor- network theory, introduced by French sociologist Bruno Latour and others, to be precise. One of Latour’s key arguments: We have to rethink agency beyond the human-centric perspective of classical sociology. There is nonhuman agency, too. From this perspective, it makes sense to understand trees as…

TALENT Sofia Petersson Sofia Petersson was born in Karlshamn, Sweden. After studying Textile Design and Landscape Architecture in Vickleby, Malmö and Copenhagen, she came to Berlin in 2002 for an internship at Topotek 1, the company co-founded by Martin Rein-Cano. She worked at Topotek 1 for several years until she founded ANNABAU Architektur und Landschaft GmbH, her own office together with the architect Moritz Schloten, in 2008. 1 CAREER STARTING POINT? When I moved from Malmö to Berlin and started an internship at Topotek 1 – young, open-minded and overwhelmed by the possibilities. 2 INFLUENCED BY That is no conscious choice. The people with whom and the places where I have spent the most time have formed me as an individual and professional. 3 WHY LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE? Initially a compromise…

Why do we have trees in the city? In a historical perspective, the accepted place of trees in the urban environment has varied – from being mainly an aesthetic component in private gardens during the Middle Ages, supplying fruit, berries and nuts, to gradually becoming an element of urban construction for political, social and decorative purposes. In pace with new cultural and political changes, urban trees became a strategic component in meeting the recreational needs of the influential middle class and eventually also of the growing working class. Today, trees in the urban landscape transcend class divisions, combine many benefits of private and public green spaces and link the city to the surrounding countryside. Trees create an identity, with a number of cities around the world being characterised in part…

Landscape, defined in the broadest sense with regards to its aesthetic and ecological dimensions, comprises various elements. Its unique appearance, however, is often and visibly distinguished by trees. Shown in picturesque paintings that represent sceneries of desire, trees portray elements of a flourishing landscape. In addition, they are an essential resource for life in forest ecosystems. Naturally, trees produce oxygen, store carbon, stabilise the soil and create living conditions for the world’s creations. They provide a habitat for numerous species of fauna and flora. Furthermore, throughout the history of mankind, they were also spiritually and culturally relevant. The presence of trees not only expresses the current condition of a landscape, but also reflects the results of landscape evolution over time. In our contemporary world, trees play a particularly important role…

Tearing down a house to rebuild it someplace else, only because a nearby tree has become too large? In most planning cultures the opposite solution would be carried out: the tree makes room for the house. Not so in Guabuliga in northern Ghana. Here, individual trees are worshipped as gods. They are believed to be the guardians of the land. Trees are so important that one needs the permission of the village council to cut down a tree. And even though the nearly 2500 villagers have actively planted new trees, local deforestation remains a serious problem. Old trees die but not enough new ones grow to replace them. The demand for farmland is simply too high. Because of the loss of trees, soil erosion sets in at the time of…

In urban environments – and especially during the summer – playgrounds are a particularly important place for families to spend time at as part of their daily routine. Here children can play and romp and different age groups and generations can get together. To ensure that everyone gets their money’s worth, however, the range of play equipment and other design elements should be varied and able to be used by several children at the same time. Ideally, the equipment should also appeal to children of different ages. Adults will also have fun and be more relaxed if there are enough seats, comfortable picnic tables and a drinking water dispenser, and the opportunity to enjoy both the sun and shade should be balanced. It’s also important, if space permits, to design…

“Don’t be evil” – is the famous original claim of technology brand Google. Sounded nice, was probably honestly felt – at least initially. And yet, nobody seems to believe it today. Many see Google as just that – evil. Scepticism is particularly high when it comes to the firm's engagement with the urban realm. And now this: Google is planning a part of a city. Of Toronto, to be specific. The corporate spinoff Sidewalk Labs, run by former NYC deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff, will build from scratch an undeveloped 12-acre area called Quayside. The basic idea: Google will use its key resources – money and data – to develop an urban structure capable of finding optimal solutions regarding water use, air quality or transport. The prototypical smart city, if you…

In 2047, fifty years after the 1997 handover of British Hong Kong, this semi-autonomous city-state will become fully integrated into Mainland China. Or will it? If this occurs, Hong Kong will join its neighboring city, Shenzhen, to form one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. However, many Hong Kong citizens are concerned about preserving their cultural differences and values, their freedom of speech, and their right to vote. The uncertainty about the city-state’s political future has created huge anxiety for many. This was brought to the fore in September 2014 when citizens took to the streets as a protest against Beijing’s pre-selection of candidates for the election of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive in 2017. The first night of protests was met with a bullish response from police,…

“… today I was struck, not by a branch, but by your radiant beauty. You must get messages like this all the time. You're such an attractive tree,” reads the letter to a green leaf elm, one of Melbourne’s 70,000 trees. Each was given an ID number and email address on “Urban Forest Visual”, the city council’s online database for problems related to vandalism or hazards. But citizens didn’t use the information in this manner, and instead, they started writing personal messages to the trees, thousands of them. This converted the digital platform into an important communication and citizen engagement tool in the City of Melbourne’s “Urban Forest Strategy”, launched in 2012. Melbourne was named ‘most liveable city’ for many consecutive years. Most historic gardens, such as the Botanical Gardens…

When the ironworks in German Duisburg- Meiderich closed down in April 1985, it suddenly stopped serving as a place of identity for the region and its people. From one day to the next it became nothing more than scrap metal. It was unthinkable that it would be turned into a park just a few years later, unthinkable that visitors would flock to the bizarre, rusty-looking blast furnace sculptures. It was also unthinkable that this place would become an area of culture and leisure that coexisted in the clearest, most natural way with the remains of a blast furnace plant. Strictly speaking, the nearly 200-hectare Landscape Park Duisburg Nord was comprehensively formulated with these legacies in mind. And by courageous people and an ingenious type of landscape architecture that understood the…

Men and women are equal, but sometimes men are more equal than women. Men are still more often in the front row, whereas women must fight harder for appreciation. This is a fact in architecture, urban planning, or landscape architecture. But a global movement is underway in our discipline, and activists like Justine Clark from Parlour Australia are standing up and calling for a reshaping of the profession. Across the globe, women and men are organising to push for gender equity in architecture and built-environment disciplines. Feminist activism and advocacy have a long history in these fields, but the last five years have seen a new, ever-growing groundswell of activity – at every level, from institutions and practices to newly formed grassroots groups and informal alliances. It is occurring in…

3 well-placed trees can reduce home utility cooling bills by 50% and wind-break trees reduce heating bills by 30%. A 100-foot-wide x 45-foot-tall area of trees can reduce noise levels by 50%. In one year, an acre of mature trees absorbs the same amount of CO2 produced when you drive your car 26,000 miles. Treepedia: A lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created an interactive platform that maps out the green canopy in 27 major cities around the world by giving bird’s-eye views, with trees represented by green dots. People cut down 15 billion trees each year and the global tree count has fallen by 46% since the beginning of human civilization. The Liuzhou Forest City in China designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti will host a total of 40,000…

Far up in the North, only 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole, a rectangular concrete shaft stands in the perpetual ice of the Norwegian island Spitsbergen. It is the entrance gate to the Global Seed Vault and opens only a couple of times per year when news loads are coming in. As one enters the door of the shaft, one has to pass a 150-metre-long tunnel, which is built into the mountain and leads toward a chamber. Behind this layer of security, three vault rooms protect the treasure of the building: almost a million different varieties of agricultural crops from depositor institutes around the world are stored here. The collection ranges from unique varieties such as sorghum or cowpea to popularly known varieties of eggplant or potato. Back-up for the…

Rodrigo P.P. Almeida studied agronomy and entomology at the University of São Paulo and holds a Ph.D. from 2002 at the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2016 he has been professor at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley. ingo@ingoarndt.com Chrili Car studied landscape architecture and landscape planning at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna and as a member of the lab [Applied] Foreign Affairs at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. He particularly enjoys interdisciplinary work in between science and art. chrichrichri@gmx.at Diane Cook and Len Jenshel are two of America's foremost landscape photographers, exploring beauty, boundary and the control of nature for the past four decades. Len and Diane travel extensively, but when home you will find them in New York City.…

1 Kalarand and Beta-promenade 59.448107, 24.747766 Tallinn’s coastline is full of post-Soviet feeling – a border zone for more than half a century, and therefore closed to the public during the occupation. The seaside, especially in the city centre, has always been an area with great potential, but subject to opposing ambitions. In 2016, a vision competition searched for ideas to open the city to the sea. The winner, a project called Beta-promenade – a simple footpath along the seaside that connects the main landmarks by removing fences, fortifying the shore, and opening gates – was built that year. It brought extra attention to the shoreline and gained many recurrent users who enjoy a windy walk by the sea. At the same time, it is an exceptional example of how…