Table of contents for N. 116 in Topos

After the sustainable city, the digital city, the car-free city, the green city and the colourful city – now we have the resilient city as well? – To everyone who has had similar thoughts about this issue's topic, i.e. the resilient city, we at the topos editorial team can honestly say that we understand, and that we felt exactly the same way at first. Because, let's be honest: Is urban space really doomed to follow every trendy concept that comes along? Sometimes you almost get the feeling that a city is no longer a place at all, but rather an individual entity that blindly follows one hype after another. But the sad fact is that our cities need to become more sustainable, more digital, greener, more colorful and definitely more…

Lisa Switkin is a landscape architect and urban designer who has worked alongside the team at Field Operations over the past twenty years. As a partner in the firm, she has been intimately involved in many public realm design projects, including the High Line, Freshkills Park, Domino Park and Seattle’s Central Waterfront. Lisa continues to be a leading voice in the advancement of the field, representing a new generation of landscape architects concerned with social equity, climate change, and sustainable urbanism. 1 INFLUENCED BY Cities, nature, art and people – a love of travel and exploration, discovery and wonder, multiple forms of expression and beauty, and personal stories and perspectives. 2 INSPIRED BY Multiple artists, ecologists, writers and Landscape Architects including Roberto Burle Marx, Cornelia Oberlander, and James Corner as…

Cities have been shaped over time by political successions, nationalist agendas and economic motives. The intersecting spheres of imperialism, nationalism and consumerism have subjected Indian cities to shockwaves and pressure far beyond the conventional range of the political, thus posing a serious challenge of deciphering authenticity: something which is layered with manipulation and rendered highly subjective. Following an unprecedented rate of transformation during the past century, these cities have grappled with two seemingly opposite forces: one desperately trying to keep pace with the rapidly globalising world and the other struggling to find expression for cultural identity. We now see a fusion of newfound aspirations and historical remnants, the former dominating the scene. This has resulted in extremes of both kinds: endless replication of the mundane (building blocks of malls, offices…

ANJA KOLLER: Mr Scheuermann, green spaces have seldom been so much in demand as they are now, in these times of the pandemic. We have realised how important city parks are for us, as well as our front gardens, terraces and balconies. These are places that enable us to connect with the city, the urban area, the outdoors. With crises like corona or climate change in mind, how do you think architecture will change in the future, will have to change? And what role will be played by building envelopes, your specialist area? RUDI SCHEUERMANN: In my opinion, architects will simply have to include green in their planning in future in order to make cities more resilient. We will be using existing buildings even more intensively for greening measures, as…

As the world still grapples with the COVID-19 crisis by providing relief and by recovering the status quo, there are already fears of future health crises. How can severely affected urban sectors such as public transport systems create resilience based on the lessons from the COVID-19 crisis? And what does this mean for the other big crisis of our time – climate change? How did COVID-19 impact public transport systems? In August 2021, the COVID-19 crisis is still dominating our headlines. However, terms like “learning to live with the virus” are now more common. Policymakers and planners alike have started asking about what we can learn from the pandemic. Looking at public transport, one of the sectors that was hit the hardest by COVID-19, a recent Guardian analysis shows the…

Herbert Dreiseitl is a landscape architect, artist, urban designer and founder of the studio Dreiseitl in Überlingen, director of the Liveable Cities Lab the Ramboll Group as well managing director of DREISEITLconsulting. hd@dreiseitl.de Bettina Dreiseitl-Wanschura is landscape ecologist and expert in leading public participation processes. She is dedicated to current, ecological and socially relevant topics such as climate change and strengthening organic farming. bettina@dreiseitl.de Sara Fouad is an Egyptian architect who graduated from Alexandria University. In 2020 Dr. Fouad won the prestigious Georg Forster Research Fellowship, allowing her to have her post-doctoral studies in the chair of landscape architecture at TUM. sarasamymoh@gmail.com Alessandro Gabbianelli is a landscape architect and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Roma Tre University. His research themes focus on the study of residual, abandoned spaces and…

I love the lessons I get from my 3-year-old, even though I have to admit that I’m often a bit slow in realising that I’m getting one. A few weeks ago, for example, we biked to the city centre as I needed to run some errands. And while I went through my mental to-do list, trying to figure out the most effective way to connect my stops – A, B, C, D, and E – within the shortest possible time, he… well, he just had fun. To a 3-year-old, pretty much anything in a city has play potential: The bench becomes a pirate ship; you can only step on the cobble stones covered in chewing gum; a store’s automatic doors become the secret gate to a hidden world; cigarette butts…

James Corner is a landscape architect, urban designer, theorist, writer, and educator whose projects have influenced designers and thinkers worldwide. His practice, Field Operations, is based in New York City and is renowned for the design of significant public realm projects, including New York’s High Line, Chicago’s Navy Pier, San Francisco’s Presidio Tunnel Tops, Seattle’s Central Waterfront, London’s South Park at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Hong Kong’s Victoria Dockside, and Shanghai’s Taopu Central Park. 1 INFLUENCED BY There have been too many influences over the past decades; intellectuals, artists, professionals, but ultimately the reality of direct experience in the world, with real people and real places, accrues the deepest influence over time – life itself! 2 INSPIRED BY Again, too many individuals and works to mention; but nature, landscapes, cities,…

When the catastrophic July 2021 floods hit communities in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, causing loss of life and destruction of buildings and infrastructure, it didn’t take long for specialists from engineering consultancies to advocate for resilience. Strengthening flood protection on the one hand and creating more space for flood waters to spread out on the other hand were declared the remedy to better prepare for, respond to and cope with disasters triggered by hazardous floods. The normative statement is that a resilient city can achieve these things by resisting stress, rebounding from it and remaining livable. If planners are supposed to contribute to building resilience into existing cities, it seems obvious that this process requires time – time which is not available when a flash flood disintegrates a riverine…

In the course of time, seaports have developed as major logistic magnets inducing trade and transport connections all over the world. Conse-quently, many port areas laid the foundation for a rise in welfare, not only for neighbouring urban environments but also for the connected hinterlands and all other regions served by these ports. Alexandria city is located at the western verge of the Nile Delta between the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Mariout. It is the second most important city in the Arab Republic of Egypt, with a population of 5.11 million inhabitants. More than 70 per cent of Egypt’s foreign trade passes through its main port, located at the Mediterranean seashore [2]. Alexandria, known worldwide for two ancient construction wonders, the Pharos Lighthouse and the great Library of Alexandria, flourished…

To hear Hashim Sarkis, curator of the 2021 Venice Biennale of Architecture tell it, humanity is at a cross roads and it is on the verge of destroying itself and the planet that sustains it. Covid was a wakeup call, according to Sarkis, who is Dean of the MIT School of Architecture + Planning. He told journalists at the show’s opening that he designed his show to respond to issues such as climate change, social iniquities, mass migration and the political polarizations that have emerged in Europe during the past five years. “We need to create platforms for reconciliation,” said Sarkis, “and unless we address the causes, we are not going to be able to move forward.” So, what could a more harmonious future look like? Walking through this year’s…

Hamburg’s distinctive feature is that it was formed by water. The River Elbe, the Alster, the Bille and numerous smaller rivers, streams and urban waterways, the inner harbour and canals all form a flowing system of space within the city: Approximately 8 per cent of Hamburg’s entire area and 24 per cent of its inner city consists of water. The Lower Elbe, lined with the renowned Geest landscape, gives Hamburg the character of a coastal city, although it is located 100 kilometres from the sea: The Elbe brings-gigantic containerships from all over the world to the port at the centre of the city, it washes kilometres of sand beaches to the shores and its tidal flow creates a constantly changing fresh water tideland. Two more rivers that characterise Hamburg, the…

In March 2021, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned that the oceans were under threat as never before. It emphasised the increasing risk of rising sea levels. Around 40 per cent of the world’s population currently live within 100 kilometres of the coast. The WMO Secretary-General said there was an urgent need to protect communities from coastal hazards such as waves, storm surges and sea-level rise. In many places, he said, there were even additional sources of danger. Cities affected by land subsidence are particularly threatened by rising sea levels.1 Here, the ground is slowly sinking – as in Miami, for example, where the phenomenon regularly leads to “Sunny Day Floodings”.2Parts of the city are flooded by tidal forces alone, without any special weather conditions occurring. One way to respond…

By the year 2050, it is expected that more than two-thirds of the global population of 9 billion will be living in cities. The natural resource of water plays a crucial role in the life of a city. Its role and management can be envisioned in a diverse set of multiscale contexts ranging from domestic purposes to city-scale water infrastructure. Constituting a framework of interrelated regimes of surface and sub-surface, it performs environmental functions by supporting a city's ecological infrastructure. In urban planning and design, it nurtures important elements of spatial organization like parks, neighbourhood greens, tree-shaded avenues, and streets among other aesthetic elements. With the scale and pace of urbanization in the present times, large parts of urban areas are becoming impermeable pavements and roads in a very short…

In 1962, Rachel Carson’s publication Silent Spring precipitated the environmental movement by illustrating the negative effect of humans on the planet. The title, inspired by a Keats poem, refers to the absence of the sound of wildlife from the waterways of the future, and the book, which was later to be named one of the most important scientific works of the 20th century, became an important instigator of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 70s. In the beginning, it seems, humans were concerned about how we would affect nature. Only more recently have we come to realize that nature is not the other, but that the various crises of the Anthropocene are urgently and fundamentally affecting the persistence of all life as we know it. The various and admirable…

“I Miss Her” – Olodum hear the drum-driven samba reggae cultivated on the streets of Pelourinho youtube.com/watch?v=QQLEZzdkJSo Bar dú Kabaça, Rua Paulo Afonso, 314e – Candeal, Salvador da Bahia no-frills sidewalk restaurant serving Bahian dishes and stews instagram.com/bar_du_kabaca/?hl=en Fera Palace Hotel ferahoteis.com/en – a recently restored Art Deco hotel, located on Rua Chile (oldest street in Brazil) SAM E. VALENTINE is a landscape architect from the United States. He graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where his Master’s thesis investigated self-built, informal communities in the city of Salvador da Bahia and experimented with resident-driven landscape design processes. The city juts down like a shark tooth into the Bay of All Saints (Baía de Todos os Santos), for which this region of Northeastern Brazil is named. This hilly, tumultuous peninsula…