From remediation to landscape design: design tactics and landscape typologies derived from post-industrial experiences

Abstract

For the last few decades there has been a growing interest in transforming post-industrial sites into public spaces with new programmatic contents. However, contamination in such sites poses challenges to the transformation process. In such cases remediation has become not just a technical issue requiring solutions through remedial actions but a design tactic that offers different solutions for the development of ecologically and functionally well-grounded spatial design schemas.

The main aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between design and remediation and offer a research matrix and typological classification that show how remediation methods can be interpreted as a landscape design tactic through an examination of ten high profile landscape design cases. As a result of detailed investigation on the cases, eight different landscape typologies were offered, namely: multi-layered landscapes, topo-landscapes, adaptive landscapes, structured landscapes, emergent landscapes, superficies landscapes and traced landscapes.

Keywords:

• Landscape design
• remediation
• post-industrial landscape
• design tactics
• landscape typologies
• operations

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Prof. Joan Iverson Nassauer for guiding me with her thoughts and work on brownfields and post-industrial landscapes. And also I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meltem Erdem Kaya

Meltem Erdem Kaya is Associate Professor Doctor of Landscape Architecture at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Faculty of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture. She is the coordinator of the ‘Technology, Ecology and Design Research Lab. in Landscape Architecture’ at ITU. Her research and teaching focuses on methods of landscape design, ecological planning and design and rural landscape planning and design. She has been working as the coordinator and principle landscape designer in various landscape and urban design projects ranging from small scale public spaces to large scale planning projects. She has won numerous design and professional awards through her academic carrier and she continues to develop research-based planning and design projects with her team at ITU.