Ecology And Landscape As Agents Of Creativity

Eden by Design is a captivating read. A replica of the never-adopted 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew parks plan for L.A. County, Parks, Playgrounds, and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region, is the essence of the book. Going through the introductory parts made me realize that had this plan, which itself is extraordinary in its latitude and farsightedness, been implemented the congestive mass of concrete that represents Los Angeles in the modern times could have been avoided. To start with, the one element I liked the most about this plan is the parkways. It was important for Los Angeles to have a system of continuous landscaped parkways dedicated to pleasure travel and to act as lungs for a rather polluted city. Even though after going through the plan, I’m not quite adamant on the fact that why was it dropped.

In Joanna Klein’s, a science journalist, short argumentative essay, “A Birder’s Heaven: Just Follow the Stench to the Landfill”, expresses, some of the best places to see birds are places most humans do not want to go. Klein supports this claim by using humor, situational irony, and overstatements. Klein’s purpose is to expose the irony in nature, exposing the amount of beautiful birds in a landfill. Through the piece, Klein depolopes a a tone of optimistic tone for nature loving adults. She uses this tone to reflect back on the theme by introducing an area many of these nature loving people may not know about.

Unlike most of the persuasive essays needed many “power” words to persuade readers, R. Crumb’s comic, “A Short History of America”, reflects the change of the natural, ecological landscape to urban area without using any words. Nevertheless, his drawing deeply shows us the down side of the urbanization and we human-being are destroying our indispensable nature. We are going the exact opposite direction to a better life; we are going to live in the life where we totally rely on technology and advanced, luxurious materials. Humans will never be satisfied and keep changing. However, while we’re keeping changing, have we ever asked: What are we doing to our nature?

On Florida’s Space Coast in Brevard County, the main landfill that is located on Sarno Road, is expected to exceed capacity within the next five years. Another large landfill, located in the north area of the county is expected to exceed capacity within the next twenty years. Because of the current need to fulfill the waste management needs for over Brevard County, the county has formulated a proposal to put the first cell of a Class III or construction and demolition waste, landfill, that will service Brevard County for about sixty years with the prospect of adding a more cells. This landfill will be located on land 2700 feet north of US- 192, just east of the Brevard and Osceola County border on land the county forced the Deseret cattle ranchers to sell as a public necessity, more than two decades ago, in 1991. The land was purchased for over ten million dollars by Brevard County and hundreds of thousands of dollars has been spent by the county in court, on 134 wetland credits that were required to be purchased by the county, by the state, outside research, maintaining the land, and the drafting of the landfill proposal itself .

In a world full of different people that come from various backgrounds, there are different perspectives on what is found as important. Something that is seen as trash or useless by one may have once meant the world to another person. Each piece of trash carries a memory from its past life, ready to take on its new life to help the next person in one way or another. Howard Nemerov’s poem “The Town Dump”, Lars Eighner’s essay “On Dumpster Diving”, and “The Town Dump” by Wallace Stegner each tell a story about how trash has impacted them. Even though these pieces are written with different messages, each piece of writing uses tone to establish the importance of local trash, as well as establishing the history behind its significance.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how Robert Hammond and Josh David’s visionary idea transformed an unused, abandoned railroad line into a spectacular green space in the sky –New York’s High Line. Hammond and David were locals who believed that tearing down the railroad line was not a good idea. Meanwhile other people in the community, including property owners and Mayor Giuliani wanted the unused railroad demolished. With the help of photographer Joel Sternfeld who captured the abandoned railroad line’s overgrown greenery and fields of wildflowers that changed with the seasons, they were able to get people to recognize that this was a green space in New York city that was worth keeping.

Landscape, when applied to an urban context, no longer refers to prospects of a pastoral scene but rather becomes a mean of connecting objects and spaces around it, as well as accommodating the dynamic processes and events that move through it. These urban landscapes are not only defined by their form, but by the program that surrounds it, as well as its ability to connect with the user through its underlying function. The snow dump known as the Bayview yards, is an example of such urban landscape. Bayview Yards is a 16 acre piece of land that is currently home to a derelict city workshop and a massive area designated for a snow dump. Through the site’s history and function a new opportunity comes forward to redefine the landscape, extenuating

People seldom take the time to stop and really think about the impact that this development has on the environment and the effect it has on life itself. Inconveniences to those of a community tend to become the focus of developers’ agendas. Building new parking lots and four-story car garages so people can park their cars closer to their destination, as the thought of a long walk seems too much to bear. As more areas are developed, nature’s balance is disrupted, causing the destruction of animal’s natural habitats, reduction of plant diversity, and over-cultivated soil. A community created by man, often at the expense of the environment, supplants the beautiful and life-sustaining environment created by nature. The urban progression has destroyed the natural habitat of many plants and animals, dramatically altering the atmosphere in the

The Stone’s Throw landfill in Tallassee is causing environmental problems in the community. The landfill has a very unpleasant smell over the whole community. A landfill is a carefully designed structure that isolates trash from the surrounding environment. The Stone’s Throw does not follow the protocol which involves the bottom liner, cells, storm water drainage, a cover and groundwater monitoring stations to establish a well-established landfill. Instead the landfill company looks like they have created a dump where trash is buried and animals often swarm. Dumps provided no environmental protection and are not well established. The community is furious about this issue and have issued complaints to the Environmental Protection Agency. I made trips every weekend to see the landfill and I had to wear a mask every time. I also took samples of water and I observed the community. Unfortunately, this problem has not been solved and still exists.

When thinking about displacement and gentrification I think about the children and families that are affected. I think about the new and ever changing environment that is the city around us. But I don’t think about the trees that lined the street, or the flowers that spring up on the sidewalk ,and I definitely don’t think about the fact that only in so few lucky neighborhood do I see that, and how when I do see it , it’s a privilege and not just something everyone gets to experience. Never would I have thought about the privilege natures beauty offers in inner cities until meeting Co-Founder and Direction of The West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP) Brian Beveridge. Brian is an advocate for community gardens and environmental justice West Oakland, even though he isn’t originally an Oakland Native.

Influences of planning theorists are evident in The Lawn at the University of Virginia and IX Art Park in downtown Charlottesville by examining the sites’ designs, activities, and users.

The piece I will be writing today is a journal in response to the prompt ‘Ultimately our ties to our landscape shapes our identity’. This piece will appear in an anthology of student writings on the context Imaginative Landscape published by VCAA in order to give other VCE students studying imaginative landscape insight into the ways they can creatively approach a context prompt. The piece is intended to show the reader that our landscape does shape who we are but what we make of our experience is what ultimately builds our identity. Life is going to have it ups and downs. Going through bad times or even good things in life, it doesn’t define you, but what you perceive of it decides whether you grow or shrivel under stress. Our level of connectedness

The term creativity is used for the purpose of describing the ability that is concerned with the process of creating something new or valuable. This ability allows a person to surpass the rules, practices, methods, forms or similar kind of activities that the traditional society may be performing at that time. Creativity is one of the most important things that have allowed the people of the society to move forward and urge for development. All the development that has been made in various aspects of human life can be directly connected with the creativity. All the industry leaders of the world have secured this place because of the level of creativity and innovation that they showed. They used this creativity for creating something new that has allowed them to develop completely new methods for this purpose.

The urban environment that I live in is my nature. My nature is filled with birds, cats, grass, and flowers. It may not be as abundant with mother nature’s resources compared to most places, but it still provides me with an experience of nature. Nature is not limited to just what we see anymore. However, you must use your senses to truly achieve the full experience of nature. In nature, you must smell the wonderful odors from the flowers, you should use your sight and observe the natural beauty of the ever-changing sky, touch the rough and jagged bark of the trees, and hear the spectacular songs of the birds that fly above you.

Space that is documented and utilized by humans, whether directly or indirectly, takes on a basic level of social utility and cultural construction. As Elias Canetti would suggest, the prospect of touch carries with it the risk of being taken and subsequently assimilated or digested (1). The predecessors to the first great urban parks in the United States, namely country estates, cemeteries, and town squares or plazas, all contribute some aesthetic and related ideological basis for a newly emerging discourse of urban parks. Parks were seen as the “poor-man’s countryside,” in reference to the country estates of the wealthy. Also, cemeteries were the first naturalistic open spaces consistently built within urban boundaries. The idea of the commons and town square is perhaps the most telling predecessor of the city park.