Returning to Site

Earlier this year or I suppose last year, I briefly touched on the relation of site and architecture. Recently I stumbled upon David Heyman’s essay “Site, Ascendant”, which explores the evolution of site in architectural design and makes a compelling argument against the post modernist disregard of site.

Heyman’s essay begins with a brief summation of the various interpretations of site relationships in the land art movement of the late 60’s and 70’s and notes that the “ site is a source of experience that is perceived meaningful because it remains authentic and intransmutable” and this continues to be recognized today. He makes an important distinction that even though the projects are considering the ‘natural’ environment, they are most concerned with site-”nature is subtopic”. Analyzing these assemblies outside of the assumed concern of the surrounding environment sheds a new definition to “environmental art”. Heyman articulates that, “[within Environmental Art] environment refers to clarifying experience within the larger frame of a landscape and not the environment as a biological system” and the responsibility to site surroundings is not necessarily concerned with ecological responsibility. An easily identifiable example is the recent work of James Turrell, Heyman looks to the Roden Crater project and cleverly likens the construction process to having a similar carbon footprint of a bird watcher traveling by plane to view a new species who, “could never imagine being against the environment.” To conceive of Roden Crater, another chapter in Turrell’s decade long fascination with “celestial art”, described as a “a place where humans can meet the sky and revel in space and light” as construction site creates a completely different sort of space in my mind.

Heyman gives a brief overview of the evolution of the site as setting to the site as source with examples of ordinary sites transformed by the responses of the architect. He gives the example of the Greenbelt house, designed by Ralph Ranson as a design case study. Although the house was never built, the innovative design which joined(or separated) the private and communal spaces of the house with interior green-space, continues to influence modern building design. On it’s relationship to the generic site of a measured lot Heyman remarks, “The house is self-sufficient: it has no problem with the anonymity of its location, which merely provides the setting for its normative activities.”

A few buildings are noted and the author ends with a lively critique of the post-modernist argument of the buildings “long standing rules of behavior in the landscape”. Through a range of project examples, Zaha Hadid’s Vitra Fire Station, Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial, and Gehry’s Dancing House, Heyman explores the various ways designers are “resolving and working out the Modern Method”. He looks to OMA’s Seattle Public Library, designed with the specifications of “anywhere-ness”, but finds contradiction in the buildings’ volume and viewpoints that are entirely site specific.

Buildings will always consider site, wether it is important to the architect or not. The idea of Koolhaas’ concept of “anywhere-ness” can successfully apply to the prefab home but when it is placed on the measured subdivision lot it gains a setting that affects how people experience their indoor and outdoor environment.

Sacred City

Hester is noted for his strong conviction in the sacred landscape. In the “Sacredness” chapter in Design for Eco. Democracy, he further explores his ideas through the famous Manteo,NC study.


In the center of Hester’s ideal city form emerges sacredness of place. Hester articulates the process of seeing sacredness in the landscape through the defining lens of symbolism(place represents a virtue or events and synesthesia(similar to another place) and topophilia(love of place).
Hester argues that integrating the identification of sacred places within the community planning process is very important to the vitality and future of the community. He characterizes sacred places and spaces by four qualities:

Recurring Center:
center of city, a neighborhood, “identified by people as inviolable,frequently as a source of shared experience ,personal orientation and identity”

Natural Boundary:
dependent on area of reference, certain topographical,hydrological,ect. characteristics that delineate development from undeveloped land,water,ect.
“In Manteo, the boundary is created by the Shallowbag Bay and wetlands”

Connectedness:
“Connectedness to other people,landscape,family and community traditions..More subconsciously revealing is the designation of places of myth and transcendence as sacred”

Particularness:
“Formal expression of the unique characteristics of a community” This can be attributed to century old traditions or from “the forces of nature or technology are mollified or employed”..or a combination.

Hester further explicates this idea in the 1980 community revitalization project in Manteo,NC., where community participation was key in the planning and design process. In the Manteo project, residents identified what places where sacred to them:structures,businesses,churches; many places that were part of the daily community routine. The author goes on to boldly state, that the “loss of such places would reorder or destroy something or some social process essential to the community’s collective being”. Designers then mapped these sacred places and through this process created a a 20 year plan that reinvented the community while still retaining the buildings and businesses deemed sacred by the residents. The mapping process provided an opportunity for community participation as well as significant information for designers. The long term plan was inspired by what was important to the community. For example, designers identified the importance of the ‘front porch culture’ in Manteo and applied this concept to the civic and waterfront areas by creating a series of medium sized spaces(porch scale) and connecting them with a boardwalk system. Hester also sites the Kiyomizudera in Kyoto and Thorncrown Chapel in Arkansas as sacred built environments that are, “inspired by the landscape and it’s communities highest values.”

(http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc95/to150/p107.html)



While this “sacred structure” mapping process was successful in Manteo, it’s difficult to imagine how it work at an urban scale. However there is possibility the method could be applicable at a neighborhood scale and then in turn create a stronger awareness of the city’s needs and values. In the mid 1990’s, Philadelphia was turning to a new strategic urban planning proposal that incorporated neighborhood participation and GIS. They looked to the successful Manteo project and noted by the authors of Urbanizing GIS:Philadelphia's Strategy to Bring GIS to Neighborhood Planning, “Although the circumstances are vastly different when mapping Philadelphia's urban neighborhoods, the same kind of awareness of the components of their environment can help make neighborhood residents aware of their community values and solidify them behind proposals, and opportunities for change.”

A current example of city-wide participation is Vancouver,(who adopted City Plan in 1995) where success was achieved through surveys,meetings,ect. A few years later the city adopted the “Community Visions” program which focused on the needs of the city at an individual neighborhood level and integrated “community needs and aspirations”. The Community Visions program has been very successful and in Fall 2010, all of Vancouver's neighborhoods had participated.

If the “sacred structure” mapping is indeed an important step for community revitalization and future planning, as Hester suggests and as shown in the Manteo project, there needs to be more case studies in the neighborhood, town, and city scale.