Grand Challenges and Research | Urban Studies & Planning

Designing Regional Parks for Civic Vitality and Sustainability

Area of Concentration

Architecture and Urban Design

Grand Challenge Overview

The geometric planner offers another alternative, that the city be ringed with a green circle in which green activities-agriculture; institutions and the like- are preserved or even introduced. but it appears that nature outside the belt is no different from that within,... The ecological method would suggest that the lands reserved for open space in the metropolitan region be derived from natural process lands intrinsically suitable for green purposes: that is the place of nature in the metropolis. Ian Mc Harg, Design with Nature

Landscape serves as a metaphor for inclusive multiplicity and pluralism, as in a kind of synthetic overview that enables differences to play themselves out. In this term, landscape may still embrace naturalistic and phenomenological experience but its full efficacy is extended to that of a synthetic and strategic art form, one that aligns diverse and competing forces (social constituencies, political desires, ecological processes, program demands, etc.) into newly liberating and interactive alliances. James Corner, Recovering Landscape.

Nature, of course, is not uniform, but varies as a function of historical geology, climate, physiography, soils, plants, animals and consequently intrinsic resources and land uses. Lakes, rivers, oceans and mountains are not where the economist might want them to be, but where they are for clear and comprehensible reasons. Nature is intrinsically variable. Ian Mc Harg, Design with Nature.

Parks enhance community livability and sustainability; creating spaces for people that improve their quality of life. With the density, proximity and condition that todays people live in, parks and open space is not a luxury, its a necessity. With the changing way of life, changing demographics and cultural preferences, planning parks that meet various for peoples needs becomes more and more of a challenge.

Research questions regarding regional parks include:

How does a society determine the fulcrum in development wherein an area is socially built out and any future development comes at the cost of quality of life?
How can society measure the value of open space versus the benefits of infrastructure or development?
Do certain kinds of public spaces engender social interactions or discourage it? (Kostof, 2001 p.9)
What are the social implications of public spaces that are designed and situated for political purposes? Are parks used as intended?
How can physical designs affect the way society makes use of public space?
Are parks in affluent and underserved neighborhoods treated or viewed differently?
Does a community’s ethnic and cultural background affect the way they use parks?
Does the city’s lay out of urban form affect park usage?
Does more parks or public space foster more collaboration or increase pride in the neighborhood?

References 1

Books, Articles, Papers

* A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time, 1994 by John Brinkerhoff Jackson
* Design with Nature, 1969 by Ian McHarg - Liberty, Liberty County, and the Atascosito District, 2004 by Miriam Partlow
* The Liberty County Historical Commission
* Park, Recreation, Open Space and Greenway Guidelines, National Recreation and Park Association, 1996 by James D. Mertes and James R Hall
* Place Making: Developing Town Centers, Main Streets and Urban Villages, 2002 by Charles E Bohl
* Recovering Landscape, 1999 edited by James Corner
* San Diego County General Plan Recreation Element, adopted 1972, amended 2005
* San Diego County General Plan Public Facilities Element, adopted 1991, amended 2005.
* The City Shaped, 1991 by Spiro Kostof
* The Forgotten Frontier, 1981 by John W. Reps

References 2

Web Resources - Links and Data

http://www.i-dineout.com/pages2004/townplanning.html
http://www.pps.org/

Video on SciVee http://www.scivee.tv/node/6029
Mentored by Judy Tjiong students Mark Arroyo, Dave Eng, Mayra Medel, and Chris Wong present “Designing Urban Parks for Civic Vitality and Sustainability” for the grand challenge for “Equitable Redevelopment and public policy.”

http://www.calendow.org/Article.aspx?id=3458

References 3

Key Organization / Institutions

1. San Diego County Parks and Recreation Department
2. San Diego County Department of planning and Land Use
3. City of San Diego 4. Casa Familiar

Congress of the National Recreation and Parks Association (180 pages). Session 211 (Adobe page 68) is a discussion on the ethnicity of park design.

http://www.nrpacongress.org/rFin_2008_CongressProgram.pdf

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