From The Sublime to Social Exclusion

Despite being in common currency for more than 20 years, the term “sustainability” continues to challenge the planning profession. One of the most challenging sites for sustainable planning is urban public open space, where designers have to negotiate between physical conditions, different needs of the users, and wide-ranging social and environmental values. This complexity was well presented in this international conference which was held at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel.

The conference was co-organized by Yodan Rofe from the Department of Man in the Desert at the Ben-Gurion University and Elissa Rosenberg from the Landscape Architecture Program at the Technion Institute. It was the concluding event of a three-day workshop at The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research in Midreshet Ben-Gurion, Sede Boqer. The stated aim of the workshop and conference, funded by the Israel Science Foundation, was to prompt an interdisciplinary discussion on the functions and roles of good public open spaces in urban areas from perspectives such as cultural and ecological diversity, microclimate conditions, and accessibility as a basis for design guidance.

The first session, “Design and Resilience” opened with an inspiring lecture by Kristina Hill (University of Virginia), relating adaptive design of urban water infrastructure to the experience of the sublime. Matthew Carmona (University College London) then presented an analysis of London’s successful public spaces. This was followed by a panel discussion involving Israeli researchers and leading Israeli landscape architects, and moderated by Tal Alon-Mozes from the Technion Institute.

“Public Open Space Case Studies,” the second session, focused on empirical research. Dee Merriam, (USA Center for Disease Control) analyzed planning factors contributing to park accessibility. Sofia Thorsson (University of Gothenburg) discussed findings on climate regulation provided by urban greening in Gothenburg. Lutz Katzschner (Kassel University) demonstrated the moderating effects of the Frankfurt greenbelt on the urban climate, and Larissa Larsen (University of Michigan) showed the influence of permeable and impervious pavements on the urban heat island through a study of Chicago’s Green Alley program. The third and most provocative session of the day, “Whose Public?”, on planning for cultural diversity and social justice, featured a keynote lecture by Setha Low (City University of New York) followed by a panel moderated by Marco Cremaschi (University of Rome III). The conference ended with concluding remarks by the workshop organizer, Yodan Rofe.

Although carefully organized, the conference did not entirely fulfil its aim of creating an interdisciplinary discussion among researchers. This was perhaps due to the conference structure which maintained the disciplinary division between environmental and socio-cultural perspectives. Nevertheless, the lectures and panel discussions pointed out how international research can stimulate debates on local matters, while, at the same time, revealing the fundamentally different cultural values that underlie the work. Given these cultural disparities, one wonders if it is possible to implement such ideas within Israeli society.

In her lecture “Crisis Sublime: Design Responses in Public Space,” Kristina Hill called for a new aesthetic approach which she considers a crucial aspect of adaptive physical design. Her approach uses design to incorporate the “sublime” experience of nature in order to permit exposure to different scales of natural events, including those that are usually referred to as “natural disasters”. The call for such exposure is in direct opposition to the common attitude of distancing the public from such events (such as closing harbors during high tides or storms) which promotes ignorance of natural processes and of the possible ways to address them.

This approach was inspiring as ordinary Israeli urban public space is usually designed for order, cleanliness, control, and safety: avoiding fruit trees because they “dirty” their surroundings, hiding and covering water bodies, erecting fencing, and using strong lighting.

This notion relates to a claim raised by Daniel Orenstein from the Technion Institute who discussed his findings on...