Ecotransitional Urbanism

This project came to Landscape+Urbanism via new LU graduate Jorge Ayala, from the AALU in London. It's an interesting use of Landscape Urbanism principals in Chinese urban areas - balancing ecotourism with fragile natural systems in a rapidly growing region. [following images and text from Jorge - thanks!]

ECOTRANSITIONAL URBANISM Pearl River Delta, China
JORGE AYALA

"The project, located on a 27 square kilometer island called Qi Ao located in the Pearl River Delta, has the potential to become a gateway for Hong Kong/Shenzhen due to its strategic location and the increasing passenger flows through it. The site is threatened to become another generic Chinese urbanization that spread across farmlands and rural life. Thus the signs of scarcity of water resources, deforestation, fish farming and industrial pollution are already present."

"Based on the Landscape Urbanism emergent discipline, the city proposal seeks to establish an eco-tourism strategy that embraces the existing site and its natural energies such as tidal variations, local mangroves and seasonal rainfall to assure the viability and sustainability of the island."

[editorial note] This project reminds me of the challenge of Landscape Urbanism in re-defining perpections of landscape illustration, perhaps transcending language and being able to bundle meaning, temporality, and materiality within the graphic milieu. In the meantime, it'd be interesting to get people's take on graphics and meaning as rendered with these 5 images and a short paragraph of text - to see what they say to you in terms of concept.

I have asked Jorge to elaborate on the illustrations with some explanatory text when he has available time, so look forward to hearing some of the substance behind the graphics. We shall see if our interpretations align with the designer's intention. That's what it's all about right?