从个人角度谈风景园林学科未来十年的发展

撰文：（爱沙尼亚）西蒙·贝尔

翻译：李正

从个人角度谈风景园林学科未来十年的发展

撰文：（爱沙尼亚）西蒙·贝尔

翻译：李正

文章就风景园林学科如何在未来10年得以发展而发表个人意见，是从教育角度而非行业角度出发的，所以其所呈现的方面可能和那些由就职于大型设计工程公司者撰写的文章不同。物理学家尼尔斯·玻尔（Niels Bohr）的名言“做预测很难，特别是关于未来的预测”所传达的道理适用于我下面所写的文字。此外，未来动向总是和我们的预期不同，世界总是由那些被市场经济学家纳西姆·尼可拉斯·塔雷伯（Nassim Nicholas Taleb）称为“黑天鹅事件”的意外所塑造的，仅具有事后而非事前预测性。在欧洲景观教育大学联合会2014年年会上，著名葡萄牙设计师若昂·努内斯（João Nunes）说了一句话：“未来并非一只潜伏在时间角落中的野兽”， 让人印象深刻，却也有待观察。因此，你应该对我的预测保持警惕！

站在欧洲景观教育大学联合会主席这个并非崇高的位置上看，我觉得当下和未来的风景园林学科状况中有着很多不确定性和变化性，这种状态在很多方面是常态。虽然行业也许参与全球各种项目，但学科并没有像建筑或工程那样被广泛接受和理解。某些国家的保守势力看似强烈抵制“风景园林”这一名称，而这一名称也顽固拒绝融入任何常规框架。在欧洲研究门户中，我们无法找到风景园林这一分类，只能将自己的专业置于某个未明确界定的环境或人文类别之中。我们需要努力增加专业的可见性和认可度，让我们的工作为我们做宣传。但是，说的比做的容易，因为风景园林并不像建筑那样易于产生明星设计师，部分源于我们从没有真正完成的项目，且这些项目并不像建筑的宏伟设计那样引人注目。这个现象将会有所改善么？这取决于我们在专业各领域有多自信多成功。

我有时觉得风景园林师的自我认同有两个相互矛盾的趋势。一些人喜欢侧重于公共空间和城市景观设计的传统领域，倾向于和建筑师、规划师、工程师紧密合作。这类并不必然发挥领导作用的风景园林师所从事的项目较易于识别，可在大城市显著位置以当代方式创造性展示材料和植物。一些研究项目也倾向于关注这类领域（尽管不是唯一），且最终的主要设计通常成为了这类项目最后所能企及的高度的重要部分。如果能就此提高专业的知名度，这样做当然就没问题。

另一个趋势是把所有导致景观发生创造性改变的活动，看作风景园林的合理涉及范围，不管这种改变是通过规划、设计还是经验实现的。这一视角使风景园林中多样化分工得以发展——实际上这在一些国家发展了好几十年了——并使专业化从业者得以从诸如能源景观、森林、交通或大尺度景观规划等细分领域中涌现。这些专家所接触的外专业人员可能和第一类风景园林师不同，更多是和林务员、生态学家、水文学家、能源与休闲娱乐学家合作。他们的工作也许并不那么炫目而易于识别，但却涉及大尺度领域且影响更长远。

在我看来，我们应该鼓励这种多元性，因为这可以拓展影响面，也为在那些竞争激烈的市场中从业的风景园林师提供更多生存技能并在经济上适应不确定的状况。比如，在2007年-2008年房市崩溃后，不少依赖房地产开发项目的公司倒闭了。那些有着更多元技能而拥有可再生能源领域顾客的公司则依然能通过做景观和视觉影响评价而赚钱，因为这些顾客可以享受政府补贴。这类项目并不能在诸如Topos等杂志上刊登炫目的新景观照片，但事实上它们在经营重要的、高价值的风景方面扮演着关键角色。只要这个领域发展良好，那么它将可能持续提供项目来源，但在某些国家可能会达到饱和。

一些新近的景观规划方法有可能让风景园林师展示他们的价值，比如绿色基础设施。这一概念将城市及其边缘的绿地置于和道路、技术设施、越来越密集的城市同等的地位，这种角色可被尽量强调因为其将设计置于一个真正的景观尺度之中。这个概念已经为研究和主题会议提供了一个流行话题，显示风景园林师已经在这一领域有了一席之地。这个领域至少在未来10年会持续发展。

景观和绿色空间在促进健康方面的角色在过去10年有了很大的提高，这个角色是通过改善身体活动和心理健康两方面实现的，比如减少压力。这个领域需要时间成熟，也需要景观相关专业与健康专家合作，由于涉及多元分歧的出发点、理论、实践和研究证据标准，这种合作并不容易。这个领域的发展也打开了一个全新的市场，为风景园林师带来了新的合作伙伴。其对于土地的影响也许并不引人注目，但对生活质量的影响也许会是巨大的。这个领域还有很长的路要走。

另一个风景园林师开始涉足的领域是反设计。我指的是在一种动态环境中工作，在这种环境中景观极少进入一种让总体设计可以赖以完成的稳定状态。这种动态环境包括扩张型城市边缘的动态机制，也包括萎缩型城市的内部瓦解。介入这类环境需要理解和处理复杂的过程，侧重将动态过程往无害的方向引导。经济和政治手段至少和空间规划手段一样重要。临时性、可移动、弹出性景观可能是用传统设计语汇可以实现的所有形式，而这些形式是小尺度的。有迹象表明这一趋势正在加速并可能在未来10年持续。

在诸如欧洲景观公约等法律文件的推动下，景观规划经营中的公众参与和自下而上过程越来越影响全球。作为推动者的风景园林师在这一领域正扮演越来越重要的角色。这个领域也许看起来最不炫目，但却对生活质量、社会资本建构、景观意识提升有着巨大影响，因而会增加风景园林师的可见度。

风景园林教育需要呼应这些挑战并保证毕业生能胜任这些挑战。或许需要调整课程，或为那些希望侧重不同领域的高年级学生提供选择。也许需要重新评估毕业设计的核心角色，并提供更多选修课。这种改变已在一些地方发生，并应该被扩展到那些需要的地方。风景园林院系在全球各地被设置在不同的院系中，这种优势意味着并不存在所谓“标准的”风景园林师，在欧洲风景园林院系委员会中我们无保留欢迎这种多元性和弹性。

总之，我认为我们的未来掌握在自己手里，作为一个学科和行业，我们应该去探寻和利用更大社会趋势所提供的各种机会。未来10年我们应该看到行业在某些地区变得更成熟，在一些地区兴起，在另一些地方衰落。

This article is a personal perspective on how landscape architecture as a discipline could develop，looking ahead to the next decade. It is written from the point of view of the education sector， rather than the profession， and therefore may present a different picture than that of someone at the helm of a large office designing and constructing projects. However， as Niels Bohr the physicist is reputed to have said， “making predictions is very difficult， especially about the future” and this must apply to what I write below. In addition， what the future produces tends not to be what we expect -the major events which have shaped the world have been so-called “black swan events” as postulated by the market economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb -completely unexpected and not remotely predicted by anyone， except with the 2020 vision of hindsight. In the memorable words of João Nunes，the well-known Portuguese landscape architect at the 2014 ECLAS conference， “the future is not a savage beast lurking in a corner of time”， though this also remains to be seen. Therefore， YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED！

From the not-so-lofty viewpoint of the ECLAS president it seems to me that there is a lot of uncertainty and variability in the current and future state of landscape architecture - these states being in many ways the norm. While professionals may be involved in projects all over the world， the discipline is not universally accepted or understood in the same way that architecture or engineering are. It also seems that the forces for conservatism in some countries are arranged strongly against acceptance of the very name “landscape architecture” and the term stubbornly refuses to fit into any convenient box. When entering theEuropean Research Portal one is asked to identify one’s disciplinary field and it is impossible to do so except by deciding whether to place it in an undefined environmental or humanities section. We need to work very hard to increase the visibility and awareness of what we do and to let our works speak for us. However， this is easier said than done as landscape architecture does not lend itself to“starchitects” in the same way as architecture does，in part because we never have any truly finished projects and none of them can be quite as “sexy”as architecture’s grands projets. Will it get any better？ This may depend on how confident and successful we are in all areas.

I sometimes feel that there are two competing tendencies when it comes to the self-identity of landscape architects. Some seem to prefer to focus on the traditional and classical areas of public open space and urban landscape design， tending to work closely with architects， planners and engineers and forming a kind of family with them. The projects undertaken by this suite of professionals，the landscape architect not necessarily taking the lead， tend to be more identifiable and allow for arguably the most creative opportunities and the display of use of materials and plants in a contemporary way which is also visible and can be found in prestigious places in major cities. Study programmes in place often tend to focus on this area （though not exclusively） and the final major design project usually forming a significant part of the final degree may tend to fall into this category. There is of course nothing wrong in such projects and if they raise the profile of the discipline so much the better.

The alternative approach is to look on any activity taking place with a creative outcome where the landscape is changed in some way through planning， design or management is the legitimate realm of landscape architecture. This view allows for a wide range of specialisms in landscape architecture to develop - and which have in many cases de facto developed over several decades already in certain countries - and for specialist practitioners to emerge who may work exclusively in these different fields， such as energy landscapes，forests， transport or large-scale landscape planning. These specialists may interact with a different set of professionals than those in the first group， perhaps more with foresters， ecologists， hydrologists， energy and recreational specialists. Their work may be less glamorous but it may cover larger-scaled territories and have long term consequences even if the end results cannot be so easily identified.

In my view we should encourage this diversity and variety for several reasons - not just to widen the range of influence but also to provide a wider palette to practitioners in what is in some places a crowded market and to ensure economic resilience in times of uncertainty. For example， in the UK after the 2007-2008 housing market crash the work of many firms reliant on residential projects disappeared and some firms went out of business. Others had a wider portfolio， with clients in the renewable energy field who remained very active due to the presence of subsidies which continued to be paid， primarily carrying out landscape and visual impact assessments. These projects do not provide fantastic new landscapes for inclusion in magazines like Topos but in fact have an important role in managing significant and often highly valued scenery for example. As long as this sector remainspopular then it will probably continue to provide work， although there may be a saturation point in some countries.

Some fairly recent approaches to landscape planning have the potential to enable landscape architects to demonstrate their worth， Green Infrastructure being one of them. This concept puts green areas in urban and urban fringe landscapes on a par with roads and technical infrastructure and with the growth of larger and also denser cities this role should be emphasised as much as possible as it opens up design on a truly “landscape” scale. It is already proving to be a popular topic for research and in conferences where themed sessions are a magnet for presenters，showing how landscape architecture has staked a claim there. This must surely continue for another decade at least.

The role of landscape and green spaces in health promotion， through the twin aspects of physical activity and mental health improvement，such as stress reduction， has seen a major increase in the last decade. Research in this field needs time to mature and also for a synergy of landscape professions and health professions to come together - not an easy task given the widely divergent starting points， theories， practices and research evidence requirements. This also opens up a whole new market and range of collaborators for landscape architects. The results on the ground may not be very spectacular but the impact on quality of life has the potential to be massive. The trend for this still has a long way to run.

Another area which landscape architects are starting to become involved in is that of anti-design. By this I mean working in dynamic conditions where the landscape rarely if ever enters a stable state so that a master plan-type design does not get the chance to develop. This is typified by the dynamics of the urban fringe or peri-urban landscape of expanding cities and in the internal collapse of shrinking cities. This is all about understanding and working with complex processes and focuses on efforts to steer these dynamic processes into benevolent rather than harmful directions. The tools include economics and politics as much as if not more than spatial planning. Temporary， moveable and pop-up landscapes may be all that is possible in traditional design terms and these are small in scale. The signs are that this trend is accelerating so also likely to last for another ten years.

Increasingly， and promoted via instruments such as the European Landscape Convention，public participation and bottom-up processes in landscape planning and management are taking hold around the world. This is where the landscape architect as facilitator is becoming an increasingly important role. This may seem to be the least glamorous aspect but may also have a big impact on quality of life and on building social capital as well as raising awareness of what landscape is and what it has to offer and thereby increasing the visibility of landscape architects as a by-product.

Education in landscape architecture needs to respond to these challenges and to ensure that graduates are able to take advantage of the opportunities. It may be that the curricula need to be adapted or more choices offered to senior students wishing to focus on different areas. The central role of the final major design project may need to be reassessed and more elective courses offered. This is already happening in some places and should be expanded where the opportunity presents itself. One benefit of landscape architecture schools being located in different faculties or departments across the world means that already there is no such thing as a “standard”landscape architect and in ECLAS at any rate we welcome this diversity and the flexibility it offers.

In conclusion， I think that we hold our future in our own hands and it is up to us as a discipline and profession to seek out and take advantage of the various opportunities offered as a result of the broad trends in occurring in society and elsewhere. The next ten years should see the profession becoming more mature in some regions， emerging in others while possibly declining in some places.

The Outlook for Landscape Architecture in the Next Decade： A Personal Viewpoint

Text by： Simon BELL （ESTONIA）
Translation： LI Zheng

西蒙·贝尔/男/欧洲景观教育大学联合会主席/爱沙尼亚生命科学大学风景园林学系主任、教授

译者简介：

李正/男/美国伊利诺伊州立大学厄巴纳―香槟分校博士生/本刊特约编辑

Biography：

Simon BELL is the President of Eclas， the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools and a Professor and the Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture in Estonian Universitry of Life Sciences.

About the Translator：

LI Zheng holds a PhD in Landscape Architecture from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and he is also a Contributing Editor of Landscape Architecture Journal.