Boundaries in Movement: Designing for an adaptable 21st-century multi-family residential landscape

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Date

2018-08-25

Authors

Chen, Lin (Flora)

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Abstract

In our rapidly densifying urban environment, diversifying family types, and evolving urban demographics, it is of great value to reconsider ways to design residential landscapes that are adaptable to natural and cultural changes. This project interprets Gilles Clément’s one approach—The Planetary Garden, and two theories—The Garden in Movement and The Third Landscape, to develop design strategies that create interconnected spaces with a gradient of scales and functions. These strategies were tested on Parkmerced, a multi-family residential community located in San Francisco, California, completed in 1951. Four proposed design elements create flexible boundaries, permeable surfaces, interconnected pathways, and dynamic vegetation that could easily be altered and accommodate for future change. Parkmerced is on the verge of a long-term redevelopment and this project proposes an alternative approach that would retrofit a 20th-century modernist landscape into a culturally and environmentally adaptable 21st-century urban residential landscape.

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Examining committee chair: Mark Eischeid

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