Landscape Interventions for Embracing New Wilderness
Pierre Oskam (University of Aveiro)
Joao Mota (University of Aveiro)
Inge Bobbink (TU Delft - Landscape Architecture)
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Abstract
Under the guise of improving human wellbeing, capitalist societies focus on economic growth and expansion, while neglecting the decline of abandoned urban structures. We approach the results of this abandonment as “new wilderness” landscape: a hybrid of spontaneous nature and architectural decay. Abandoned, wild places still have a negative connotation. However, these
places are an inevitable part of the urban fabric, containing potential social and ecological benefits. The question is: how can landscape interventions make this idea of wilderness more acceptable, so that the beneficial aspects can be recognized and allowed to develop? Hence this research, makes the case, it is through small interventions that could alter people´s perception and allow
natural succession. Four projects working with the aforementioned new wilderness concept were selected. By reviewing their attitude towards new wilderness, several conflicts between human intervention and wilderness arise. These conflicts aid us in emphasizing accessibility, flexibility and difference as guiding principles for landscape design as tool for embracing new wilderness.