Biomorphic Intelligence and Urban Landscapes By Adam R.

Wynn Biomorphic Intelligence and Urban Landscapes, by Bart Lootsma, discusses how urbanism has evolved into an almost fluid-like organism and older perceptions of planning static forms need to be dismissed into todays fast paced Multiplicities. The older ideas of Landscape being synonymous with nature, and the city void of ecology also needs to be rethought. The so-called country and the city are more and more beginning to blend into one conglomeration. Therefore, this dichotomy between the landscape and the city is leading to faulty planning strategies based on a piece-by piece scenario. Urban areas and the spaces in between them should be analyzed and planned as if it was a dynamic ecology, and this relationship is a complex ecology. As the free market enters different countries and trisects different boundaries, older geographical and political boundaries are less important in dealing with a high-speed society. The biomorphic urban landscape consists of so many integral forces working on many levels that its complexity is almost unfathomable. Much like forest ecology the urban landscape can be studied at several different scales and can be divided into typologies that co-depend upon each other. If you eliminated a species of tree within a forest, several other organisms may disappear or nothing may happen depending on these dynamic interactions. An urban area is no different. It may be studied at different scales or broken into an indefinite number of parts that interact to make up the whole. Rather than looking at the city as a definite area of land to be filled up with concrete static objects with some pastoral landscapes in between; the city needs to be viewed not as a city first, but as an indefinite space that continues to grow vertically and horizontally with all kind of opportunities or voids in between. Society realized that to understand different landscape types, they first needed to understand the processes that drive these ecosystems. The urban landscape is no different. We need to understand the policies, laws, forces, and dynamics that constantly change like the succession of a forest. What happens 200 years after the first species generates on a bare piece of land and what will it look like? How does the forest ecosystem blend with the prairie ecosystem? What happens 200 years after the first developments go up? How does the city blend with the countryside? The answer to all of these questions requires an intricate understanding of ecology or the dynamic changes of urbanism, and may lead to several outcomes. The process of what is driving and causing change is more important than what actually evolves from it. Are the processes and forces that are causing the change macro or micro? Or in other words, are they onsite or off-site? Plans and redevelopment strategies need to be implemented that take into account these forces, so that we do not end up with an urban sea of houses, as Adriaan Geuze would put it. A free market makes its mark on the land, much like forest ecology would. As designers, we need to envelope the process and force positive change and preservation of the identity of place. I believe that we are recently beginning to understand this, and steps towards positive change are incorporating a recipe for change in different regions of the World. To avoid a piecemeal approach to urbanism we must design for the process in the form of policy, economics, and a biomorphic understanding of the nature of the city.