Studio 4/01
Designing for Ecoservices in Regional Landscapes
Siqing Chen
Studio Description
Broad scale landscape planning is an integrative component of landscape architecture. This studio engages with large landscapes from regional to local. GIS applications are introduced as a tool for exploring ecological and cultural systems across multiple scales to inform planning and development strategies for sustainable provision of ecosystem services.
Using the Great Ocean Road and its surrounding landscapes in general and an identified severely impacted landscape in particular, this studio introduces the conceptual framework for regional landscape assessment and planning; and a working knowledge of the GIS techniques applied to visualise and analyse demographic, ecological, cultural, and socioeconomic data for sustainable landscape planning. Taking a regional perspective in understanding the composition and configuration of human settlements in the landscape, this studio aims to reshape the region’s spatial pattern and form for improved provision of ecosystem services. Students will be invited to investigate one of the following topics: identifying a region’s physical and human resources that influence the region’s metabolic function, conservation of natural environments and biodiversity, reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighbourhoods and diverse districts, linking existing urban centres and towns using green infrastructure to foster a coherent urban region, designing bushfire resilient communities and landscapes, landscape planning for eco-tourism, and preserving our society’s natural and built legacy. Emphasis will be given to idea generation, conceptual design, and formation of integrative and cohesive landscape strategies based on credible evidence from GIS-based spatial analysis.
Studio Leader
Dr Siqing Chen is a senior lecturer in landscape architecture at MSD. Trained in China and the US as an ecologist and landscape architect, Siqing has practiced since 2002 in a range of private and public sector settings in China, US and Australia. Siqing's teaching and research concerns emerging issues of landscape planning, energy landscape, and ecological urbanism. He has published widely on these topics and supervised more than 20 PhD and Landscape Design Thesis in these areas including, most recently, Master of Landscape Architecture Student Cheng Xing’s Design Thesis “Transitioning to renewable energy: An integrated landscape approach” which won the 2019 Landscape Architecture Australia Student Prize.
Readings & References
- Forman, R. T. T. Urban Regions: Ecology and Planning beyond the City. 2008, Cambridge University Press.
- Labich, W. The regional conservation partnership handbook. 2015, Redding, CT.
- McHarg, I. L. Design with Nature. 1992, John Wiley, New York.
- Steiner, F. The Living Landscape: An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning. McGraw Hill.
- Thompson, G., Steiner F. R. (eds), Ecological Design and Planning. 1997, John Wiley.
- Troy, A.; Wilson, M. Mapping ecosystem services: Practical challenges and opportunities in linking GIS and value transfer. Ecological Economy. 2006, 60, 435–449
- Wooddruff, S.C.; BenDor, T.K. Ecosystem services in urban planning: Comparative paradigms and guidelines for high quality plans. Landscape and Urban Planning. 2016, 152, 90–100.
Schedule Lectures Thursdays 12:00-13:00; Tutorials Thursdays 13:00-19:15