Drawing
the Lines in the World as Community Designers |
| This article examines the issue of spatial form and social process. It puts forward ideas on the potential of nature to show spatial borders and systems even in urban areas, and argues that we should read this potential to develop new city or urban form. To continue and deepen this argument, I will relate my thoughts on design process and try to connect with the city or urban planning. Four cases of those I have experienced are chosen here to explore the design process: the case of King Estate Park, Oakland C.A., Suma-ward Kobe Japan, Narai Park Aichi Japan and Izumi settlement Tokyo, Japan. Each case will not be described as a whole. Instead, the focus will be on the most critical step of practice to consider what community design has created around space and society. Through this exploration, I hope to show that community design relies on and derives from some ‘natures of human character’ even when our project’s objective is not nature preservation or rehabilitation. After all, using this ‘nature of human character’, community design could realize a vital space and people’s relationship on site. However, how can we organize these sites on urban scale? This question was a main theme of my presentation at the Hong Kong conference in 2002. I will trace briefly the idea that I have presented on natural systems and spatial social form. At last, the connection between a well-managed design process and urban scale planning will be explored. The fractal concept will be introduced. With this concept, topics on form and process, design and planning or function and nature will be reconsidered. |