![\"energy](\"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/energy-reduction-Piazza-Gae-Aulenti-1-2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis designed environment, the Piazza Gae Aulenti <\/a>in Milan, Italy,\u00a0creates visual interest and\u00a0attraction around passive\u00a0ventilation measures for the sub-surface parking area below it.<\/em><\/p>\n Out of all the design professions that focus on our physical environment, landscape architecture holds a particularly unique position, being charged with reconfiguring areas of the Earth\u2019s surface to form everything from regional parks and campuses, to city plazas.\u00a0Given the strained condition of many of our planet\u2019s environmental and social systems, this is an undertaking which clearly should not be taken lightly.\u00a0Yet up until recent years landscape architecture has often been seen as little more than a means to beautify our surroundings – by both the profession and patrons alike.\u00a0This attitude has roots in the Land Art movement of the 1970s and 80s, when areas of the Earth\u2019s surface were seen as canvases on to which a designer-sculptor was free to do their will.\u00a0These creations often showed little regard\u00a0for the environmental systems into which they were inserted and had limited function other than as a piece of art.\u00a0If these were apps, prospective users would be initially attracted by the interface graphics only to discover they had no function,\u00a0and thus\u00a0would be doomed to receive a series of 1 star ratings.<\/p>\n This designed environment along the waterfront at Blackpool<\/a>, UK, welcomes people directly to the beach for the first time in over a century while using\u00a0dune-shaped forms\u00a0to protect the city from rising tides.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The virtual environments\u00a0that apps create are often criticised for drawing people away from interacting with the physical world.\u00a0Another way of looking at this is that the undeniable success of these digital infrastructures can be seen as an invaluable benchmark against which equally compelling, problem solving physical spaces can be designed.\u00a0With the advent of climate change and rapid population growth, there are a host of issues that our built environments need to solve for, from sea level rise and storm water management, to healthy food provision,\u00a0to passive heating and cooling.\u00a0With the majority of people now living in cities, the interface with these elements is also key, not only creating engineered solutions but compelling places for people.\u00a0Here we can learn from the most successful of apps, melding enticing user experiences with an underlying focus on solving for real world issues and desires, building physical infrastructure that forms unique urban places.\u00a0These physical spaces should be thought of as apps in the truest sense, based on sound engineered principals and integrated into the urban fabric to form environments that are greater than the sum of their parts \u2013 \u2018app-scapes\u2019.<\/p>\n This theoretical environment makes urban food production<\/a> (and consumption) the source of wonder and delight.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ever since the advent of the smartphone, apps have been transformative.\u00a0Whether\u00a0allowing us to instantly communicate with millions, navigate\u00a0unfamiliar cities, or request a private car, apps like Twitter, Google Maps and Uber now provide the digital infrastructure on which we increasingly rely.\u00a0In the competitive market place of the App Store or Google Play, those apps which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":4229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[256],"tags":[20,191,213,233],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-urban-design","tag-climate-change","tag-connected-cities","tag-landscape-architecture","tag-smart-technology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4228"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>James Haig Streeter (james.haigstreeter@archtam.com<\/i><\/a>) is a principal in ArchTam\u2019s\u00a0global <\/em>Landscape Architecture<\/a><\/em> practice. He\u00a0led the design of the Piazza Gae Aulenti, the development of the Urban Food Jungle concept, and was co-designer of the Blackpool Coastal Defenses.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"