"Shades of Green" or the glories and shadows of landscape architecture. "Shades of Green" is a podcast about interdisciplinary landscape architecture hosted by Joanna Paniec and Maja Skibinska - landscape architects.
landscape architects. Welcome to the fourth episode of the podcast Shades of Green - Sensual Landscape Architecture - Part One - "see and hear".
Joanna Paniec: We are interested in interdisciplinary landscape architecture that connects multiple threads and issues to create environments that support well-being. This and the next episode is a seamless development of the topic related to designing a pro-healthy city, which we talked about more extensively in the third episode of our podcast. Today we'll talk about the role of the senses in the perception of space and how to design sensory spaces - both public spaces and your own gardens or balconies. In this episode we will focus primarily on the so-called long-distance senses, namely sight and hearing.
Maja Skibinska: It sounds beautiful, the long-distance senses. And the topic itself is very inspiring and interesting. I have the impression that, on the one hand, there is a lot of talk about mindfulness, mindfulness, being here and now, which are preventive measures and one of the prescriptions for civilization diseases, and at the same time, in design practice, this topic is kind of watered down. When teaching students, I try to sensitize them to these issues. To show how such sensory design issues are important in landscape architecture design and how they directly affect the human senses. I have this need to inspire them and show them a little different dimension of our profession.
Joanna: I think this is a cool direction. I, during my studies, acquired and still have in my branch library a book written a quarter of a century ago by Monty Don, a well-known British writer and horticulturist, and the book is titled "The Sensory Garden" and refers to the senses precisely in thecontext of our industry. This book strongly influenced my design consciousness and perception of the environment. On the other hand, however, I don't associate many publications on this topic, and when looking for materials for today's podcast episode ,I mainly came across publications related to neurology, philosophy or synaesthetic design in the design of functional forms such as furniture.
Maja: Yes, synesthetic design is such a bit of a niche in our industry. It's seemingly known to be important, but there's a lack of
of cool studies. I, for example, am a fan of the book "Eyes of the Skin" by Finnish architect Pallasmaa. I read it a good 10 years ago and have been using it ever since. Oh, and remember our college hit "Feeling Architecture"? I suspect you still have it on your bookshelf by now.
Joanna: Yes, yes I have! A great book, she in turn is written by a Danish architect and urban planner, whose name is Steen Eiler Rasmussen. The book was first published in 1957 and has seen dozens of editions in various languages. I think it's also becauseRasmussen was an intuitionist and a pioneer who, despite the still inadequate scientific background at the time , moved away from such an artificial division between intellectual cognition ,which was considered a "better" kind of cognition, and sensory cognition, that is, so to speak ,inferior, less valuable. He intuitively equates different forms of perception, and he does it in a simple and passionate way , he writes about those emotions connected precisely with feeling architecture, that is ,our sensory perception, the play of chiaroscuro, the rhythm of elements, textures, colors....
Maja: ...about listening to architecture similar to how we listen to music.
Joanna: Yes, it sounds like an abstraction, but it's not one at all. An example is the use of rhythm as a tool in the design of architecture and space, or just in the composition of music, to affect the senses and the feelings of the viewer in this way intended by the designer or composer.
Maja: And that's right, you wrote your master's thesis about rhythm, that's your topic!
Joanna: Yes, this is in turn my hubby. That's exactly why I allowed myself to pull out this topic of rhy thm,but it's also to show what a simple tool it is, because I think everyone is able to imagine hitting a drum, the way it resonates in us. After all, rhythm appears in art in very different fields, in architecture, poems, literature. And that 's what'sinteresting, rhythm as a tool that affects us, it affects our senses, because after all, it's different forms, differently in painting, differently in architecture, differently in visual arts, differently in literature, for example, which affects the sense of hearing.
Maja: Well, it's in this kind of architectural rhythm that we take on the senses and the design tools with which we can interact with the senses in landscape architecture. Let's start with how many of them there are, these senses precisely.
Joanna: This is a good question. Aristotle would answer that five. As if we were talking about this a dozen years ago, our answer would probably be the same - five, well six at the most. Now I would answer hmmm... eight? Although, you know what, some sources say even twenty, because strongly this knowledge of the senses is just influenced by neuroscience, thanks to which we know more and more aboutthem , this topic becomes even more interesting.
Maja: Then let's do it like this, when we're at the very end of discussing the senses and talking about them we'll do a summary and count how many of these senses are relevant just from the perspective of landscape architecture. Okay?
Joanna: You know what, it's quite a challenge, we can try. Especially because already as we were preparing this topic, it came out that this is a very, very broad topic.
Maja: But we'll test it, we'll see which ones coolly enter our field and which ones don't necessarily, and some kind of summary at the end I think will be possible.
Joanna: Then why don't we talk about the senses one at a time? As we mentioned in the introduction, the five, let's call them traditional senses, had their hierarchy of importance related to the typical culture-nature dichotomy. The highest were just sight and hearing, i.e. senses associated with intellect, culture, and the lowest were touch, smell and taste, i.e. senses associated with matter, nature.
Maja: Interestingly, sight and hearing in Western culture, sometimes to this day, are seen as more civilized, public, while the other senses - as more animalistic - are relegated to the private sphere as those requiring socialization, such a certain amount of social control.
Joanna: Fortunately, nowadays, thanks in part to the discoveries of neuroscience or the recognition of the importance of sensory integration in human development, we are moving away from this artificial division into better and worse senses.
Maja: So what, we'll look at the different senses one by one?
Joanna: Sure. It's sight first.
Maja: OK. It's probably the most, you could say, trivial sense... heavily dominating perception of space, probably wrongly. Sight is a sense that so strongly influences our perception of reality that other senses can be designally discriminated against. Actually, there should be demonstrations in defense of new developments, you know the kind with banners "sight is not the most important", "equality for all senses". Pallasmaa writes that the dominance of sight and the suppression of the other senses causes a disconnection from the world, a superficiality of being in a given space, making it difficult to take root in reality. Sight disconnects us, focuses us on the fast now, the other senses connect us, direct us to become more firmly grounded in the world.
Joanna: But at the same time, looking is a good starting point for activating other senses, we see something interesting, we want to touch it, we see something that looks edible, tasty, we want to eat it, we notice something nice, we are interested in whether it smells as nice as it looks. These are good starting points for space design, this kind of directing the eye, using leading, accentuating....
Maja: Yes, right, for example, such an opportunity to look far, to shape view openings, to be able to see the horizon as a spatial event. Sight is also the ordering of space - whether we like or dislike something. Often we reduce the evaluation of space to visual sensations, while in fact other senses are also responsible for such judgment.
Joanna: ...from the operation of which we may not even realize at a given moment... And going back to sight, it strongly influences how we perceive space.From the general orientation in space, to accenting places with color, bringing out the nuances of a place, giving meanings. The very mechanism of color vision is fascinating, and the realization that we actually see not so much the color of a given thing just waves of light that has not been absorbed, but reflected is a complete Matrix. Color and its effect on humans is a big topic. Thecolors of plants alone are countless possibilities, and when you add the colors of building materials... a lot of it.
Maja: Well... shades of green, wait... It seems that everything green is pretty, and it turns out that nature knows what it's doing, and by moving within the selections dictated by plant communities, we can achieve the most harmonious effect. Greenery, after all, can be dark, light, more pastel, fall into gray, yellow, purple. Selecting species in the designed space is an art, and skillfully combining them with the colors of the facade, paving, landscaping elements is an even greater art. Then, for example, it comes out that synthetic greenery does not look good at all in juxtaposition with the greenery of living plants. Well, that's right, oh all those green park benches and green fences that are supposed to blend in with the surroundings, but end up biting the eye.
Joanna: Oh yes, you talk about shades of green, but the vastness of colors in nature and the seasonal variation of plants is just a feast for the eyes! Such spring flowering is a holiday in some countries. E.g., theJapanese celebrating the flowering of cherry trees. Autumn leaf discoloration in our climate zone is also spectacular. Thecontrasts between the winter dormancy and the spring onset of vegetation.
Maja: And yes, celebrating plants is a great thing. Until now, the story of one of the participants of the public consultation on the Zoliborskie Orchards park follows me. This park has fruit trees, which you know, bloom en masse in the spring and it's very spectacular. This participant told us that for several years now, if not even for a dozen years, she and her friends have been having a picnic during the blossoming of the trees, this is how they celebrate this time, and sometimes it even happens that they take a vacation from work to be together under the blossoming apple trees. Well, okay, I admit, sight is important, for example, about the psychology of color you can do a whole separate episode....
Joanna: Certainly. And some people even design parks or gardens with color asa theme , e.g. Citroen Park in Paris, which was realized in the early 1990s on a post-industrial site, this is a post-modern park in which seven gardens organized by color were designed .Little by little, each of these gardens refers to metaphysics and alchemy and, among other things, has a specific sense assigned to it. Here, as we're talking about sight, the sense of sight is assigned the color silver in this garden, well, and in this garden, for example, olives are silvering,which have such gray-silver leaves.
Maja: Yes, I think it will be worth talking more about colors and their use in space design. On the other hand, still in the context of sight, a thread related to light still comes to mind. Anyway, the very issue of light in landscape architecture is a topic for a doctoral thesis. I have two colleagues who wrote their doctorates about it, in our recommendations I will give the titles and also try to provide links. They wrote a lot about artificial lighting in their theses.
Joanna: Oh yes, you can do a lot with lighting when designing a space. Illumination, the play of light and darkness. Just keep in mind that too much light is a big problem. Lightpollution isbad for the development and life cycles of animals and plants, well, and humans too.
Maja: Well, yes. I like very much the concept of dark sky parks. If I remember correctly, there are two such parks in Poland, there is the Izerski Dark Sky Park and the Starry Sky Park "Bieszczady". In our country, these spaces that protect darkness as an important value for nature are somehow not particularly legally established. In other countries, this is often regulated by law. Such parks are simply gigantic areas largely devoid of artificial lighting. And they are such reserves of darkness. You can visit them in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Japan. Oh, there are a lot of them in the States. Some have developed special light management plans. You can find a lot of information on the International Dark Sky Parks website, we will provide the link in the recommendations.
Joanna: It's good that there are such places... But, but, sight is also seeing movement. The undulation of the grasses, clouds moving across the sky, the rippling of the sea, the shaping of openings and view axes, reaching with theeye beyond the boundaries of an area. In modernism there is a strong sense of the dominance of sight, Le Corbusier wrote "I live only when I can see" and "Architecture is a thoughtful, flawless play of solids in light", that is, seeing, sight is paramount, form as sacred. In postmodernism this is even clearer, form above all else, modernism though appreciated functions and activities.
Maja: Well, yes, the last few decades of design is such a concrete domination of attractive images, such good frames, cool views, instaworth objects, hmmm.... I guess I sound like a heavily middle-aged person, huh? You know, any striking public spaces that can be coolly photographed, spectacular, strong architecture. But as we said, the future of design, however, is headed towards equality of all or at least most of the senses. More and more, the importance of design solutions in response to the needs of rich human neurodiversity is coming to our consciousness. That we are different and have very different needs and different susceptibilities to stimuli. An important issue in designing spaces is to consider both such stimulating places of strength and those spaces where one can calm down and quiet down. Well, it is important to take this into account, because some people will have an elevated reactivity, others a reduced one, and this can be spatially responded to. For one, a variety of colors, shapes, textures, sounds and smells in the space are very desirable and will be experienced as cool, for another person it will be too much and they will need spatial tranquility.
Joanna: All of this in the dimension of outdoor spaces can be achieved withlandscape architecture solutions , working with composition, landscaping elements, program, choice of building and plant material. Let's perhaps return to color for a moment. Color is also aboutcontrasts or lack thereof. If, when designing, we choose colors so that they contrast with each other ,we arrange a space that is strong, so intense, stimulating, in some cases this may be inadvisable, cause overstimulation. In others it can be valuable and desirable. It all depends on the context of the environment, the functions performed by the place. All in all, nowadays we value more and more the possibility of calming down, calming down, so in this case calm color selections, harmonious juxtapositions ,tone-on-tone, by the way, looking at a variety of greenery is an important topic, but we already talked about it in the third episode of our podcast.
Maja: Yes, yes, there has already been a bit about hortiterapy. Looking, watching, covers the whole spectrum of possibilities of being in a public space. For example, benches. Again, it will be about benches.... benches by location, number, orientation can encourage people to sit together, spend time together and look at each other. As long as they are not vis a vis then it is very confrontational, such measuring each other by eye. Single benches with a view of city life encourage people to observe it, sit and watch people, traffic. I also read somewhere that the sense of sight in public space is an evaluation. Well, that's right, we sit on a bench and look. Other senses are less confrontational. Pallasmaa writes "sight separates us from the world, while the other senses connect us to it."
Joanna: But sight can connect us to the world, spatial information systems, signposts, visual identification systems, this can help us a lot in functioning in space. And when they are still well designed well then that's it.
Maja: Ba, there is such an inspiring book "A Billion Things Around" by Agata Szydłowska, there is a lot about visual identification there, these are interviews with designers. Then maybe a few words about color analysis, as we are at colors? Cities have their own characteristic color palette depending on history, climate, economic and cultural conditions. The spatial policy of a city is also a conscious construction of the color space precisely. I'm very fond of Lancaster's method, this is the kind of gentleman who performs, with his team of course, custom color analyses of cities. His team studies source materials, but also takes color samples. I really like this kind of picture, the researchers are going around the city and scraping while taking samples. And apparently this is how they sometimes do it. That way, and by analyzing the sources, and being in the space, and collecting samples, they find out what are the global and local colors specific to the space. This allows them to create a color code and then depending on it, shape color design decisions. This allows cities, neighborhoods, streets, squares to responsibly change their space, and it's clear what the colors of facades or signs should be.
Joanna: But coming back to sight for a moment, in the context of color, the issue of universal design, or color as information for the visually impaired, is very important here . Although this also has a multisensory dimension, texture ,smell and soundwill also be important for visually impaired people .
Maja: Well, that's right, wait, then maybe in this context we can now talk about another sense?
Joanna: About hearing or perhaps about.... echolocation?
Maja: Oh that's right, echolocation is also a sense, outside this iron pool of five or six, also very important.
Joanna: It is used, among others, by bats, birds, dolphins, but also precisely by blind people. It involves making a sound and then listening to acoustic waves reflected from objects, which allows you to model the surrounding space in your imagination.
Maja: This method was popularized by Daniel Kish. It is coolly shown in the film "Imagine" by Andrzej Jakimowski. And with this method, speaking of the sense of echolocation, we "jumped ahead of the pack".... That is, our hierarchical ranking of the senses....
Joanna: Echoing these hierarchies....
Maja: Well, yes, they are overrated.
Joanna: Definitely, we don't worry about them, but I would, however, talk about hearing, since wealready announced to the listenersin the title of this podcast episode - "see and hear"!
Maja: Okay, well how about we talk about how the sense of hearing relates to landscaping?
Joanna: Oh they are quite, quite. We have a whole spectrum of possibilities for introducing, enhancing or weakening sounds. You can use natural phenomena such as wind or rain and ,for example, shape the direction and velocity of air masses through plantings, that is, you can also influence acoustic impressions. Strengthen or weaken the sound of rain with canopies of various materials, treetops and the like, that is, those surfaces from which raindropswill bounce.
Maja: The sound of rain, water in general making sounds in the landscape, as well as birdsong, they generate what is called pink noise. It's the one that calms newborn babies and generally has a good effect on us, calming us down, enhancing our sense of security and improving our memory.
Joanna: Water provides cool opportunities, not just the rainy one, murmuring, splashing, has a soothing effect on people and even a small water form can work well. In general, places with water bring people together, well, and create a good microclimate.
Maja: Yes, also in the case of paving, the materials used are important, and for example, you can hear the crunching of grit underfoot or the clatter of footsteps on a paved surface. Here, too, you can cleverly play with the echo, the reflection of sound. In some spaces it is possible to achieve and use this.
Joanna: This is a great thing to always keep in mind when designing a space. I also know of an example of a park where the composition of the space was based onmusic. In Toronto, a park was created on the theme of the violin key, and the park space itself this time consists of six gardens with different moods, which refer to the six suites of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Maja: I'm always wary of such literal solutions, but when a conscious designer approaches the subject, cool, atmospheric objects are created. And on the subject of hearing, another important issue is the presence of animals and thus the possible singing, buzzing and other sounds that appear in the space. Animals will be eager to appear if we provide them with opportunities to shelter, breed and find food. The basis is to find out what species visit or inhabit the area, or neighboring areas, and then simply adjust the offerings.
Joanna: Then there is great joy when the desired species appear. And another important theme is the presence of people. Conversations, laughter, footsteps, the noise of vehicles. How many people are allowed to be there and what activities they can perform will strongly influence the sound space. The sense of hearing being very social allows for easy interpersonal integration. Casual conversation, small talk at the bus stop, customary courtesies exchanged with strangers. And in addition, you can introduce cool entertainment elements using sound, such as the Whispering Grottoes in the historic Oliwa Park in Gdansk, where whispered sound through acoustics in some mysterious way reaches the ears of the recipient, or sound playgrounds for children or concert shells, these are all such devices that just target the sense of hearing and use its potential.
Maja: Well, that's right, people - space - hearing. Sometimes a longer conversation in connection with a reference to what surprised or worried us also has an integrative dimension altogether. For example, in Warsaw on the Royal Route there are Chopin benches that have been standing for many years, they play if you press them in the right place. More than once, more than twice, I have seen lively, intense conversations between strangers, locals or tourists, well, just "how to make it play"?
Joanna: Or controversial elements like a poster on a billpost, an exhibition, this too can move and prompt interaction.
Maja: Oh just soundspace - sound space is a cool topic - distinguishing cities by their characteristic sounds, building sound space as a design task, this is very inspiring.
Joanna: But here the attention has to be done with great sensitivity. Justas we talk about light pollution , the problem of modern cities is sound pollution, or noisepollution .
Maja: And here, as always, the answer is.... greenery... greenery, greenery.... greenery, as we also mentioned in episode three, that is, the psychological role of greenery in reducing the perception of noise. And with this green touch, we end the first part of our conversation about the senses. Thank you for listening to the podcast to the end, and welcome to the next episodes - "Sensory Landscaping," part two, working title "Feel It." We will continue to talk about the senses. We'll talk about touch, taste, smell, the sense of balance, proprioception....
Joanna: ... and about intuition, the sense of time and body memory, as well as multisensory design and sens oryspaces. Well, and we'll see if we can fit all of this into one, or maybe two episodes? Also, if the topic interests you, look out, listen in. And today we already thank you and we'll hear from you!
Maja: To be heard!
Worth reading:
Don M., The Sensory Garden, Twój Styl Publishers, Warsaw 1998
International Dark Sky Parks www.darksky.org
Jurga J., The Noise Shack, Niespieszne Publishing House, Krakow 2022
Pallasmaa J., Eyes of the Skin, Institute of Architecture, Kraków 2012
Pożarowszczyk-Bieniak M., Morphology and meaning of light in views and view sequences for the purpose of drawing up a night landscape study. Formulating Principles for the Creation of Light Architecture in the Cityscape, Doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of Dr. Jeremi
Królikowski Prof. SGGW at the Department of Landscape Art, SGGW in Warsaw, Manuscript 2021
Collected work, City-Scape. Architecture and the Programming of the Senses, Bęc Zmiana Foundation, Warsaw 2013
Rasmussen S. E., Odczuwanie architektury, Murtor S.A., Warsaw, 1999
Szydłowska A., Miliard rzeczy dookoła. Agata Szydłowska talks to Polish graphic designers , Karakter Publishing House, Cracow, 2013
Trojanowska M., Parki i ogrody terapeutyczne, PWN, Warsaw, 2021
Wlazło-Malinowska K., Light as an instrument for shaping the nocturnal landscape of the city, Doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of Dr. Jeremi Królikowski Prof. SGGW in the Department of Landscape Art of SGGW in Warsaw, Manuscript 2018 LINK
