Chang, Shenglin
From CollabLandWiki
Seeing landscape through cross-cultural eyes: embracing a trans-cultural lens toward multi-lingual design approaches in the landscape studio
Chang, S. Seeing landscape through cross-cultural eyes: embracing a trans-cultural lens toward multi-lingual design approaches in the landscape studio Landscape Journal Vol. 24 No. 2 2005 pg 140.
This article addresses the issue of designing spaces for multi-cultural communities, creating trans-cultural awareness in design. It talks about distinguishing unique qualities and practices of different cultures and then blending them together in a new, evolutionary way. Because of technology, cultural boundaries are becoming more permeable, and open to new ways of thinking. As a result of this, designers are having to become multilingual in their design vocabulary, to be able to weave cultures together successfully.
The project the article is based on is a Taiwanese park in America which commemorates the Chi Chi earthquake, and how landscape architect student coped with the mixture of cultures, to create a sensitive response. This was done by researching the values and beliefs the Taiwanese culture held so the design didn’t offend. For instance, Taiwanese believe the colour black to symbolise death and be a bad omen. So black granite slabs in the park may not be suitable. These sorts of issues are the ones which have to be addressed when dealing with the Maori culture. What may seem suitable for us may be unsuitable or even offensive in a Marae.
The article ends with four students’ responses to the park brief. These responses may be good to refer to when we begin to design, by providing answers to some questions we may come across, or provide the means to find out. The challenge of the design will be to change our design approach to suit what is needed.
