The Concept of Limits in Landscape Planning and Design

The paper examines the question of whether ‘the sense of limits’ can be consistent with the primary task of landscape planning. During the twentieth century and the first part of the twenty-first century, a growing awareness of the complexity of landscape has contributed to strengthening the ‘sense of limits’. Globalisation, the new media and technology reduce perception of this ‘sense of limits’ as a sense of an awareness of the need for self-control in human interventions on the landscape. The relationships between natural phenomena and the dynamics of these huge transformations are currently a theme of great interest in various studies and theories in economics, the natural and social sciences and planning. Furthermore, these research fields show a convergence between attempts to identify the causes of the economic crisis and related predictions regarding the changes which will be necessary in post-industrial society. The development of scientific theories and social movements such as ‘sustainable retreat’, ‘deep ecology’, ‘degrowth’ and ‘biosphere education’ is based on knowledge about the effects of irresponsive behaviour and the consequent destructive effects on the environment and landscape. It is argued that it is not realistic to imagine such a radical change in human behaviour, which would enable global problems to be solved in a cooperative fashion. Nonetheless, it is possible to draw a number of connections between these theoretical frameworks and the principles of the European Landscape Convention (ELC). A number of recent projects are presented: the Prinzessinnengarten (Berlin), the Cheonggyecheon stream (Seoul) and Lausitz post-mining landscapes (Germany)