Possible landscapes in norms: how are they designed and communicated?

Abstract

Urban landscapes are the result of transformations which occur in different time and space scales. When considering a wider time scale, landscapes are the result of applying norms of land use and occupancy, configuring punctual volumes which form, when added together, a complex whole. In a shorter time scale, urban interventions are transformations as precise as surgeries, stirred by entrepreneurism. Considering these observations about how formally planned landscapes are formed, a few questions are raised, motivating this investigation: can a community – which inhabits, observes and constructs in any given landscape – understand, accompany and approve a new spatial configuration, transformed by interventions and controls? Is it possible to contribute, in any way, towards urban managements, promoting the science behind proposals and possibilities within the norms which model a landscape? What is the state-of-the-art of these transformations, especially in the changes promoted by urban management resulting from legislations? From these initial inquiries, a main question sums up the aim of this paper: How the possibilities which involve a designed urban landscape are communicated? Therefore, it’s interesting to analyze case studies in order to elucidate this guiding question. Two territorial realities, as pilot areas, are going to aid this investigation, regarding their similarities and differences.