Query: Ancient town landscape design

title: From Spontaneous to Designed: Scenarios for Open Space Conversion in a Historical Town Centre
abstract: The Department of Landscape Architecture at the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra was commissioned by the Municipality of Nove Zamky in 2018 to elaborate a landscape architectural study with different design scenarios for a publicly accessible open green space at the boundary of the historical town centre. The open space is located at the site of one of the six former bastions of the 16 century Renaissance fortress that has not been preserved. The introductory paragraph is dedicated to history of fortification landscapes in Slovakia and Central Europe from ancient to modern times. It elaborates on the mutual relationship and diverse urban design situations between fortification systems and open spaces, both from the historical and contemporary perspective. The design setting is historically contextualised by a brief insight into the history of the Nove Zamky fortress.

title: RECONSTRUCTING THE LANDSCAPE OF THE PAST IN THE AGRICULTURAL TERRACES OF THE CITY OF AVDAT
abstract: Large areas in the arid Southern Levant are dotted with ancient agricultural terraces and runoff harvesting installations. In the Negev Highlands, Israel, they were constructed in the 3rd&ndash;4th centuries CE, maintained for 6&ndash;7 centuries, and then abandoned after the 10th century. Their design pattern and foundations provide a rare insight to the prevailing environmental conditions during the middle Holocene, while their 600&ndash;700 years cultivation tells the story of their maitainance and desert agriculture in these regions. From their abandonment onwards, they documented more than 1000 years of land degradation and soil erosion till present time. In this paper, we follow a complete cycle of desert agriculture of two sites near the UNESCO world heritage town of Avdat. We reconstruct the landscape at the period pre dating the first anthropogenic intervention, through the centuries of cultivation, and into a millennium of abandonment until the present erosion phase. We use high resolution 3 D data to document the erosion and environmental dynamics during these two millennia, and to compute rates of siltation and erosion. Long term measures of such kind are unique, as it is rare to find a millennium scale documentation of soil erosion processes. Their study improves our understanding of the long term environmental change mechanism acting in arid environments. The detailed analysis of these installations also offers insights into methods for soil conservation, for sustainable desert inhabitation, and for strategies to protect world heritage installations. As the globe wide struggle to combat soil erosion becomes urgent, this case study becomes even more relevant.

title: GEOMETRIC STYLE IN DESIGN OF URBAN LANDSCAPES
abstract: Designing landscapes in geometric style has a long history. Even open spaces in ancient Egypt, dating around 3000 BC, were shaped in a clear geometric form. Later throughout the history, geometric patterns evolved and the most impressive achievements in landscape architecture were reached in France during the period of baroque. Geometric patterns are also steady in Moorish and Islamic gardens and landscapes. Contemporary landscape designs rely on the heritage of previous epochs, but it is suited and adapted to the local environment and conditions. Geometric style is considered as formal or classical one and can be found in urban landscapes and parks worldwide. In this paper, we focused on an example from Serbia; we analyzed the design features of the main city park in town of Ruma, Serbia and proposed a new design concept in a geometric style. The presentation is supported by 2D and 3D graphical representations produced in SketchUp 2017 and Adobe Photoshop CS4. The special attention in the designing process was dedicated to plant material and selection of plants was determined by their visual and aromatic qualities. The new design included the constriction of water mirrors, using the reflection in water to enchase the aesthetic features of landscape elements.

title: Research on Local Culture based on Landscape Design of Characteristic Town
abstract: In the construction of characteristic towns, "rural, homesickness, context, inheritance, and development" has been mentioned by people. How to pay attention to ecological nature, focus on local culture, and inherit the cultural context is the key to today's landscape space design. Taking Longquan city as the research object, through combing and refining the local culture elements, this paper designs a scheme through the concept of "Rongqing" characteristic town landscape, and explores the way to arouse homesickness with the help of design symbols and the integration of tradition and modernity to realize the recurrence of local culture.

title: The Process of Landscape Design and Maintenance Using Thermal Environment Simulation at Passive Town Kurobe

title: Plant landscape and phytodiversity in the ancient town of Erice (NW Sicily)
abstract: The The town of Erice, in the province of Trapani, is an environmental unicum in the context of the ancient settlements of western Sicily. Its history, substrates, and particular climate, generated by its geo orographic position, make it a particular hot spot of natural and cultural biodiversity. Located on the top of Mount San Giuliano, in addition to natural habitats with their specific florulas, the town shows small gardens and among the few inhabitants there is a widespread green culture. A tourist destination by its various architectural and landscape historical peculiarities, Erice presents a residential center made up by small stone buildings, with small courtyards or "bagli" often used to house pergolas, decorative or fruit plants placed in pots or in the ground. Protected from the wind thanks to the special microclimatic conditions that occur at the top of the relief exposed to moist sea breezethey find the optimal environment to grow and preserve. The Giardino del Balio, Villa Pepoli and the remains of the park around the town, as well as the Castello di Venere and the various rocky relieves within the town, the old walls of protection of the city, are ideal habitats for many native and cultivated species. Among the former we remember the endemic and very rare Centaurea erycina, Silene nefelites, and Brassica villosa subsp. drepanensis Other endemic species find the best habitat in emerging cliffs and in architectural artefacts; they are Silene fruticosa, Dianthus rupicola subsp. rupicola, Seseli bocconei, etc. In the same contexts other chasmophytes are also frequent among which Athamantha sicula emerges. On the margin of Villa Pepoli, awesome trees of Prunus mahaleb subsp. mahaleb testify to the ancient settlement of native tree species rare on the island then locally cultivated. In the Giardino del Balio, in addition to the ancient borders of Buxus sempervirens, luxuriant specimens of B. balearica remarks the sub oceanic character of the climate at the top of Mt. San Giuliano. The presence of a rich contingent of pteridophytes and bryophytes also depends on such climate, including the rare epiphytic moss Cryphaea heteromalla, common right on the branches of the two Buxus species.

title: Design and Implementation of Virtual Interaction in Tangzha Ancient Town
abstract: In recent years, as social and economic progress and living standard of people increases, increasing number of people has financial conditions to relax by travelling, but a host of major cultural tourist attractions are seriously damaged due to natural or human reasons, hence, we are constrained by offline and firsthand travelling experience. The high speed development of internet technology and continuous improvement of computer software and hardware pave the way for the development and application of virtual reality technology, thus generating a kind of brand new travelling that is appealed to young man. This article studies the combination of virtual reality technology and cultural tourism resources, taking Tangzha Ancient Town, the first industrial town of Nantong as the pilot.

title: Landscape Design of Business Circle Transformation in Old Town Taking Hanzheng Street of Wuhan as an Example
abstract: As China's economy and society develop rapidly and urbanization process speeds up further, the transformation of old towns is inevitable in urban development. One of the core factors in old town transformation is accurate planning of landscape design, aiming to avoid "sameness" in urban landscape design, so that the transformed landscape can reflect its own characteristics and blend into the overall urban environment, thus to form comprehensive continuation of old town transformation design and street cultural tradition. In this paper, the landscape transformation of current business circle in old town is viewed while examining the history of Hanzheng Street in the old business circle of Wuhan, so as to play a role in urban development. Keywords old town; business circle; landscape transformation; Hanzheng Street

title: Discussion on the Significance of Negative Planning in Small town Landscape Design
abstract: The significance of negative planning in small town landscape design can be learned through the most common landscape problems found in small towns, mainly manifested in three aspects: 1. natural ecosystem service function; 2. biological environment safety; 3. human landscape preservation. For the natural ecosystem service function, it's analyzed mainly from four respects: the significance of landform service function, the significance of climate service function, the significance of soil service function and the significance of hydrology service function; For the biological environment safety, it's elaborated mainly from two respects: the significance of animal environment safety and the significance of plant environment safety; For the human landscape preservation, it's analyzed mainly from four respects: the significance of nature landscape preservation, the significance of religious culture landscape preservation, the significance of historical buildings, streets and sites preservation and the significance of vernacular culture landscape preservation.

title: A breakthrough in landscape design: from traditional garden of ancient despots to the avant garde "garden of Cubism"
abstract: The article traces the process of moving away from traditional landscaping with millennial traditions to the revolutionary breakthrough of the 1920s, based on the views of the avant garde and Cubism. One of the oldest traditional examples is the Chinese Garden, whose principles have been developed and refined over the millennia. In the Chinese garden and the natural environment in general, architecture played a secondary role, only emphasizing the beauty of the landscapes. It was the natural environment that dictated appearance of small architectural forms pavilions and arbours, their sizes, silhouettes and colouristic solution. The maximum conservation of natural landscapes without human intervention was aimed at the so called landscape English garden. Instead, the French garden was aimed at improving the natural environment of man, that is, the parks are provided with regular planning, the introduction of green with molded crowns, flower beds with a complex pattern, widely used included in the regular composition fountains. All of these techniques were discarded in the early twentieth century, when, in parallel with the revolutionary changes in urban planning and architecture, there were dramatic changes in landscape design. In the so called "garden of Cubism" of the period of constructivism avant garde, the natural environment no longer plays a major role, such a role is taken over by architecture and sculptural forms, and the garden is actually transformed into an installation.