The term cityscape is a translation of the German word "Stadtschaft", which was introduced by Prof. Glücklich as a term to describe an urban landscape following the set of rules, which can be observed in the constitution of natural landscape. The English term is a bit unhappy, because it would translate as Stadtlandschaft, which means the image or the impressionists views on the city. Maybe to understand the meaning of the word better, one has to see oneself within the landscape with all its sounds, smells and lights instead of rather looking at it from a certain standpoint.
Creating the cityscape, looking at inter-dependencies is a good start. How come, for example, that landscape naturally constitutes itself even on a small plot? Leaving it alone certain plants will grow, animals and insects will use it as their habitat and if men does not interfere, soon it will be lush with many different forms of live. The tree does not need to get its water from a plot, which is miles away, nor do the animals have to leave their excreta in a segregated area. Very much on the contrary, as we all know, the cycles of life and food chains can go on forever if undisturbed. Without going back into Stone Age, but rather consciously into the 3rd millennium, man should find a way to satisfy his inter-dependencies within his immediate proximity.
The village functions like a body of cells.
Going back to our small plot of natural landscape, we can observe, that it is build of many units or cells of different sizes, which live in closed life cycles; quite efficiently and self-sustained. This autarchy makes the cells very robust and they can withstand external pressure easily. Nevertheless, they are still depending on other factors like the sun, the rain and the wind. Thus, small but strong cells are integrated again in bigger, strong cell structure, which themselves are integrated in even bigger inter-relationships. The same natural rules can be found in all layers of life on earth.
The quarter is based on similar working cells
Why is it then, that we tried to do it different?
We get our service water or even drinking water from far away. As in Sitio Joaninha by lorry from the next pumping station, which receives the water from the next sewage plants, which got the water from…. And so on. We get our energy from far away power plants, even if we, like in Sitio Joaninha have thousand of cubic meter of methane gas, a lot of wind and the sun shining almost every day. We send our wastewater to far away sewage plants, or do not know how to deal with it and spoil our wells, like it happend in Sito Joaninha. The list can be continued for long over subjects like, waste creation, agriculture and artificial fertilizer to non-contextual education.
The working cell is a cycle of metabolism
The sustainable development concept for Sitio Joaninha is trying to show, that copying from nature does not mean to come from the past, but rather being ecologically efficient and economically successful.
The cellular model allows for a sensitive development process to happen, as step-by-step or cell-by-cell the new village can be build. The basic cells, as there are, administration and education, energy and water supply should be developed first. The houses, which have to be removed due to the creation of the village square and the water catchment areas, should first fill the gaps along the roads as proposed. The next step would be a graduate preparation of the retention areas, were cell by cell of the removed housed should be rebuilt on the site of the former pigsty on the western edge of the village.
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An agglomerate of metabolism cells (468 kByte)
