大脚革命：俞孔坚

　　对于俞孔坚教授而言，每件事情都起始于毛泽东这个人物。毕业于美国哈佛大学，目前任教北京大学的俞孔坚，是现今中国最著名的景观设计师之一，同时也是北京土人景观与建筑规划设计研究所的首席设计师。毛泽东当年看到了旧帝王制度的泯灭，重新分配了劳动者之间的财富。如今的俞教授继续从中国伟大舵手的革新激情中找寻到自己的灵感，对于他而言，下一场革命将是关于中国城市与景观意识的革命。

　　“今天的问题我将它称之为‘小脚城市主义’”，俞孔坚说，“中国女孩子因追求美丽而被迫裹脚的历史超过千年，这个过程徒劳且不健康，不仅毁掉了脚的自然功能还很难闻。虽然它被认为是美的，却只是一种牺牲了功能的形式而已。”俞孔坚用“裹脚”来比喻目前发生在后工业时代的中国的状况，原本健康而自然的土地被认为是丑陋而缺乏修饰。在一些仓促进行的工程项目里，人们和自然抗争，用混凝土代替了原本绿色的空间，创造出各种散发着毒害的“大格子”给人们去生活和工作。“这些东西是错误而且没有明天的。” 俞孔坚说。

　　过多的装饰是一个大问题，曾经被绿色丰产的庄稼所环抱的蜿蜒乡村道路，如今被装饰着异乡花卉的高速公路所替代，并且维护费用高昂。俞孔坚觉得将景观过分城市化就是一种浪费，土地牺牲了它的实用性（养育庄稼和承载野生动植物的能力）去达到那些苛刻的装饰之美，与此同时还需要去消耗地球上宝贵的水资源和矿产资源来完成这个目的。

　　类似上海这样的城市屈从于“越大就是越好”的美国文化，俞孔坚把它们称作是“巨物的文化”。没有出路的“小脚城市主义”集中体现在那些过分装饰的巨大建筑上，豪华炫耀却侵害到了周围环境。“为什么位于北京的CCTV新楼作为一座摩天大厦，需要动用普通建筑10倍量的钢材来修建？问题其实在于中国人被灌输了一种理念，就是理想的生活应该是高贵的都市化生活，人人都应该成为精英族群。不过如果你真的参观到这些城市，迎面而来的却是污浊的空气污水的臭味，无法让人愉悦。”

　　俞孔坚认为解决这些问题的方法就是发动另一场革命，这便是他所提出的城市之“大脚革命”，他说：“我们需要一个建立在环境伦理和社会生态学基础上的新审美。一种崭新的设计语言，如同美景一样散布四处，健康而质朴。”

　　浙江黄岩永宁公园

　　把一个以防洪为单一目的的硬化河道，用最经济的途径，恢复重建为充满生机的现代生态与文化游憩地。永宁公园为广大市民提供了一个富有特色的休闲环境。

　　沈阳建筑大学稻田校园

　　俞孔坚和他的北京土人景观与建筑规划设计研究所用水稻、作物和当地野草，用最经济的途径来营造了一个校园环境，使校园不但丰产，而且美丽动人。

　　中山岐江公园

　　中山岐江公园的场地原是中山著名的粤中造船厂的城市记忆。为此，设计师们保留了那些刻写着真诚和壮美、但是早已被岁月侵蚀得面目全非的旧厂房和机器设备，并且用崇敬和珍惜将他们重新幻化成富于生命的音符。

　　秦皇岛汤河公园

　　用最少的人工和投入，将地处城乡结合部的一条脏、乱、差的河流廊道，改造成一处魅力无穷的城市休憩地。

　　A Bigfoot Revolution

　　For Professor Yu Kongjian, everything started with Mao Zedong. A Harvard alumnus and professor at Peking University, Yu - now China’s most celebrated landscape architect and principal designer at Turenscape - still draws inspiration from the Great Helmsman’s desire for change. Mao saw the failings of the old imperial system and looked to redistribute wealth among the workers. For Professor Yu, the next revolution will come in the way China perceives its landscape.

　　The ‘Tu’ ‘Ren’ in Turenscape literally translates as ‘Earth’ ‘Man’, but something is missing in the leap between languages. There is something rugged and provincial and defiantly unfashionable implied in the Chinese. And Yu wouldn’t have it any other way. “The problem today is what I call Littlefoot Urbanism,” says Yu. “For more than 1,000 years Chinese girls were forced to bind their feet in the name of beauty. The process was unhealthy, unproductive, ruined the foot’s natural function and it smelled bad. But it was considered beautiful. The sacrifice was one of form over function.” Yu equates this process with what has happened to post-Industrial China. The healthy, natural state of the land has come to be considered ugly, unrefined. In the rush for progress, man has battled nature, layering concrete over green spaces and creating poisonous boxes for people to live and work. “It’s wrong and it’s unsustainable,” says Yu.

　　Littlefoot Urbanism, for Yu, involves the process of gentrification undergone by Chinese cities. The unsustainability of consumer culture. Cosmetic makeovers at the expense of practicality. Uselessness. Anything that distances living spaces from the messy, productive functionality of nature. “Today the 2000 year old Lingqu, the water control dyke in Guangxigxi is a wonder which is beautiful as well as functional.” “The landscape in Jiangxi’s Wuyuan is one of the few last unspoiled paradises, productive yet beautiful” , says Yu，

　　The trouble is that man has meddled. What once were beautiful winding country lanes fringed with arable pasture now are multilane highways partitioned by non indigenous flowers - boxed in and expensive to maintain. Urbanizing landscapes, says Yu, is simply wasteful. The land sacrifices utility (ability to sustain crops or wildlife) for regimented uniformity, sapping valuable water and minerals from the earth.

　　Yu believes modern cities such as Shanghai have succumbed to the ‘bigger is better’ culture of the US – what Yu calls “jumbo culture”. The unsustainable Littlefoot model ends up supporting massive, unwieldy ornamental buildings – showy but environmentally rapacious. “Beijing’s CCTV tower alone consumed 10 times as much steel as a standard skyscraper,” he says. “The problem is the Chinese people have been sold the idea that the dream life is to live as an urbanized noble, to become elite. But if you actually visit these cities they are often smoggy and unpleasant.”

　　Yu thinks the solution is another revolution, as he puts it “The Bigfoot Revolution”. “We need a new aesthetic based on ecological and environmental ethics. A new design language that sees the messy, the healthy, the rustic as beautiful.”

　　Case study: Yongning Floating Gardens, Huangyan

　　The new aesthetic wants to make friends with floods. Usually in flood threatened areas in China, the solutions offered have been rooted in engineering. At Yongning Park, Turenscape replaced the concrete dam and partially finished channelization with a floating tree matrix. A diverse riverbed terrain was laid to create a variety of habitats for native plants and the riverbanks were graded so that once again people had access to the water.

　　Case study: Shenyang Agricultural University, Liaoning Province

　　The Bigfoot revolution requires self sustaining spaces. Shenyang Agricultural University wanted to revamp their campus, but they had a small budget and a short timeline. They also wanted some way of branding the university so it would stand out among the slough of specialized provincial Chinese universities. Turenscape grew native rice and buckwheat across the campus, interwoven with paths so students could move freely between lecture buildings and dormitories. The students harvested the crops and ate them in their cafeteria. The rice was also sold at the university shop providing an extra source of revenue. Leftover crops became meal allowing students to raise their own sheep on the campus. This productive and beautiful campus is an internationally known example of “Bigfoot revolution.”

　　Case study: Zhongshan Shipyard Park

　　The Bigfoot aesthetic values the ordinary and recycles the existing. Zhongshan Shipyard Park is an 11 hectare former industrial park built in 1950 as China strove to modernize, duly going bankrupt in 1999 at a cost of 1,500 jobs. Although small, it is a typical example of socialist industrial construction and as such an important historical site in its own right. Turenscape’s design approach was ‘anti-design’: the idea was to preserve the natural habitat, the self- sustaining wetlands and cultural elements. They also wanted to reuse and recycle the existing industrial structures and forms to fit new functions and to strengthen the visual impact of the site. For example, old water towers became platforms for exterior lighting and the inspiration for environmental art. Structures were thus reclaimed by nature and helped tell the story of the site, the passage of time and the links between the water and energy and technology. The recycling and repainting of the red worker’s box became a memory of the past for the older generation, and a link with the younger generation; namely, the children who now frequent the park. The park will be finished in time to be a showpiece of the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

　　Case study: Red Ribbon Park, Qinghuangdoa City, Hebei Province

　　The Bigfoot aesthetic will minimize intervention and maximize returns. On the outskirts of Qinghuangdao City, Turenscape were hired to urbanize and modernize a wasteland area. The vegetation was abundant and the site in good ecological condition, but it was also a dumping ground. The area was dirty, unsafe and inaccessible. Turenscape cleaned the site up, but essentially left the ecological character of the space as intact as possible. They introduced a 500 metre steel fibre ‘ribbon’ curving through the park. The ribbon provides outdoor seating as well as lighting after dark. In April 2008 Conde Nast Traveller magazine named the park one of the seven modern architectural wonders of the world.