No longer does nature select the most suitable adaptation for its particular environment. Humans of the 21st century are confronted with light-speed advancements in technology and artificial nature, continuously appropriating their own environments. We experience the landscape like chameleons, forever morphing according to our surroundings – as tourists, recreationists, commuters, and "friends". As we move toward experiencing more of our landscapes from highways and airplanes, a barrage of images, signs, and symbols confronts us. Unlike the scenic meandering of natural landscapes of the past, ‘nature’ has become signified – another image we have appropriated for positive corporate image and financial gain. It is human ‘nature’ that currently determines environmental suitability as it relates to our inherent hedonistic and surrealistic tendencies – “combining different atmospheres and different possibilities together” (Geuze, "Modern Park Design: Recent Trends").
Our ability to assimilate into the landscapes of contemporary society suggests that as designers, we need to engage in a paradigmatic shift. The composed landscape is no longer the environment that undulates picturesquely. Our contemporary landscapes are provoking a reflection of the more transient qualities of cyber space. Human beings have become immersed in a futuristic landscape as they glide through it in a streamlined movement; frequently experiencing the world as trends of time and space. Place is no longer static and content. Adriaan Geuze, and the work of West 8 has attempted to participate in this shift, successfully illustrating an accelerated “move[ment] beyond Darwin”. No longer is it enough to relinquish control to a ‘nature’ that has been socially and culturally constructed. “We need to create surrealistic environments, we should provide anarchic environments and even subversive cities and green areas” (Geuze, "Modern Park Design: Recent Trends").
West 8's Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam is a surreal and subversive solution contemporary society requires. The square provides the user “with the tools for their behaviour” (Geuze, "Modern Park Design: Recent Trends"). These tools, like the social media devices of our times, speed our assimilation into the changing and elusive environment. Use of unconventional surface materials, exaggerated monolithic structures and anarchic exposure of infrastructure create not shock, but creativity, furthering the evolution of more conventional site design. The square’s 'incompleteness' initiates a dialogue between the user and the landscape – “the idea that the square could evolve as it went along” (Geuze, "Modern Park Design: Recent Trends"). The users become manipulated by the space, thus becoming more aware of their place within it. “What matters is not the design, or the beauty of the dimensions, materials, and colours, but the sensation of a detached culture, that which the [user] creates” (Geuze, "Artifical Landscape"). Evolutionary adaptation is thus accelerated and made much more efficient.
Geuze’s extension of Darwinistic theory is also evident in his design for the Oosterschelde storm-barrier in Zeeland. With the anarchic manipulation of ‘nature’, the agrarian order to the Delta landscape is restored after being previously disrupted during the damming of the East Coast of Holland. This initial disturbance of the Delta works was extremely disruptive to the migrant bird population. Geuze’s artificial plateau mimics ‘nature’ in a way that facilitates assimilation into the environment. For the human observer, spectating is the only option. However, for the birds “space transforms anonymity into exhibitionism” (Geuze, "Artifical Landscape").
Are the trends and modes of connection to others and our environment losing their novelty and falling short of their purpose? Must our landscapes reflect the more transient and hyper-evolved qualities and functions of cyber space and 'Facebook'? Perhaps Geuze’s notion of Post-Darwinism is misunderstood and misinterpreted. It may be better acknowledged through its association with the founding principles of Darwinian thought. However, as long as their are landscape solutions such as those of Geuze and the West 8 team, that truly illustrate a conceptual understanding of the evolutionary process, we may take solace in the fact that the process which he perpetuates will undoubtedly accelerate our movement through, and into the landscape.
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