How would a park deliver a positive feeling? Parks are of great signi cance in our life for recreation and relief. People who want to play games, take exercise, or just to rid themselves of nerve and tense could always nd park as a satisfying choice. Therefore, designers have the duty to appropriately give parks a careful conception. This article tries to gure out the requirements an awesome park should possess based on my observation over a small park in SJTU, where lots of inhabitants come to spend their spare time. And here, I would argue that a positive assessment of a park is brought about by a proper coordinated arrangement of various elements, from the aspects of coherence, di erent combinations and the role of arti cial elements. As we all know, a park is often a combination of a wide range of elements. A mere meadow or lake cannot be called a park. But it’s only when all these elements are arranged in a proper way could the park deliver a positive feeling. As the park I observed does not have a speci c name but the lake inside it is Zhiyuan lake, so I will call it Zhiyuan Park in the following part of this essay. First, the distribution of the elements couldn’t be even or uniform. Instead, they should have distinct density and various forms to create a coherence of sceneries. In Zhiyuan Park, for example, trees are spread over the vast meadow quite unevenly. At some corner the trees are relatively dense but at other space they are sparse. At dense part people cannot see through it, and the dim light makes the corner seem to have a lot hidden inside it and wait for us to unveil them. At other spot where trees are much less and the view is open, however, the feeling is totally di erent. People could see the sky, the road ahead in distance, the buildings around the park, and Zhiyuan lake at the north of the park. I noticed that except for those who are dwelling in sports, people tend to stay under big trees and face large area of open meadow, and this behavior shows that spots where fi fi ff fi ff fi fi open and closed landscapes coexist are most attractive. Actually, this kind of attraction stems from the e ect on observers’ moodiness. As mentioned by Ilona, a favoring landscape should be not too open and not too closed (Ilona 90), but should show harmony and diversity while at the same time providing safety and intimacy (Ilona 95). So both open and closed part of space are important in creating an enjoyable landscape. To be speci c, facing corners with more undiscovered elements (like dense trees, you cannot see everything at the rst sight), people’s interest, especially their passion to explore it, would be ignited. However, some open, explicit space should be built to balance the novelty—imagine that vegetations are everywhere highly blocking out our sight, then the whole park would look like a primitive forest, and despite ample sites for us to explore, we might lose orientation, be blank about our location, and thus being tortured by tense and worry. That’s how uneven distribution optimizes the landscape. Secondly, in a park, di erent kind of elements should have the opportunity to combine with one another and create a unique landscape. The variety of landscapes would bring about the variety of human activities. At Zhiyuan Park, some design are quite successful, like benches aside the lake, the bridge on the lake, the jungle near the lake, a large bare meadow, and a wide avenue crossing through the whole park. They consist of di erent kinds of elements, therefore functioning di erently in the entirety. In the morning, a couple of lovers were sitting on the bench aside the lake, embracing together in the chilly morning winds. At that situation, the surface of water forms a peaceful and romantic atmosphere, and the bench seems to be inviting people to stop their pace and comfortably enjoy the peace and serenity in front of them. As a result, around these benches are often quiet and static people, either talking in leisure, or reading their books. The large meadow, in contrast, is a place lled with vitality and energy. College stu- ff ff fi fi fi ff ff dents play rugby there, and children play soccer. Sometimes frisbee and little unmanned aerial vehicles could also be seen over the open meadow. People love to take outdoor sports on that open land because there’s no obstacle for motion and no blocks for see sight. And the soft grass provides a sense of safety, because people could even roll on the grass if they want. Moreover, the jungle near the lake is another site combining lakes, trees and grass all together. The lake is open and explicit, while the jungle is closed and kind of mystery, so it’s more complex and compatible, and appeals those who appreciate complexity and compatibility. The avenue, the bridge and so on, these places have their unique characteristics due to the di erent ways elements are combined together, and certain activities would accordingly take place there. As the diversity of landscapes increases, the park would consequently becomes more popular and welcome. As an arti cial park, arti cial elements are quite common, and should play an important role in its integrated quality, including its aesthetic value, expansion of observers’ view and, if needed, its relationship with external surroundings. Delicate street lights, old-fashioned wooden benches, the bridge over the lake and wind paths in Zhiyuan Park not only make it easier for visitors to appreciate sceneries, but themselves add beauty to the scenes. Malgorzata also mentions the importance of arti cial beauty through the idea of designing a Chinese garden, where not much plants are presented, but stones and water are widely used to symbolize di erent meanings (Malgorzata 106). At that time, people use their witness to design arti cial scenes to supplement the monotony of pure nature and sublimate its aesthetic value. Nowadays, with the development of technology, we can directly change a piece of scenery. Take Central Park in America as an example, the water of lakes and ponds come from a rain drain system, and the bottom of the marshes is strengthened with reinforced concrete, and the banks are reinforced by synthetic clay to keep the scarps stable and the pond water resistant (Mal- f ff fi fi ff fi gorzata 109). From another perspective, arti cial elements is crucial to make the sceneries in the park accessible. The bridge over Zhiyuan Lake is a good spot for overlooking the lake and feeling the breeze from the lake blowing through our body. So the bridge exploit that perspective, thus expending our opportunity to appreciate the sceneries. Analogically, when designing Ramble in Central Park, Olmsted carefully designed the walking tracks, trying to create as many broad views as possible (Malgorzata 111). Additionally, arti cial elements are responsible for connecting the park with its external surroundings if possible. One of the biggest di erence between Zhiyuan Park and other parks is that a lot more regular shapes are presented. The whole park has an outline of perfect circular arc, and the lake is shaped like a bird with its wings stretched out. The whole park is symmetric about Wenzhi Avenue—the wide road penetrating through the park—and centered on a monument with history of SJTU on it. Usually, a park with too much regular elements are not recommended, since that would make the park look less natural and become too monotonous. However, in a campus, especially a college famous for engineering and whose roads and buildings are all arranged regularly, such design is not bad, but t the surroundings quite well. A regular and symmetrical shape endows the park a sense of rigor and strictness, and could, to some extent, promote the feature of the university. Actually, regular plant landscaping is quite common in gardens in solemn occasions, and is e ective to deliver an orderly visual perception, therefore render the park better ts its surroundings. Generally, a park is supposed to make its elements diverse but ordered, and make advantage of arti cial elements to optimize the aesthetic value. It’s not an easy job to take so much things into account, and might be a little di cult to understand all of them, but fundamentally these requirements are the same, both requires the park to balance all its ffi ff fi ff fi fi fi fi parts and try to make itself an organic whole.
