Landscape regeneration project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Landscape regeneration project - Essay Example The broader objective of the urban regeneration project was to change people's attitudes towards the environment by increasing their awareness of environmental problems and ways to overcome them. Physical improvements and environmental protection measures were designed to complement and facilitate leisure, training, and social activities on the grounds of the Park. The Park's development was based on a well-integrated Master Plan. The Urban Pilot Project focused on the first stage, which developed an area of about 0.7 km. The Project was implemented from January 1991 to June 1995. The planned cost amounted to 7.68 MECU, 75% of which comprised co-financing from the European Regional Development. The aim of the project was to address the poor quality of the environment and the economic and social blight. This project combines a scheme which would have an immediate impact on the quality of life of the local inhabitants, but which would also be of a broader benefit in terms of increasing the environmental awareness of the general public. The objectives of the Queen's Tower Park project were: to improve the quality of the environment in West Athens : a.) to develop leisure and sports facilities; b.) to increase the public's environmental awareness; c.) to spread the benefits of economic growth to local communities; d.) to unite members of immigrant minorities into the community's; e.) to push local authorities to develop a more integrated approach to their problems; f.) to foster trade activities to support the Park; g.) to preserve historic buildings within the Park's boundaries. DISCUSSION OF THE QUOTATION AND THE EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE CONVENTION The Athens Urban Regeneration Program mirrors the key themes of the Olwig quotation, "Architects who think only in terms of the power of scenic space, ignoring the exigencies of community and place, run the risk of producing landscapes of social inequality like those of the great eighteenth-century British estates It is also possible, however, for architects to shape environments that foster the desire to maintain the continuities that maintain a collective sense of commonwealth, rooted in custom but open to change." (Olwig, 2002).This quotation is applicable to the Athens Project since the architectural developments in that area focused on fostering close interaction among communities and uplifting their socio-economic welfare through well-paved roads, telecommunication facilities and other infrastructure upgrading system.The Athens Urban Pilot Project aimed to tackle environmental and social problems in West Athens. Prior to this development, this city district has been affected b y rapid urbanization which, coupled with a lack of planned urban development, has led to a series of social and environmental problems. The district had no social amenities, inadequate social, educational, leisure and welfare facilities, and the absence of accessible green open space. Moreover, economic conditions became difficult. The decline in manufacturing employment in Western Athens led to high unemployment to the region, with a large proportion of the population on a low income. The area is filled with immigrants who transferred in the 1950s and 1960s.Graham et.al., (2000) argued that heritage exists simultaneously as an economic commodity. The economic functions of heritage have generally been presented as secondary and barely tolerated uses of monuments, sites and places, which have