LA INTERCULTURALIDAD EN UN ENFOQUE DE PEDAGOGÍA CRÍTICA
Cómo se da el tratamiento de lo global (Según Vollmer) y como se evalúa
Multifunctionality is critiqued as being too blurring (Hansen and Pauleit 2014) mostly because there is no clear and definite borderline between mono- and multi-functional green space. Tracing the source of the multifunctionality from landscape study, it is argued that every piece of landscape is multifunctional. Landscape is an anthropic definition of non-built area which contains
more than two kinds of ecosystems, it would be impossible to include just one function. A golf course could serve for recreational purpose as well as regulating on micro-climate, just at a higher ecological and financial cost. Similarly, the criticize of mono-functional for conventional or industrialized large-scale agriculture does not mean such kind of land use has no other function beside food provisioning, but rather other requirements rooted on the same space are greatly crippled. Multifunctionality is not something absolute, the judgments depend on the object and range. In the context of planning and base on human perspective, multifunctionality should at least be distinguished from three scales: regional, urban, and local scale.
Multifunctionality is not widely used in regional scale. No matter in the ecological or political sense of “region”, the coverage of ecosystem types is board and there is no argument for the existence and interactions of multiple functions at this level. In fact, multifunctionality is not enough for this scale due to its irrefragable anthropocentric feather. Instead, “sustainability” is a general description of a harmonious future in regional development strategy; “biodiversity” holds an equal perspective and values the role play by non-human creatures, with the special “connectivity” and “networking” of open space as preconditions. Even multifunctionality is sometimes used in this scale, it would be better considered equivalent to sustainability, that ecological, economic and social aspects have been under a full-scale consideration (Yang, Ge et al. 2015).
For urban/municipality scale landscape, multifunctionality is a vital and context-dependent term. The urban open space system, which from a border sense include all open spaces from center to sub-urban areas, is a semi-natural system in which anthropic aspects have strong and direct influences. Many types of ecosystems can be find in this system, as well as all potential functions of green spaces present more or less here. Human intervention on this system will immediately or gradually show as the changes of multiple-functions provide by green spaces. From this sense, multifunctionality is quite manageable. However, human activities in urban areas are also constrained by different forces that conflict with each other, which limit the frequency and range of interventions. Furthermore, every city has unique geographical, historical and political conditions which makes the orientation of planning different at the very beginning. Therefore, multifunctionality at this scale is a drifting point within the confines of conditions, but could be improved to a certain extend, like the sustainability in urban reality (Campbell 1996). Most functions could be included but not absolutely balanced between aspects.
In this case, comparisons between context different urban areas may not be that significant, even if they are all called multifunctional. In a Denmark case, urban areas are defined as multifunctional because most ES present the average score of all study units; while in the Stockholm case, the cultural and water related services have obvious better performance (Turner, Odgaard et al. 2014, Queiroz, Meacham et al. 2015). On the contrary, the setting of baseline and the
The multifunctionality of local/neighbourhood level green open space is least studied but most appealed in discussions. However, the appearance of the term now constantly accompanied by Urban Green Infrastructure planning and practices. Especially in local GI projects, multifunctionality represents the typological improvement of conventional green space functions, that some other services are combined into or emphasized besides the traditional recreation and aesthetic appreciation purpose (Lovell and Taylor 2013). Benefit from urban GI programs, the fragmentized urban green spaces are organized to function against stormwater, heat weather, polluted air and etc. So as the rising number of community scale urban agriculture, which contributes both in the services and cognition of residents (Dennis and James 2016). Local scale multifunctionality refers to the enhance of efficiency rather than all-inclusiveness of functions. Furthermore, synergy effects among functions would be best observed at local scale, which links directly with human cognition and activities.
The scale difference is a key reason of the sometimes inconsistent expectation on the “multifunctional green space”. It may also be seen as an advantage that multifunctionality could be carried out from top to bottom. Regional multifunctional development based on containment of possibility that need policy and strategy with higher capacity; urban level target is a changing point of the socio-natural system that need balance and resilience; local scale tends to be anthropocentric that need add-on values beyond just green sight. Urban level as the center of system, undertakes the necessary responsibility from above, and is affected by the preferences from below. Lots of “landscape multifunctionality” researches have focused on this middle scale, and more are needed in the local and the relationship in between.