China's Recreational "Tree Field": Reconciling "Rational" and "Organic"

Many urban (and probably sub-, ex-, and otherwise non-urban) parks in China exhibit a stunningly simple landscape architecture strategy that successfully reconciles a system of overtly rational physical organization with subsequent patterns of inevitably organic human utilization.

Take, for example, the square parcel (pictured above) immediately southeast of Beijing's Heavenly Palace. Some time ago, the entire grassy square was planted with a rigidly gridded array of a standard tree species. This single action comprised the park's entirely rational beginning...

Organicism has singularly determined its form ever since. Each tree, however bound to its accurately gridded origin, has grown into a uniquely twisted and branched specimen. And, more interestingly, as people have filtered through the array in different directions and utilized the space in different ways, infinitely variable lines of foot-packed earth have been worn through the inceptive bed of grass beneath the increasingly nuanced tree canopy. An endless typology of trails and clearings have been etched through the field of trees, visibly superimposing a variable system of human circulation upon the space's strict initial grid. There are wide, relatively straight trails along which groups pass across the park in broad formation. There are thin, wandering trails along which pairs or individuals wind within the field. And there are clearings of various sizes where families picnic or individuals practice t'ai chi.

As trees age and die without replacement an additional layer of complexity emerges: the otherwise comprehensive foliage canopy is perforated by dead spots, generating new instances of spatial and programmatic variability.