Playful landscapes build a resilient city

Abstract

There are lots of ways to build a resilient city in the world. With different situations, cities should have different ways to build resilient cities, like the case building resilient city in New Orleans is different from building it in Los Angeles.

In so many cases to build a resilient city, through the study and analysis the Mobile City, this thesis just focuses on using the social cohesion to build a resilient city in Mobile, Alabama.

Using social cohesion to build a resilient city is not to response one specific disturbance, which is unpredictable in the future, but to build the entire city's inside abilities for the citizens to prepare for the every disturbances in the future. Building a resilient city to respond to the disturbances is necessary, but it is not enough, especially when we talk a city like Mobile, which does not have that much frequently physical disturbances in history. However, this does not mean it will have no disturbances in the future. Because our limited knowledge to predict the future, we can not make sure what will happen to Mobile City. Besides building the physical response, landscape architecture should use social cohesion as a tool to build a resilient city as well.

Playful is one of a good ways to build the social cohesion. Through playing, people may have the different relationships from before, and playful landscapes can contribute to social cohesion in different ways, such as play can help us to build our sportsmanlike spirit and to increase our belonging.

Overall, this thesis looks at through playful landscapes to build social cohesion to build a resilient city in Mobile, Alabama.

Key words: Resilient, Social cohesion, Playful landscapes