Ecological Park: Natural-Cultural Ecology

A sustainable approach to visual environments of cities along with sustainable urban planning is based on three principles, sustainable socio-spatial structure, patterning from nature, and applying renewable sources of energy, presenting a new position and image of townscape, in which proper answers to the ecological issues, economical welfare and public life on a Green (ecological) aesthetics’ basis have been synthesized. Among these, a planning system to establish parks as a guideline and a pioneer for comprehensive, multilateral urban planning and green space /greenbelt designing as a fundamental procedure for park planning and as a part of the cityscape is a joint between citizens and nature. Man as a citizen has lost his active presence in outdoors due to rapid industrial, technological advances and has become stranger to nature. In this way, their emotional and social needs to the environment are under the direct influence of economical, industrial issues and have got a new form. Since 1991, introducing a new topic of city parks, called ecological parks, has put a new challenge on the human-nature relationship and his environment. These new ecological parks which are very different from the previous picturesque parks are in harmonious with sustainable cityscape planning rules resulted from a sustainable urban planning. This paper purposes to have a descriptive survey on the related literature and a comparative analysis on the successful examples of such ecological parks, handling what the characteristics of those ecological parks are in reproducing the cultural-natural identity of a place and reinforcing a sustainable townscape? Does the ‘ecological’ term attached to ‘a sustainable planning’ phrase just mean natural ecology or indeed, it means a social ecology and or maybe a combination of these two? And along this, to design eco-oriented, which trend must be considered to follow? Resulted from these surveys /studies extremely introduce the characteristics of an ecological park as a combination of a natural scope and a cultural scope through which public spaces are planned along with an ecological approach. Many factors, including increasing purposeful social relations along with direct and indirect teaching and introducing techniques for protecting environment consists basic outlines for a suitable planning and its functions. Most successful examples of these parks, regarding the spirit of the matter, have formed in sites which some time a producing-consuming cycle performed to vitalize it once again. Such endeavor explains a simultaneously serious attention to natural ecology and cultural ecology to create a dynamic visual and functional condition for a city and this, itself may, in turn, introduce a technique to revitalize and renovate forgotten urban ecosystems.