Dear Medhat Wassef,

Urban Landscape is such a broad notion. If you look up in publications you can see that the term is applied with various meanings. It covers different scales starting from the streetscape, facade design and pavement design to urban skylines. Sometimes the term is used specifically in correlation with urban greenery and parks. It can also encompass both tangible and intangible aspects of cities like the cognitive image of residents or physical design of the environment according to aesthetic rules. Finally, as a part of the urban landscape, the historic dimension is also an important component.

structures of landuse classes patches and connections between each other (buildings, parks, malls... etc). it can be in 1D, 2D, 3D...etc.

and you can add time as dimension using landscape change (time series).

Urban is part of the landscape. Like the occupation layer sitting in its natural system, e.g. cities as water supply catchment. A stratified model that distinguished spatial planning tasks on the basis of the differing spatial dynamics of substratum, networks and occupation patterns - i.e. three layers - was introduced in the 1998 national debate on spatial planning in the Netherlands. See attached figure and more on this in my recent book chapter; Chapter Integration of Water Management and Urban Design for Climate...

Urban landscape is a very broad concept, it is the entire urban environment or any part of it. However, often the urban landscape is not called the entire city, but only open, undeveloped spaces — gardens and parks, squares and boulevards, streets and roads, rivers and lakes,courtyards of residential development and areas of public buildings, industrial enterprises.

The urban landscape is a complex multidimensional system that includes both natural and artificial components. A detailed study of the urban landscape requires the separation of structural elements of both natural and anthropogenic nature from the general concept.

The structural elements of the urban landscape that are anthropogenic in nature include the following elements:

• buildings, engineering structures;

* highways, streets, driveways, dead ends;

* intersections, transport interchanges;

• city square, kuranari, the square in front of individual buildings;

* courtyards, indoor spaces;

* artificial landscaping;

* boulevards, squares, embankments;

* urban design, advertising, small architectural forms.

The natural structural elements of the urban landscape include the following elements:

• different types of terrain;

• watershed boundaries;

* territories with different soils;

* areas with natural landscaping;

• bodies of water.

The structural elements, like the letters of the alphabet, make up the entire variety of urban environment options, and the quality and comfort of the urban landscape largely depends on the quality of its constituent structural elements.

The selected structural elements, being part of the overall system, at the same time themselves, appear to be a complex multi-dimensional, multifunctional structure, and not something elementary. As the famous Austrian architectural theorist of the XIX century Camillo Zitte correctly notes: "... with

from an artistic point of view, just an undeveloped place is not yet a city square. Strictly speaking, much more is required in this respect — decoration, meaning, individuality" [5]. Being one of the recognized authorities in the field of architecture theory, K. Zitte expresses great regret about the loss of artistic expressiveness in urban planning, for the sake of technological efficiency, regularity and simplicity.

As a phenomenon of urban planning art, each structural element of the urban landscape requires its own detailed study, analysis of historical development, classification and typologization, identification of artistic and functional aspects, and forecasting of development prospects.

This applies to buildings, streets, squares, courtyards, i.e. all the above-listed structural elements of the urban landscape.

At the same time, the structural elements of the urban landscape are designed to highlight and emphasize the most important objects of the urban environment, serve as landmarks, determine the hierarchy of urban spatial zones, separating the main from the secondary.

The urban landscape, as an artificial habitat, is designed to meet the numerous, increasingly complex needs of people. For the optimal solution of this problem and in accordance with the requirements for the urban environment, it must perform the following main functions in accordance with the reference standards:

* social and urban planning;

* transport and communication services;

* artistic and aesthetic;

* psychophysiological;

• natural and ecological;

* ensuring security and orientation in your environment.

Each of the functions of the urban landscape can be characterized as follows.

The social and urban planning function of the urban landscape is, first of all, the need to meet the needs of people, based on the awareness of the local way of life, customs and traditions, age, national and group preferences, for this purpose, the basis of urban planning decisions should be based on sociological research.

The transport and communication function of the urban landscape is to provide the shortest, convenient, safe, environmentally friendly connections both within a homogeneous landscape and in the overall structure of the city.

Creating a harmonious environment with high artistic and aesthetic qualities is one of the main functions of the urban landscape. Living in a beautiful, aesthetic environment is the most ancient human need, traced throughout the history of society.

A person as a biosocial being, has specific characteristics.

psychophysiological properties. Therefore, the urban landscape should correspond to these properties as much as possible, and the development of urban planning concepts and models should be carried out taking into account the achievements of a new science — human ecology.

The physical and moral health of people depends on the level at which the natural and ecological function of the urban landscape is performed. High ecological qualities of the urban landscape are one of the indispensable conditions for its existence.

The function of ensuring the safety of people's lives and the ability to quickly and freely navigate the urban landscape, refers to those functions that were realized by specialists relatively recently, which does not make this problem less relevant.

If the urban landscape fulfills its main functions, the quality of the artificially created human habitat will mainly be ensured.

Dear Medhat Wassef,

This is a rather complex and interesting question, to which a systematic literature review is suggested for more detail. Among them, it is suggested to investigate the theories of Bernardo Secchi, Gilles Clement, John Dixon Hunt.

It is important to understand the difference between territory (understood as support), landscape and urban landscape. By urban landscape we analyse the shape of the city at different scales of approximation.

Dear Medhat Wassef,

This is indeed an interesting question. Researchers answer this question differently according to their field and school of thought. I suggest you take a look at this study, " Streams in the urban landscape" written by Michael J. Paul1 and Judy L. Meyer.

In ecology, a landscape is usually defined by its spatial heterogeneity - we would call it a community or ecosystem if it was uniform. However, it is also a matter of scale: 100s of meters to a few kilometers, most often. An urban landscape includes everything: soils, roads, drains, buildings, planted and spontaneous plants, people, and domestic and wild animals.