A Visualisation of Cavite, Philippines’ Peri-urban Landscape Transformations through Morphogenetic Montage Clusters

Abstract

Abstract The use of landscape character area-morphogenetic montage clusters (LCAr-MMCs) is part of the landscape character system for the PhD research project entitled, “Capturing the Dynamic Character of the Philippine Peri-urban Landscape: A Landscape Character System Approach for the Region of Cavite.” These LCAr-MMCs are visualisation clusters created to suggest a localised approach in characterisation that can fully utilize the attributes of the landscape as potential references for planning and management of landscape in the rural-urban interface. The LCAr-MMCs, as a visualisation tool, addressed the need to uncover interpretations of the intangible and temporal morphogenetic qualities of Cavite’s current peri-urban landscape. Finding a visualisation method that can express the landscape’s adaptation to changes caused by peri-urbanisation was important in future planning initiatives, and the LCAr-MMCs provided that by showcasing the changes and patterns of development in Cavite through an assemblage of written texts, images, and cartographic maps. Cavite’s LCAr-MMCs became sources of evidence of the waves of landscape change in this landscape region. LCAr-MMCs supplied a collage of anecdotes and images depicting the evolution of Cavite’s landscape throughout time. The four (4) landscape clusters resulting from this project also created manageable sets of information known as periods of landscape influences, which were organised in phases of landscape evolution. The LCAr-MMCs asserted the adaptive qualities of the peri-urban landscape as well as the temporality of its natural and cultural environment. These clusters eventually exhibited an evolutionary landscape character that gave rise to the peri-urban landscape we know today.