Wind Turbines & the Landscape

[Paul Gipe]

Wind Turbines & the Landscape: Architecture & Aesthetics
by Frode Birk Nielsen,

A review by Paul Gipe. Copyright 1997 by Paul Gipe. All rights reserved.

____________________
This is the first of two recent reports on the principles of wind turbines
and aesthetic design. The second is The Landscape Impact and Visual Design
of Windfarms by Caroline Stanton. There is also a discussion of aesthetics
in chapter eight of Wind Energy Comes of Age. Following this review is the
Preface to Wind Turbines & the Landscape.
____________________

Wind Turbines & the Landscape originally appeared as Vindmoeller og
Landskab: Arkitektur og Aestetik in late 1995. The English translation,
which wind energy aficionados eagerly awaited, was published in late 1996.

The report is beautifully illustrated with color photographs and land use
maps depicting various views of wind turbine installations across Denmark.
These installations include single turbines, clusters, and wind power
plants. Technical specifications for each photo include the size, type, and
number of turbines, their spacing, and the point of view from which the
photo was taken.

The maps, in scales of 1:40,000 and 1:25,000, offer sufficient detail to
identify roads, railroads, power lines, buildings, water courses, drainage
canals, urban and industrial areas, and forests. Combined with Denmark's
1:100,000 Topografisk Atlas, the detailed site maps can be used to
replicate the views found in Wind Turbines & the Landscape.

Wasting no time, Nielsen clearly states his theme in the first paragraph:
"Ecological awareness combined with artistic insight are to be considered
key concepts when technical installations, including wind turbines, are
located in the landscape." "The goal," he goes on to say, "is to establish
a beautiful and narrative composition in relation to water or land
surfaces, a visual balance between elements in the landscape created by man
and nature, (as) a whole.

Nielsen warns early in the report that every effort to 'hide' or 'blur' a
wind farm seems to be doomed to failure from the start because wind
turbines exceed the scale of nearly all other objects on the landscape. But
wind turbines can be successfully integrated with the land. Single wind
turbines used by farmers, for example, become functionally a part of the
farm and its other farm structures.

"Order is the first commandment of aesthetics," says Nielsen. In the design
of wind plants this commandment emphasizes the necessity of presenting the
wind turbines as "a clear coherent unit, i.e. in geometrical--often
linear--formations" that contrast with the landscape. "A wind farm can be
regarded as a gigantic sculptural element in the landscape, a land-art
project if you like. . . The purpose must thus be to make the wind turbines
and the landscape form a coherent unit emphasising both elements. . . . It
is essential that the delimitation of the wind farm is perceived in a
clear, unambiguous way--both at close range and from a distance. . . . This
is best achieved by . . . creating rhythm and order in the internal
geometry. And with a significant distance to other turbines in the area."
The latter theme of visually separating one project from another was
emphasized in a 1984 study by architecture students at California
Polytechnic Institute in Pomona, by landscape planner Robert Thayer in the
late 1980s, and again more recently by Scottish landscape architect
Caroline Stanton in her report, Landscape Impact and Visual Design of
Windfarms.

When wind turbines are erected in a geometrical pattern, Nielsen stresses
that the individual turbines should be "located in accordance with an
overall, thorough-going system to make it easier to perceive the wind
turbines as a coherent cluster and not as single, scattered turbines.
"Coherency" and "clarity" of a wind power plant as a single visual unit is
a theme that is constantly repeated by both Nielsen and Stanton.

As with CalPoly's findings in 1984 and that of subsequent observers,
Nielsen recommends that designers strive for uniformity "with respect to
design, rotational direction and speed, colour, height, and rotor diameter"
among the turbines in their arrays.

Advocates of dispersed or distributed generation in North America who are
struggling to define just exactly what these terms mean will find Nielsen's
suggestions helpful. He describes a wind plant as "a cohesive group,
consisting of 8 or more single turbines," a definition sufficiently broad
to encompass the small arrays envisioned in America's heartland. For his
part Nielsen defines a "cluster" as an array of 4-7 turbines.

Clusters require special design consideration. Because there is less
interference among turbines, Nielsen suggests packing the turbines closer
together in clusters than would be acceptable in larger arrays. From a
distance, tight clusters are perceived as a compact installation. In the
example at Klinkby, four Vestas V27 turbines were installed in a row four
rotor diameters apart.

Nielsen explains that one of Denmark's first wind plants was installed on
the island of Fanoe in 1983. The project totaled 13 turbines. After the
turbines were installed, roads used during construction were covered over
and revegetated. This is of special interest considering the current
controversy in California with erosion from wind plants due to excessive
road construction. In a related example, page 15 offers a striking photo of
a wind turbine installed in the border between two fields. The land is
tilled to the base of the tower and there are roads servicing the turbine.

The book examines 33 sites in some detail. At Kappel, for example, Nielsen
suggests that the design of the DWT Wind Dane 34 "lacks clarity, and the
nacelle appears architecturally unconnected with the otherwise very curved
components of the wind turbine." Other less charitable observers have
called this particularly wind turbine a "box on a stick." Nevertheless,
Nielsen finds the sweeping arc made by the array alongside a coastal dike
is quite pleasing in its repetition.

Like others in the Danish wind community Nielsen argues that proper
proportioning of components is essential for a coherent wind turbine
design. "There should be a harmonious relationship between the tower and
nacelle, between the nacelle and blades, and between the blades and
tower--with aerodynamics as the common basis for the design," he says.
Similarly, he joins Thayer and Stanton in suggesting that the transition
between the vertical lines of the tower and the horizontal lines of the
ground is a critical area as well. "Unfortunately, turbine arrangements are
also often marred by ugly transformer boxes in various shapes erected near
the foot of the turbine. It would seem a good idea in the future to
integrate this function in either the base or at the bottom of the turbine
tower."

Nielsen summarizes by encouraging designers to strive for total solutions:
"from the overall landscape perspective, the transition from the turbine to
the terrain, to the design of the turbine itself."

The inclusion of scenes of wind turbines on the Whitewater Wash in the San
Gorgonio Pass has almost become a cliche among observers of wind turbine
aesthetics. Nielsen's caption to the obligatory photo of a phalanx of
machines on the Wash notes that the "dense compact turbine arrangements
appear as technical landscapes with a scary but also fascinating effect."

Nielson concludes that wind power development is here to stay and that
development will only intensify. (This observation is not quite so apparent
from the North American side of the Atlantic.) Wind turbines, he says, when
located thoughtfully, can enrich the cultural landscape rather than detract
from it.

Wind Turbines & the Landscape is a must for all wind turbine and wind power
plant designers. It should also be required reading for every chief
executive officer of a wind company, especially those in California.

Wind Turbines & the Landscape: Architecture & Aesthetics by Frode Birk
Nielsen, Birk Nielsens Tegnestue, prepared for the Danish Energy Agency's
Development Programme for Renewable Energy, 1996, ISBN 87-985801-1-6, 63
pages, A4 format paperback, can be ordered for DKK 225 ($40) excluding VAT
from Birk Nielsens Tegnestue, Soendergade 1A; DK-8000 Arhus C; Denmark;
phone: +45 86 20 21 10; fax: +45 86 20 26 76. Originally appeared as
Vindmoeller og Landskab: Arkitektur og Aestetik, ISBN 87-985-801-0-8

-30-
Paul Gipe
Paul Gipe & Assoc.; 208 S. Green St., #5; Tehachapi, CA 93561;
ph: +805 822 9150; fax: +805 822 8452; pg...@igc.apc.org/pg...@mcimail.com
Wind Power for Home & Business (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green,
June 1993), and Wind Energy Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, May
1995) http://rotor.fb12.tu-berlin.de/gwindenergy.html.

\ws\ase\nielsen
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.

[Paul Gipe]

Because of aesthetics importance to the future of wind energy, I am
including here the entire Preface to Wind Turbines & the Landscape. The
preface was written by Steen Estvad Petersen, head of the National Centre
for Building Documentation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen.
--Paul Gipe
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The Music of the Landscape by Steen Estvad Petersen, 6 November 1996

(Copyright 1996 by Birk Nielsens Tegnestue. All rights reserved.)

When man places structures in a landscape, its character immediately
changes. We make the landscape useful--it is therefore called a cultural
landscape. The dialogue holds many different elements which together create
a very exciting culture-historical narrative. It contains technical,
aesthetic, and functional requirements that are changing the Danish
landscape at an ever increasing pace.

But this is nothing new. On the contrary. Far back in history we have
formed the landscape in response to changing living conditions. Our village
churches tell us the story of spiritual revival in the early Middle Ages
and represent perhaps the most radical change in the Danish landscape ever
seen. They were often built on top of small hills in flat parts of the
country--locations which in view of today's preservation regulations would
be quite unthinkable. The same applies to dikes and military installations
with ditches and moats; they also represented an equally radical change to
the landscape. Furthermore, the enclosure movement associated with the
agrarian reforms at the end of the eighteenth century also represented a
cultural change with far-reaching consequences for the agricultural
landscape.

But also buildings were erected in places which would be unthinkable today.
Castles built in the period of absolute monarchy were located in the middle
of lakes (Frederiksborg Castle, Koldinghus, Skanderborg Castle) or high up
on a plain (Eremitagen in Dyrehaven, Copenhagen)--indeed in contravention
of today's preservation regulations. But we would not wish to be without
them. By deliberately erecting them in these places, the structures
underline the surroundings, interact with them, and tell a story which
forms part of the positive experience of the landscape in question.

In recent years wind turbines have revived the matter of landscape
aesthetics. They have been subject to much criticism because they are a new
element and because they are located in highly visible places in order to
exploit wind conditions. But they, too, can tell an exciting story. Like
the water and wind mills of the past and first industrial installations
along water courses, a wind farm can "activate" the experience of nature.
Thoughtfully located in the right places, they may in time be given the
same value as the facilities of the past, which we treat as cultural
history. And most of them have been scheduled many years ago.

With today's wind farms we provide the landscape and ourselves with energy,
both directly and figuratively (aesthetically). We form the landscape by
"rendering it useful" using wind turbines. In this process the landscape in
turn reacts by forming us so that we will accept the wind turbines in the
long run and finally consider them not only a way to ensure cheaper energy
but also an element in the landscape on a par with water mills, sluices,
bridges, and cranes. They take on a functional and aesthetic value which
helps us to perceive them as beautiful--as "music in the landscape".

It is this subtle dialogue between man and the landscape which this book is
about. It defends wind turbines, that is true, but it does not just accept
wind turbines being located anywhere. The message in the book is
thoughtfulness and consideration with respect to the Danish landscape when
locating wind turbines, and a summary of the experience acquired and the
considerations made over the past 20 years during which Denmark has been a
pioneer within the production of wind turbines and their location in
different types of landscape.
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From Wind Turbines & the Landscape: Architecture & Aesthetics by Frode Birk