Bipolarity and Ambivalence in Landscape Architecture

Our discipline of landscape architecture contains bipolarity, not only in terms of landscape and architecture but also because the idea of landscape is both aesthetic and scientific. Furthermore, within landscape architecture there is a gap between design (as implied by architecture) and planning (implying land-use plan and policy orientation) on one hand, and a similar gap between design (associated with artistic activity, concerned with aesthetics as well as science) and research (considered as scientific activity Landscape architects often retain as much ambivalence between design and planning, as they do between design and research

Shifting Core and Slipping Foundation: An Uncertain Future of Landscape Architecture in European Universities

Faced with the dual and often conflicting necessity to be scientific and design practices the discipline of landscape architecture today is challenged to re-examine its core and intellectual foundation. There is a growing trend toward design as reflective practice. The discipline is maturing and needs autonomous theories and methods. Global and social externalities favor attention to landscape and landscape-based design. Landscape is not only an integrative and evolving concept and practice but also a trans-disciplinary cultural concern. Under such circumstances the core of landscape architecture is shifting and its intellectual foundation is questione

Landscape History and Theory: from Subject Matter to Analytic Tool

This essay explores how landscape history can engage methodologically with the adjacent disciplines of art history and visual/cultural studies. Central to the methodological problem is the mapping of the beholder � spatially, temporally and phenomenologically. In this mapping process, landscape history is transformed from subject matter to analytical tool. As a result, landscape history no longer simply imports and applies ideas from other disciplines but develops its own methodologies to engage and influence them. Landscape history, like art history, thereby takes on a creative cultural presence. Through that process, landscape architecture and garden design regain the cultural power now carried by the arts and museum studies, and has an effect on the innovative capabilities of contemporary landscape design

The methodology of historic town landscape preservation in China

This study tried to find a feasible methodology most fitting to historic town landscape preservation and town development in China. With the social, environmental, and economic development in China, historic small towns faded away gradually, either disappearing naturally or overwhelming by the unlimited commercial construction. This study explored a methodology to preserve and redevelop these kinds of town landscapes, as well as created a strategy hybriding the preserving methods based on the research comparisons between U.S. and China. The study was consisted of the two primary phases. The first phase studied and analyzed the preservation methodologies of the historic town landscape in U.S. and China. This phrase compared and concluded some existing solutions to the town landscape preservation. Different from the historic buildings conservation, this research only concentrated on the “landscape”, such as streetscape, town spatial organization, landmarks, outdoor material application, etc. The historic approaches were collected through evaluation of case studies and the analysis was completed by categorizing the national register system, significance evaluation and related treatments. The second phase applied the combination methodologies into historic site design - Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. It tested the feasible preservation methodology in a real site and explored the potential opportunity in Chinese developing process. The phase was consisted of site survey, collection of relative documentation, analysis of existing natural and cultural conditions, and guideline design for the site landscape.Department of Landscape ArchitectureStatement of the problem -- Definition of town landscape -- Historic preservation in U.S. -- Town landscape preservation approach -- Historic town landscape preservation in China -- Comparative conclusion -- Creative project -- Guoqing Road design guidelines and applications.Thesis (M.L.A.

Searching for improvement

Engineering design can be thought of as a search for the best solutions to engineering problems. To perform an effective search, one must distinguish between competing designs and establish a measure of design quality, or fitness. To compare different designs, their features must be adequately described in a well-defined framework, which can mean separating the creative and analytical parts of the design process. By this we mean that a distinction is drawn between coming up with novel design concepts, or architectures, and the process of detailing or refining existing design architecture. In the case of a given design architecture, one can consider the set of all possible designs that could be created by varying its features. If it were possible to measure the fitness of all designs in this set, then one could identify a fitness landscape and search for the best possible solution for this design architecture. In this Chapter, the significance of the interactions between design features in defining the metaphorical fitness landscape is described. This highlights that the efficiency of a search algorithm is inextricably linked to the problem structure (and hence the landscape). Two approaches, namely, Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Robust Engineering Design (RED) are considered in some detail with reference to a case study on improving the design of cardiovascular stents

On a landscape approach to design and eco-poetic approach to Landscape

For Landscape Architecture to become an academic discipline it must present its own coherent theory and methodology for the planning, designing and management of (built) landscapes. This also requires not only an articulated if difficult differentiation of planning, design and management and the interrelationship between them, but also clarification of the term landscape itself

Plant material booklet 1: palms of Malaysia

This book is intended as quick reference for landscape architects, architects and urban planners in identifying palms for landscape planning and design of open spaces, recreational areas, residential landscape and street planting. It begins with descriptions of the indigenous or introduced palms found in Malaysia. It then discuss how palms can be used as spatial articulation features in shaping human spaces. The book also includes a set of table describing eight subfamilies of palms in alphabetical order. This booklet is the first in a series of plant material booklets on the utilization of plants in landscape planning and designs. Other titles in this series include, among others, Herbs and Medicinal Plants, Wayside Trees and Bamboos in Malaysia

A Review of Landscape Design as a Means of Controlling Gully Erosion

Gully erosion is the most visible and devastating form of soil erosion known to be one of the leading causes of land degradation worldwide. Landscape design is one of the techniques used in combating this problem. The objective of this paper is to review the use of landscape design in controlling gully erosion. The method used is a review of academic articles, conference papers, internet materials, textbooks and publicly available materials on landscape design and gully erosion. The results of this study indicated that previous authors whose works were reviewed have a convergent view that the use of vegetative approach, an aspect to landscape design, must be practiced for effective control of gullies. On the other hand, however, previous authors have divergent views on the use of structural approach, another aspect to landscape design, for control of gully erosion. Recommendations of this study include: (1) planting of a combination of woody trees and grasses; (2) use of some locally accessible structures for example, sieve structures; and (3) practise of agroforestry

Landscape Architectural Design as Scientific Inquiry?

This presentation discusses ‘landscape architectural design as scientific inquiry’ and exemplifies this with the description of a design process within climate-responsive design leading to new design knowledge. ‘Research and design’ are issues that need increasing attention within landscape architecture academia. Substantial contributions on ‘research’ and ‘design’ exist within architectural theory [1,2,3,4]. However, within landscape architecture, there are only few publications on this topic. In those publications, either the definition of ‘research’ was not clearly stated [5] or from the onset, design was not considered to be research “by definition” [6]. This is in contrast to several assertions within architectural theory where design is considered as scientific research. So the question remains: can landscape architectural design also be scientific research? Here, it is stated that design can be scientific research when the design method is similar to a ‘scientific’ method and the aim of the design process is the generation of new knowledge. This requires that research questions are clearly formulated and a systematic, transparent and reliable method of looking for answers is guaranteed. Since there are various ways of conducting scientific research, consequently some ways of ‘design as scientific research’ can be thought of. For instance, ‘design as scientific inquiry’ can mean that design is done similar to action research- as a communicative process from which new knowledge can be gained [7]. But it can also mean that design processes are conducted similar to the methods in the classical empirical sciences. In this presentation, the focus will be on this latter method. In the empirical sciences, normally the research process consists of formulating hypotheses, testing these hypotheses in experiments and generating new knowledge from that. To guarantee reliability, the results are controlled through peer- review. When design is considered an inquiry similar to empirical sciences, possible design solutions are treated as hypotheses and then tested. Zeisel and other authors [8,9,10] proposed this earlier, but they were not clear about the ways design can be tested. Yet, the reliability of testing design is crucial for ‘design as scientific inquiry’. Actually, nowadays modern computer simulation methods offer new avenues for testing designs. With such simulations, the expected effect of design can be tested for many different issues and they can be used within a ‘design as scientific inquiry’ to generate new knowledge. Design processes to generate new knowledge that use these techniques are also widely found within engineering research and development. In this presentation, a similar ‘design as scientific inquiry’ process will be illustrated by an example- a process of climate responsive design to generate new design guidelines for microclimate responsive design of urban squares. This process consisted of generating various design alternatives- or hypotheses- that were expected to be a potential design guideline. These design alternatives were fit for mid-sized urban squares within a Northwest-European maritime climate context. They were all assumed to improve microclimate in the problematic situations: too windy spring and autumn and very hot summer circumstances. The design alternatives were composed of different configurations of vegetation and other elements like pergolas or wind screens that were expected to bring about microclimate improvement. These alternatives are tested with microclimate simulations and the alternative that shows the best effects can be considered as new design knowledge. This design process which had great similarity with scientific research processes can be considered an example for ‘landscape architectural design as scientific research’. [1] Lang. J. 1987. Creating architectural theory, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York [2] Cross, N. 2007. Designerly ways of knowing, Springer, London [3] Laurel, Brenda, ed., 2003, Design Research: Methods and Perspectives. Cambridge: MIT Press [4] de Jong, T.M. and Van der Voordt, D.J.M., 2002, Ways to study and research urban, architectural and technical design, Delft University Press, Delft [5] Milburn, L.S. Brown, Mulley, S.J., Hilts, Steward G., 2003, Assessing academic contributions in landscape architecture, Landscape and Urban Planning 64: 119-129 [6] Milburn, L.S. and Brown, R.D. 2003, The relationship between research and design in landscape architecture, Landscape and Urban Planning 64: 47-66 [7] De Jonge, J.M. (2009) Landscape Architecture between Politics and Science. PhD dissertation, Wageningen University. Blauwdruk, Wageningen [8 ] Zeisel, J. 2006, Inquiry by design (revised edition) W.W. Norton & Company, New York [9] Cross, N., Naughton, J., Walker, D. 1981. Design method and scientific method, Design Studies vol 2 no. 4 pp. 195-201 [10] de Jong, T.M and van der Voordt, D.J.M. 2002 Criteria for scientific study and design, in: de Jong, T.M. and Van der Voordt, D.J.M. (eds.), Ways to study and research urban, architectural and technical design, Delft University Press, Delft, p. 19-3