Landscape Design Theory RESOURCES: Design Objectives Ecology, Community, Delight, Archetypes, Design Methods, Structuralism & Design, Community Design, Single Tree Principle, Design with nature, Master Plans,
This section of the Landscape Architecture guide links to information resources for designers and planners. It will have sections relating to key information resources:
The section on Design Methods contains a historical and theoretical overview of the subject. We hope it will evolve to give practical advice with links to examples.
The titles of the sections on Ecology, Community and Delight are taken from Ian Thompson's book: Ecology, community and delight: sources of values in landscape architecture (E&F Spon, 2000).
The title of the section on Archetypes reflects Tom Turner's interest in the application of Christopher Alexander's ideas to landscape architecture. This was discussed in Turner. T., City as landscape: a post-Postmodern view of design and planning (E&F Spon, 1996). The interest is shared by the Kaplans:
With people in mind Rachel Kaplan, Stephen Kaplan and Robert L Ryan Island Press Washington 1998 "The book is intended to be practical and useful. It is organized around themes and problems that occur in many situations. Each of these is the topic of a chapter, and each such chapter contains a series of “patterns†that offer a way of thinking about the problem. The patterns are not forÂmulas. Rather their purpose is to suggest a relationship between aspects of the environment and how people experience or react to them. These relationships form the basis for recommendations or possible solutions to recurring situations. The possible solutions we offer are far from exhaustive; they are meant to inform and inspire, not to dictate. There is rarely a solution that is universal. Rather, the “correct†solution, in our view, is one that is locally appropriate and responsive to the situation at hand. An approach that is sensitive to people’s inclinations is less likely to be identically applicable in different settings. ..The notion of patterns comes from the work of Christopher AlexanÂder and his coauthors (1977). They characterize this approach in the following words: “Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the soluÂtion to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a milÂlion times over, without ever doing it the same way twice†(Alexander p. x). (p3)"
