Designed Landscapes

Designed Landscapes is a case-by-case study of 37 significant, existing works of landscape design worldwide, largely constructed since the Renaissance. Being an informative and easy-to-read reference volume for practitioners and students alike, it presents key precedents in landscape architecture using site plans and recent photographs to showcase each project. Organised and presented in 12 sections based on project type, each project is examined based on date, previous site condition, designer(s), design intentions, current composition, unique features, ownership and management, and comparable projects. Each chapter offers an insightful critique of the featured projects. Written by the authors of Great City Parks, the book posits that these carefully selected key projects have maintained their status throughout the ages because they express values and design intentions that continue to inform the practice of the landscape architecture in the present day. The book concludes with a ten-point summary of lessons for professional practice gleaned from the studies. Including a wide range of case studies from countries including many in western Europe, the United States, Canada, India, Japan and China, and lavishly illustrated with over 200 full-colour images, the book is a must-have volume for anyone interested in the history and current practice of landscape architecture.

Garden design evolved hugely during the Georgian period – as symbols of wealth and stature, the landed aristocracy had been using gardens for decades. Yet during the eighteenth century, society began to homogenise, and the urban elite also started demanding landscapes that would reflect their positions. The gardens of the aristocracy and the gentry were different in appearance, use and meaning, despite broad similarities in form. Underlying this was the importance of place, of the landscape itself and its raw material. Contemporaries often referred to the need to consult the ‘genius of the place’ when creating a new designed landscape, as the place where the garden was located was critical in determining its appearance. Genius loci - soil type, topography, water supply - all influenced landscape design in this period. The approach taken in this book blends landscape and garden history to make new insights into landscape and design in the eighteenth century. Spooner’s own research presents little-known sites alongside those which are more well known, and explores the complexity of the story of landscape design in the Georgian period which is usually oversimplified and reduced to the story of a few ‘great men’.

A groundbreaking history of the development of designed landscapes in Canada.

Gardens at the Frontier addresses broad issues of interest to architectural historians, environmental historians, garden writers, geographers, and other scholars. It uses different disciplinary perspectives to explore garden history’s thematic, geographical, and methodological frontiers through a focus on gardens as sites of cultural contact. The contributors address the extent to which gardens inhibit or further cultural contact; the cultural translation of garden concepts, practices and plants from one place to another; the role of non-written sources in cultural transfer; and which disciplines study gardens and designed landscapes, and how and why their approaches vary. Chapters cover a range of designed landscapes and locations, periods and approaches: medieval Japanese roji (tea gardens); a seventeenth-century garden of southern China; post-war Australian ‘natural gardens’; iconic twentieth-century American modernist gardens; ‘international’ willow-pattern design; geology and designed landscapes; gnomes; and landscape authorship of a public garden. Each chapter examines transfers of cultural ideas and their physical denouement. This book was originally published as a special issue of Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes.

Within the spatial design disciplines, research through design as a tool and practice has often been neglected. This book provides a much-needed companion to the theories, methods and processes involved in using design-based research in landscape, architecture and urban design. Aimed specifically at researchers completing PhD projects, supervisors and designers working in practice, it covers applied approaches to help you to use design research in your work. With fully illustrated examples of original international design research PhDs from a variety of programme types, such as individual, structured and practice-based, Design Research for Urban Landscapes offers PhD candidates and supervisors a clear foundational pathway.

The Dynamic Landscape advances a fusion of scientific and ecological planning design philosophy that can address the need for more sustainable designed landscapes. It is a major statement on the design, implementation and management of ecologically inspired landscape vegetation.

Announcing the new revised edition of the classic industry reference! Landscape Graphics is the architect’s ultimate guide to all the basic graphics techniques used in landscape design and landscape architecture. Progressing from the basics into more sophisticated techniques, this guide offers clear instruction on graphic language and the design process, the basics of drafting, lettering, freehand drawing and conceptual diagramming, perspective drawing, section elevations, and more. It also features carefully sequenced exercises, a complete file of graphic symbols for sections and perspectives, and a handy appendix of conversions and equivalents.

An account of eminent women landscape architects who flourished in the golden age of country estates. This beautiful book covers in depth the work of six designers Beatrix Farrand, Martha Hutcheson, Marian Coffin, Ellen Shipman, Ruth Dean, and Annette Hoyt Flanders and looks at a dozen other less-well-known women. It focuses on the Long Island projects that constituted a large part of their work and brings these pioneering women to life as people and as professionals.