Historical Ground investigates how contemporary landscape architecture invokes and displays the history of a site. In the light of modernism's neglect of history, these essays by John Dixon Hunt explore how, in fact, designers do attach importance to how a location manifests its past.

The process involves, on the one hand, registering how geography, topography and climate determine design and, on the other, how history discovered or even created for a site can structure its design and its reception. History can be evident, exploited, invented or feigned - it can be original or a new history which becomes part of how we view a place.

Landscapes discussed in this book come from across Europe and the United States, highlighting the work of designers who have drawn from site history in their design, or have purposefully created their own historical account of the location. The author explores not just the historical past, but how new ground can be given a life and a future.

This book seeks to contribute to theoretical advances, analytical approaches and applied studies in the broader inter-disciplinary field of contemporary landscape transformation research.

The purpose of the book is to tie together various perspectives, insights and constructions pertaining to contemporary landscapes and landscape representations from different theoretical and methodological positions as well as from diverse geographical and historical contexts in order to elucidate and illustrate processes of cultural transformation inscribed in space. The unifying theme, as well as the main goal and prospective contribution of this book, then, lies in the exploration of these developing forces and characteristics of the new cultural economy of space in the contemporary landscape(s). The primary objective of bringing together in this book geographical perspectives from various subdisciplinary fields is to examine and discuss ways in which the complexities of this newly-emerging cultural economy of space are applied on various sorts of landscapes, i.e. urban and rural landscapes, landscapes of everyday life, landscapes of tourism and recreation, postcolonial and hybrid landscapes, landscapes of economic production, landscapes of the street and of public life, "national landscapes" and so on. The overarching question, thus, is: how do these processes work in different geographical contexts and contribute to place and landscape creation?

Our intention is to create a space for the development of landscape discourse(s) that accommodate(s) both theory and empirical findings as well as methodological issues and practical applications pertaining to the contemporary landscape(s), by examining trends, structures, technologies and practices defining and articulating this new cultural economy of space. Another goal is to identify and facilitate innovative debate and engagment between geography and other sciences researching landscape(s). It is hoped that this endeavor will generate many more questions and areas of inquiry pointing to new directions currently developing in the study of landscape(s) than the questions on the basis of which this task was undertaken here in the first place.

A new generation of Chinese landscape architects, that has hardly been registered outside China, is emerging: innovative, optimistic, radical, yet rooted in local context and tradition. Thanks to their international experience in training and practice, they seamlessly combine eastern and western influences to create something new. They design open spaces in high-density cities and revitalize remote rural areas. Their projects are characterized by interaction and change. New Horizons is the first portrait of this generation: an external view provided by expert essays is followed by detailed and richly-illustrated profiles of eight successful studios including interviews with founders. An essential reading for everyone interested in the current discourse shaping the contemporary Chinese landscape architecture.

Well-being is now firmly established as an overarching theme of key concern to all professionals that work, manage or design the environment. However, well-being is a complex multi-dimensional issue rooted in the ways that we encounter, perceive and interpret the environment. No single discipline can claim to have sufficient knowledge to fully explain the types of interactions that occur, therefore there is a need to draw together a wide range of professions who are exploring the consequences of their actions upon the well-being of individuals and communities. This edited work addresses the above, consisting of a collection of studies which embrace different aspects of environment, landscape and well-being to consider current approaches to well-being research and practice that fall outside the traditional concepts of well-being as part of medical research, making links with architecture, landscape design, environmental perception, social interaction and environmental sustainability. The contributors originally presented at the international conference, 'Well-Being 2011' jointly hosted by Birmingham City University and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA); the chapters have been developed to present a coherent series of themes reviewing a wide range of literature, presenting case studies appropriate to diverse audiences.

Increasingly, we live in an environment of our own making: a 'world as design' over the natural world. For more than half of the global population, this environment is also thoroughly urban. But what does a global urban condition mean for the human condition? How does the design of the city and the urban process, in response to the issues and challenges of the Anthropocene, produce new ethical categories, shape new moral identities and relations, and bring about consequences that are also morally significant? In other words, how does the urban shape the ethical-and in what ways? Conversely, how can ethics reveal relations and realities of the urban that often go unnoticed? This book marks the first systematic study of the city through the ethical perspective in the context of the Anthropocene. Six emergent urban conditions are examined, namely, precarity, propinquity, conflict, serendipity, fear and the urban commons.

This book explores new forms and modalities of relations between people and space that increasingly affect the life of the city. The investigation takes as its starting point the idea that in contemporary societies the loss of our relationship with place is a symptom of a breakdown in the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. This in turn has caused a crisis not only in taste, but also in our sense of beauty, our aesthetic instinct, and our moral values. It has also led to the loss of our engagement with the landscape, which is essential for cities to function.

The authors argue that new, fertile forms of interaction between people and space are now happening in what they call the intermediate space, at the border of urban normality and those parts of a city where citizens experiment with unconventional social practices. This new interaction engenders a collective conscience, giving a new and productive vigor to the actions of individuals and also their relations with their environment.

These new relations emerge only after we abandon what is called the therapeutic illusion of space, which still exists today, and which binds in a deterministic manner the quality of civitas, the associative life of people in the city, to the quality of urban space. Projects for the city should, instead, have as their keystone the notion of social action as a return to a critical perspective, to a courageous acceptance of social responsibility, at the same time as seeking the generative structures of urban life in which civitas and urbs again acknowledge each other.

This book is a textbook for Urban/Community Forestry courses and a handbook for Shade Tree Commissions, tree wardens, State and National Forestry Services, and professional societies. It is the most complete text in this field because it addresses both culture and management, and the chapters have been written by experts who are active practitioners. The book provides observations and examples relevant to every urban center in the U.S. and elsewhere.

In this wonderfully original and intensely personal--yet deeply analytical--work, Dr. Carli Coetzee argues in favor of difference and disagreement as legitimate forms of activism to bring about social change both inside and outside the teaching environment. She begins by defining "accentedness" as the process of actively working towards the ending of apartheid by being aware of the legacies of the past, without attempting to gloss over the conflicts and violence that may exist under the surface. Having established this, she examines the concept of "accent" in a broad educational context, analyzing it, not only as an accent of speech, but also an attitude, a stance against being understood--yet a way of teaching that requires teacher and pupil to understand each other's contexts. The book draws on seminal recent South African literature to illustrate a new way of reading and to theorize this teacher-student relationship. The ideas presented about the relationships created by the use of language to convey knowledge, particularly in translation, are evocative, thought-provoking, and even challenging at times. "Accented Futures" marks a significant and important contribution to research on identity in post-apartheid South Africa, as well as to the fields of education and translation studies.

A ravishing celebration of landscape, its iridescent beauty and its potential to comfort, awe and mesmerise. Landskipping explores the different ways in which we have, throughout the ages, responded to the land, beginning in the eighteenth century when artists first started to paint English scenery, and the Lakes, as well as Snowdon, began to attract a new kind of visitor, the landscape tourist. Meanwhile, at the same time, an entirely different band of people, the agricultural improvers, also travelled the land, looking at it in terms of its usefulness as well as its beauty. What emerges as universal then and now is a place's capacity to frame and define our experience. Moving from the rolling hills of Dorset to the peaks of the Scottish Highlands, this is an exquisite and compelling book, written by Anna Pavord with zest, passion and deep understanding.

This book approaches the realisation of digital terrain and landscape data through clear and practical examples. From data provision and the creation of revealing analyses to realistic depictions for presentation purposes, the reader is led through the world of digital 3-D graphics. The authors deep knowledge of the scientific fundamentals and many years of experience in 3-D visualization enable them to lead the reader through a complex subject and shed light on previously murky virtual landscapes.

Italian gardens vary widely according to their historical date and geographic location. This collection approaches Italian gardens of all periods, from the middle ages to modern times, and it ranges widely throughout the peninsula, from Genoa to Sicily, the Veneto to Liguria, and Ferrara to Florence. The authors are a distinguished group of Italian, American, English and German scholars, with different backgrounds in art history, literature, architecture, planning, and cultural history. The explorations of the subject from these different perspectives illuminate not only their own disciplines, but are concerned to make many fresh connections between garden art and the politics of nationalism, between the art of gardens and urban infrastructure, between cultural movements like freemasonry and site planning, between design and planting materials. The book offers therefore a narrative of the garden by selecting ten high points of its history, which are introduced with a consideration by the volume editor of the fresh challenges to contemporary Italian garden history.

Maximize your water harvesting potential with efficient, cost-effective earthworks In the face of drought and desertification, well-designed, water harvesting earthworks such as swales, ponds, and dams are the most effective way to channel water into productive use. The result can be increased food production, higher groundwater levels, reduced irrigation needs, and enhanced ecosystem resilience. Yet, due to a lack of knowledge, designers, and landowners often build earthworks that are costly, inappropriately sized and sited, or even dangerous. The Permaculture Earthworks Handbook is the first dedicated, detailed guide to the proper design and construction of water harvesting earthworks. It covers the function, design, and construction methods for nine main types of water harvesting earthworks across a full range of climates. Coverage includes: Swales, ponds, dams, hugelkultur, net-and-pan systems, spate irrigation, and more Cost versus benefit of different earthworks Assessing site needs and suitability Soil types and hydrology Designing for maximum efficiency and lowest cost Risk assessment and safe construction Stacking functions and integrating earthworks into a design This practical handbook is the essential resource for permaculture designers, teachers and students, landowners, farmers, homesteaders, landscape architects, and others involved in maximizing the water harvesting potential of any landscape at the lowest cost and impact. Douglas Barnes is a permaculture designer trained in Australia by Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton. He has designed and built earthworks in North America, Japan, and Andra Pradesh, India. He lives in Tweed, Ontario in a passive solar house he designed and built, and he blogs at permaculturerelections.com.

This volume provides an in-depth historical overview of graphic and visual communication styles, techniques, and outputs from key landscape architects over the past century. Representing Landscapes: One Hundred Years of Visual Communication offers a detailed account of how past and present landscape architects and practitioners have harnessed the power of visualization to frame and situate their designs within the larger cultural, social, ecological, and political milieux. The fifth book in the Representing Landscapes series, the presentations contained within each of the 25 chapters of this work are not merely drawings and illustrations but are rather graphic touchstones whose past and current influence shapes how landscape architects think and operate within the profession. This collected volume of essays gathers notable landscape historians, scholars, and designers to offer their insights on how the landscape has been presented and charts the development and use of new technologies and contemporary theory to reveal the conceptual power of the living medium of the larger landscape. Richly detailed with over 220 colour and black and white illustrations from some of the discipline's best-known landscape architects and designers, this work is a 'must-have' for those studying contemporary landscape design or those fascinated by the profession's history.

The World of Andre Le Notre Thierry Mariage. Translated by Graham Larkin "A stimulating effort to contextualize Le Notre's career and to relate the 'French formal garden' to the cultural and political environment of Louis XIV's reign."--"French History" "This ambitious book is intellectually significant, well researched, and cogently presented. . . . Excellent."--"Geographical Reviews" "A substantial contribution to the study of seventeenth-century French garden practice."--"Landscape Architecture" The gardens of Versailles--along with the name of their chief creator, Andre Le Notre (1613-1700)--have become synonymous with the French style of "formal" garden. This style in its turn would succumb to another "national" mode, the English school of naturalistic and picturesque landscapes. But as Thierry Mariage makes clear, the garden style that Le Notre brought to perfection need not be seen in opposition to the later "English" one. Rather, he claims, they represent two points along a continuum that exists between the natural and cultural worlds. Published originally in Belgium as "L'univers de Le Nostre," Mariage's examination of Le Notre moves beyond traditional art historical documentation and appreciation into a realm of interpretation. He situates Le Notre's garden art in a complex social and cultural world, where the practices of land management, surveying techniques and hydrology, military practice, and both scientific and literary perspectives on land use and experience brought into being a unique form of landscape architecture. His analysis opens up the fashion in which design techniques and garden philosophy are shaped by material culture. Thierry Mariage is Architect for National and Historical Monuments, in charge of Versailles Museum, Park, and Gardens. Graham Larkin is Curator of European and American Art at the National Gallery of Canada. Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture 1998 168 pages 7 x 10 38 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-2136-7 Paper $26.50s 17.50 World Rights Architecture Short copy: Mariage's examination of Andre Le Notre moves beyond traditional art historical documentation and appreciation into a realm of interpretation. He situates Le Notre garden art in a complex social and cultural world.

In 1789, Jedidiah Morse described Newport and its environs as the “Eden of America” in the First Geography of the United States. In the nineteenth century landscape architects such as Frederick Law Olmsted created dramatic gardens by the sea for his wealthy clients, and artists from John Frederick Kensett to Henry James and Thornton Wilder celebrated the city as a verdant paradise in painting, poetry, and prose. America’s Eden: Newport Landscapes through the Ages builds on the city’s iconic reputation as a centuries-old paradise, and establishes Newport as a cultural landscape of national significance. The comprehensive history from European settlement to the present day is illustrated by a treasure trove of rare period maps, paintings and photographs by prominent artists, and drawings and sketches by leading designers. Ten chapters discuss topography, geology, and climate; the history of the city from the early days of colonial New England, through the Gilded Age estates, to the 21st century. A chapter on Living Legends emphasises the importance of Newport’s historic trees. The book serves as a critical resource guide encompassing landscape architecture, fine art, tree and plant propagation, and the conservation of natural sites. A rich story of art, history, design and horticulture awaits readers among the gardens, gazebos and trees of Newport.

Pete Nelson, the world's best-known treehouse designer and builder, wants to put readers in trees-his motto is, "get 'er done, so you can BE in a TREE." His new book is a comprehensive source of inspiration and practical information about treehouse design and construction. To that end, he explains the basics of treehouse construction with his own recent projects as case studies. Using photographs taken especially for this project along with diagrams, he covers the selection and care of trees and the design, style and construction of treehouses. To ignite the imagination, Nelson presents twenty-four previously unpublished treehouses in the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Through close readings of individual serials and books and archival work on the publication history of the Gardener's Magazine (1826-44) Sarah Dewis examines the significant contributions John and Jane Webb Loudon made to the gardening press and democratic discourse. Vilified during their lifetimes by some sections of the press, the Loudons were key players in the democratization of print media and the development of the printed image. Both offered women readers a cultural alternative to the predominantly literary and classical culture of the educated English elite. In addition, they were innovatory in emphasizing the value of scientific knowledge and the acquisition of taste as a means of eroding class difference. As well as the Gardener's Magazine, Dewis focuses on the lavish eight-volume Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838), an encyclopaedia of trees and shrubs, and On the Laying Out, Planting, and Managing of Cemeteries (1843), arguing that John Loudon was a radical activist who reconfigured gardens in the public sphere as a landscape of enlightenment and as a means of social cohesion. Her book is important in placing the Loudons' publications in the context of the history of the book, media history, garden history, urban social history, history of education, nineteenth-century radicalism and women's journalism.

Our understandings of the landscapes around us are constantly changing. How we interact with, manage and value these spaces is important, as it helps us to ensure we live in attractive, functional and sustainable places. Green Infrastructure planning is the current 'go-to' approach in landscape planning that incorporates human-environmental interactions, understandings of ecology and how socio-cultural factors influence our use of parks, gardens and waterways. This book explores several interpretations of Green Infrastructure bringing together case studies of policy, practice, ecological change and community understandings of landscape. Focusing on how planning policy shapes our interactions with the landscape, as individuals and communities, the book discusses what works and what needs to be improved. It examines how environmental management can promote more sustainable approaches to landscape protection ensuring that water resources and ecological communities are not harmed by development. It also asks what the economic and community values of Green Infrastructure are to illustrate how different social, ecological and political factors influence how our landscapes are managed. The central message of the book focusses on the promotion of multi-functional nature within urban landscapes that helps people, the economy and the environment to meet the challenges of population, infrastructure and economic change. The chapters in this book were origianally published as a special issue in Landscape Research.

When developing a design concept in a realizable plan, landscape architects oscillate between two different levels of criteria: the tangible design task in context with the planning typology of the park, playground, outdoor swimming pool, or sports facilities, and the individual elements such as steps, ramps, pathways, fenced-in enclosures, outdoor furniture, and so on. Planning Landscape is a well-conceived tool for the planner, which focuses on the two main aspects of "elements" and "typologies". The planner can flexibly shift between these two according to the specific criterion. The publication presents all information relevant to the planning in a detailed, clear, and cohesive manner. These two main chapters are flanked by an introductory chapter explaining the basics and determining factors of designing in open spaces at the front of the book, andan appendix at the end of the book where general dimensions and units,directives and norms are all clearly compiled.

`Identity is tied to place. The environment is not the backdrop; it is woven through our identity.’ So writes Chris Rose in her introduction to this insightful collection on the mutually enriching relationship possible between psychogeography and psychotherapy. The book invites an interdisciplinary, reflective and at times poetic exploration of place as an integral feature of personhood, from the sauntering of the 19th century flâneur to today’s urban activism. Chapters range across diverse topics – gendered and embodied response to place and space, home and attachment, map-making, mindfulness in the city, outdoor group analytic therapy, the interplay between our internal and external landscapes, displacement from one country and cityscape to another, and the role of the urban therapist. These ground-breaking chapters offer new insights into our deep-rooted resonance with the landscapes we inhabit and contexts we construct. The book is illustrated throughout with original artwork by urban sketchers.

This essential publication reintroduces the importance of learning to 'see by hand', to visualize large-scale design schemes and explain them through drawing, before using the digital tools that are so crucial to efficient and cost-effective building solutions. Combining traditional drawing techniques with those from CAD rendering, Drawing for Landscape Architecture guides practitioners from their very first impression of a site, through concept and schematic design and client presentation to construction and site drawings, concluding with two case studies that show the final result. Just as hand-drawing returns to design courses around the world, this welcome publication celebrates the best aspects of traditional techniques while incorporating them into today's digital design methods.

Medici Gardens: From Making to Design challenges the common assumption that such gardens as Trebbio, Cafaggiolo, Careggi, and Fiesole were the products of an established design practice whereby one client commissioned one architect or artist. The book reverses the usual belief that a garden is the practical application of theoretical principles extracted from garden treatises, and suggests that, in the case of the gardens in Florence, garden making preceded its theoretical articulation. Drawing from Medici tax returns, inventories, and correspondence, Raffaella Fabiani Giannetto examines the transformation of these gardens from functional and pleasurable kitchen gardens to symbols of political power and family prestige. The Medici gardens of the fifteenth century were the result both of everyday living and of a poetic activity that was influenced by cultural expectations and societal demands. Crossing disciplinary boundaries, the author compares the making of actual gardens to that of the literary pleasances described by Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Ficino. Although the fictional gardens appear "designed" in that their place within literary works is carefully thought through, their actual counterparts are the product of a modus operandi, indebted to horticultural knowledge handed down from one generation to another in a slowly evolving tradition.

The Singing Crane Garden in northwest Beijing has a history dense with classical artistic vision, educational experimentation, political struggle, and tragic suffering. Built by the Manchu prince Mianyu in the mid-nineteenth century, the garden was intended to serve as a refuge from the clutter of daily life near the Forbidden City. In 1860, during the Anglo-French war in China, the garden was destroyed. One hundred years later, in the 1960s, the garden served as the "ox pens," where dissident university professors were imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution. Peaceful Western involvement began in 1986, when ground was broken for the Arthur Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology. Completed in 1993, the museum and the Jillian Sackler Sculpture Garden stand on the same grounds today. In Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden, Vera Schwarcz gives voice to this richly layered corner of China's cultural landscape. Drawing upon a range of sources from poetry to painting, Schwarcz retells the garden's complex history in her own poetic and personal voice. In her exploration of cultural survival, trauma, memory, and place, she reveals how the garden becomes a vehicle for reflection about history and language. Encyclopedic in conception and artistic in execution, Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden is a powerful work that shows how memory and ruins can revive the spirit of individuals and cultures alike.

Elemental Architecture presents a new and refreshing approach to sustainable architectural practice. Going beyond the standard performance-based and quantitative sustainable measures, it incorporates a broader framework of considerations, including the more poetic and noetic possibilities of environmental design. The book is structured around the ancient Greek and medieval alchemists' system of the Five Temperaments: fire, earth, air, water, and ether. Phillip James Tabb examines how these elements produce both positive and negative environmental forces which have an impact on architectural design - from drinking water and fresh air to torrential floods and tornados. He shows how responding to or enhancing these forces can help us to create a more sustainable, healthy, and purposeful architecture. To illustrate this, each chapter draws on seminal contemporary works of architecture, from Peter Zumthor's Bruder-Klaus Field Chapel to Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece at Fallingwater. These examples are accompanied by over a hundred high-quality illustrations. Expanding the discussion of sustainability to include phenomenological as well as qualitative considerations, Elemental Architecture is ideal for students and researchers with an interest in sustainable architecture and architectural theory.

Communicating Sustainability is a book of evidence-based strategies for making sustainability vivid, accessible, and comprehensible. To do this, it brings together research from a range of specialties including cognitive psychology, visual perception, communication studies, environmental design, interpretive exhibit design, interpretive signage, wayfinding, storytelling, courtroom litigation, information graphics, and graphic design to illustrate not only what approaches are effective but why they work as they do. The topic of sustainability is vast and complex. It interconnects multiple dimensions of human culture and the biosphere and involves a myriad of systems and processes, many of which are too large, too small, too fast, or too slow to see. Many people find verbal explanations about all of this too abstract or too complicated to understand, and for most people the concepts of sustainability are regarded as quirky, peripheral, and not essential to everyday life. Yet the challenges of sustainability concern the very survival of most species of life on Earth, including the human species. In order for life as we know it to survive and thrive into the future, sustainability must become broadly understood-by everyone, not just activists or specialists. This book offers tools to help make complex systems and nuanced, abstract ideas concrete and comprehensible to the broadest range of people. The goal of communication, and of this book, is to build understanding.