BRIDGING THE GAPS BETWEEN LANDSCAPE DESIGN PRACTICE AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: A GRAPHICAL INTERPRETATION

Practitioners in the fields of landscape planning and design seem less taking advantage of, or even paying no attention to, existing findings of scientific research in other disciplines; and, they often conduct so-called “transdisciplinary” study on their own, but most of the outcomes are uncompetitive with those proven research findings in relevant fields. The author believed that it is essentially resulted from several dislocations between landscape practice and modern scientific research, that are, the gaps between holism and deconstruction, elements and functions, as well as graphics and texts. To bridge such gaps, this article puts forward two solutions: one is problem-finding and-addressing, and the other is synthesizing and visualization of research results, particularly through graphical interpretation.     

BEYOND SERVICES: DESIGN WITH DREDGE

Landscape architecture is in the midst of a renaissance. For the first time, a landscape architect was awarded the McArthur Foundation Fellowship. Large professional service contracts are being tendered to practitioners to reimagine urban parks, waterfronts, and downtown development districts. The scope and scale of these projects are significant, as are the impacts these commissions are having on the social, ecological, and economic fabric of the cities in which they are taking place. However, inasmuch as the client-driven professional service model through which these landscapes take shape is essential to the financial health and prestige of landscape architects, it represents only one model of landscape practice. The Design with Dredge program seeks to expand beyond services and into a model of professional practice that proactively collocates research, design, experimentation, activism, and adaptive management with community and strategic partnerships. The model does not attempt to supplant or undermine the business of landscape architecture. What it does do is to widen the aperture of possibilities and extend the field of action for landscape architects who wish to engage more directly with the medium of landscape and specifically with anthropogenic sediment processes including large- and small-scale dredging operations. This broadened professional nexus creates opportunities for practitioners, community members, academics, regulators, and industry experts to advance shared conceptual frameworks, planning priorities, and applied landscape strategies for resilient dredged material management in the Baltimore-Chesapeake Bay region, providing a precedent for others who may wish to explore new modes of practice and emerging landscape infrastructure issues facing port cities and coastal communities.     

实践研究:创新知识和方法的范式

In this article, the author concluded the patterns and challenges of practice research by Peking University-Turenscape into the answers to three questions: 1) By conducting practice research, people can gain the knowledge and methodologies to address authentic practice issues with constant attempts; 2) College faculties and students, researchers, and planners / designers are the agencies of practice research, but they are in dilemma because of the over pursuit for paper publication and citation in academic performance assessment, and the insufficient time and budget for research leading a fact that generic planning schemes and stereotypes are popularly employed; And 3) the healthy development and long-term promotion of practice research relies on the growth of the market-oriented industry. As one type of the practice research, “prototype study” offers a paradigm for the innovation of knowledge and methodology. Oriented to future challenges and uncertainties, it would help extend the horizon of Landscape Architecture, providing designers and scholars with prospective design insights and flexible working methods.     

ILLUSTRATED PRINCIPLES OF LANDSCAPE ECOLOGICAL PLANNING AND DESIGN : TEACHING EXPLORATIONS ON BRIDGING THEORIES WITH PRACTICE OF LANDSCAPE ECOLOGICAL PLANNING AND DESIGN

By reviewing the structure of the book Illustrated Principles of Landscape Ecological Planning and Design, this article reexamines the relationship between theoretical study, teaching, and practice in landscape ecological planning and design. It first explores how to apply the principles of ecological sciences (and other relevant disciplines) into related research, teaching, and practice of landscape ecological planning and design. The authors put forward a multi-level research system that integrates fundamental theories, application bases, and practice, in order to bridge ecological principles with planning and design practice. In addition, based on this landscape ecological planning and design system, the authors developed a T-P-C Approach, a universal operating procedure that links up Theories, Patterns or Principles, and Practice Cases and centers in spatial principles. Through a reader sampling survey, the research system of landscape ecological planning and design is refined and improved based on audience’s comments.     

PARTICIPATION,INTERPRETATION, AND REPRESENTATION OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN

At the beginning of this interview, Zhang Dong, partner of Z+T Studio, believes that landscapes of each nation should be closely rooted in its own culture and designing landscapes which praise China’s cultural identity should be a part of Chinese designers’ values and beliefs. Beside of integrating with strategies of sustainability and resilience, landscape design should also combine with environmental education. Zhang summarizes a landscape design process into “two objective aspects and one subjective aspect,” and points out that a designer’s professional knowledge, social values, and aesthetic preferences together influence his / her acquisition of information from sites and the design what and how he / she will make. While recognizing the importance of ecology and public participation to landscape design, he stresses that design essentially is to solve problems in a creative way and landscape designers should not neglect the fundamentality of spatial creation and aesthetics to the profession and the discipline. Finally, he explains the Whole- Process Participation design mode adopted by Z+T Studio, and how it helps improve designers’ capacity in observation and representation.     

现代雕塑与现代景观设计

现代景观设计的发展除根植于丰厚的园林传统外,还受到现代艺术的极大影响。现代雕塑,尤其是极简主义和大地艺术的思想和手法对当代景观设计产生了很大作用。大地艺术是雕塑和景观的综合,今天许多景观作品同时也被认为是大地艺术作品。     

声景方法在景观设计中的作用

Soundscape starts from human’s perception and understanding of users’ needs and expectations of a space in an un-visual observation and expression form. Similar to visual landscape, soundscape costbenefit can be rather attractive. However, how to integrate soundscape approaches into landscape design has not been sufficiently understood or applied by designers and practitioners. This paper aims to discuss the roles of soundscape approaches in landscape design by exploring the research outcomes, national policies, and the state-of-the-art design practice especially across the UK. The design elements of landscape have been demonstrated to be able to form positive soundscape in terms of both noise barrier and positive sound source, although there is still a lack of research on soundscape approaches in landscape design. Besides, relevant policies should encourage appropriate soundscapes and diversity of soundscapes in both urban and rural areas, which could provide more possibilities for landscape designers to create innovative design solutions for noise problems. The landscape design options need further development through collaboration and innovative thinking so that a greater variety of solutions can be implemented. Soundscape approaches are those which take into account interests of different groups, including transport authorities and developers. Coordinated solutions can be defined with the help of landscape and urban architects to fulfil stakeholders’ interests by creating a desirable urban soundscape.     

基于循证设计理念的护理单元设计研究

循证设计是以实证研究为基础的设计理论和方法,建筑用后评价是循证设计的重要方面.基于循证设计理念,医疗建筑功能及环境后评价课题组对全国20家综合医院的功能和空间使用情况展开深入调研并进行用后评价.本文针对其中护理单元的后评价结果进行分析,总结出护理单元平面设计中护理单元的规模、护理单元功能组成及区域面积比例、护理单元房间组成和房间位置关系这3个重要质量控制点,并结合广州市番禺中心医院护理单元设计实例,探讨上述3个方面的设计原则,希望为医院护理单元的设计提供参考.     

生态还是自然主义: 关于当代种植设计的简要回顾和一些思考

Nature is a cultural construct, and a symbolic form to our cultural landscape. It plays a critical role in the profession of Landscape Architecture, shaping both the practice in the constructed environment as well as the conception of landscape in Pedagogy. This article evaluates contemporary landscape architecture practice in the U.S. through the lens of planting design and ecological design approaches. This retrospect situates selected individuals and their practices in the field of landscape architecture in the past two decades, in parallel with the evolving ecological understanding. These individuals and their works demonstrate the changes in planting design and ecological thinking in the professional practice, and most importantly how these changes contribute to current ecological design methodologies, landscape aesthetics, and public perception of landscape. In addition, the article aims to illustrate a shifting conception of Nature over time and in different cultural context, in which different conceptions of Nature facilitate various approaches to addressing environmental issues. By situating in such context, the article hopes to provide a critical view of contemporary American landscape architecture practice and the current ecological agenda, in order to enable discussions regarding the professional practice in the future.     

A DISCOURSE ON LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE: AT THE INTERSECTION OF DESIGN,ECOLOGY, RESILIENCE,AND RESEARCH

Most of the pressing challenges in the Anthropocene era are ecological, such as climate change and environmental degradation, all with profound impacts on socio-economics and equity. While ecology and resilience are among the most salient topics in contemporary landscape architecture, their inherent relationship and differences have deep implications on practice. The authors argue that ecology is all-encompassing and has a strong focus on system complexity without biasing or favoring any specific species or parts of the ecosystem. Resilience, when discussed in the context of planning and design, however, embodies a strong human-centric element. Ecocentric vs. anthropocentric perspectives provoke further discussion around an evolving relationship between ecological function and aesthetic forms that have been heavily informed by cultural and societal contexts. By translating environmental policies and social preferences, landscape architects command tremendous power to connect with the primary users of the built environment — the general public. Collaboration and integrated research are required to make significant progress on the complex environmental challenges the world faces today.     

SHANGHAI SANLIN VALLEY PARK — LANDSCAPE DESIGN OF AN URBAN GREEN WEDGE

As one of the eight major green wedges within Shanghai’s overall urban planning in the city center, Sanlin Valley Park serves as an important intersection between ecological corridors along the Huangpu River and Shanghai’s outer ring road. During the rapid urbanization process, the city’s ecology has been facing constant deterioration. Furthermore, the city is experiencing an alarming loss of biodiversity, as well as increasingly severe urban heat island effect. To alleviate these issues, the project adopts a “valley” concept as the core of its design and utilizes thoughtful design strategies in five aspects: water management, wind corridors and micro-climates, ecosystem, transportation, and program and experience. With these strategies, the design team aims to improve the site’s connectivity, restore its ecology, reshape habitats, create a resilient landscape, and forge a vibrant urban hub that can also serve as the city’s ecological research base. During the design process, the design team adopts certain principles of landscape practices within the USA — that a project should encourage public participation of all socio-economic levels and place emphasis on the experience and benefits of the public. This form of multi-lateral cooperation allows for the park to constantly have its design plan reviewed and improved. It also allows for iterative responses to issues on the ground during construction. Last but not least, it instigates careful considerations of how to manage the park and its ecosystem, both in terms of cost and feasibility. By adopting all of these principles, the design team aspires to truly accede to citizens’ needs, all while introducing a sustainable ecosystem that would, ultimately, contribute to a much improved ecology and economy.     

THE SPARK OF CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE CREATIVITY — THE FOUNDATION LANDSCAPE DESIGN STUDIO IN THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Traditional landscape design studio training starts with the learning of a classic or prominent landscape project, may it be through site observation or a trace-over / imitation exercise. Foundation year students in a landscape program typically take the landscape precedent project as a study ground, to learn about the landscape master’s design through the mimicking process in the trace-over exercise, or to learn about the articulation of spatial design through site observation. Landscape Architecture, afterall, is a creative endeavor. Thus, an alternative approach is to start the fundamental training with the study of artistic processes, to foster appreciation in art and design, innovative concept development, and articulation in craftsmanship. Also, the contemporary discourse of Landscape Architecture is no longer simply about spatial design, but has transformed to require understanding of process, operation, step-by-step mechanism, movement, and how a system works. The performative and dynamic aspects of landscape are being valued nowadays. Such ways of seeing landscapes require a different set of observation and representation methods and skills. In this article, the author shares how the pedagogical content and developments of the foundation year landscape design studio in the HKU Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Studies BA(LS) Program help train students with such new interpretations to contemporary Landscape Architecture.     

身体经验与时空想象—— 基于场地、场景、场域的景观建构原型研究

Contemporary landscape is an important medium that resists the environmental homogeneity and diversifies the cultural imagery. The neglect of physical experience would intensify the perception contradiction and separation between people and the site. This paper proposes to use the prototype of the interactions between the body, time, and space to build an abstract discourse to study the design dimensions of site, sight, and insight based on different elements—the three dimensions are represented as perception, conception, and live. It then focuses on how to employ design methods (including the arrangement of spatial sequence and direction, the design of thresholds in the space, the creation of texts and syntaxes, and the stimulation of events and social imagery) to form the push-pull movement in the material space, the abschattung and gestalt of ideographic texts in the meaning space, and the apperception of the social field, so as to enhance people’s perception of the landscape. This paper studies physical experience and spacetime imagery to extract and deduce the thinking of landscape design within varied dimensions, and argues that a profound and intimate relationship between man and the site can be established by organizing different elements under the ternary system of site, sight, and insight.     

LA PKU’S RESEARCH ON CHINA’S TRADITIONAL ECO-WISDOM AND RELATED APPLICATION IN CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE PLANNING AND DESIGN

Since 1997, LA PKU has conducted a series of studies on China’s traditional ecological wisdom and related application in contemporary landscape planning and design. This paper first reviews the background and the course of LA PKU’s research: In early years, they studied on Feng-shui and vernacular landscapes that stemmed from their understanding and response to local natural and human processes in planning and design practice; In 2006, Kongjian Yu proposed the concept that Landscape Architecture is a discipline concentrating on the art of survival, which has greatly promoted the study and revival of traditional eco-wisdom, not only providing a historical base for the modern development of Landscape Architecture, but also applying the research results in responding to contemporary environmental and ecological problems; In 2014, developed upon the achievement on the art of survival, LA PKU further explored the deep form of China’s traditional landscapes by studying local spatial forms and design strategies on micro- and site-scales and translating such ecological solutions into China’s contemporary landscape design. The paper also reviews on LA PKU’s important research results over the past two decades, including traditional agricultural landscapes, vernacular settlements, and traditional water-adaptive landscapes.     

北林园林学院园林设计发展概况与思考

在北京林业大学建校60年之际,从园林设计教研室的视角,介绍了园林学院园林设计发展概况,包括优秀的设计教学传统与设计实践基础,教师人才梯队与设计学术研究团队建设,设计人才培养与园林设计课程改革等方面,并提出了对设计教学与设计实践的思考。     

生态景观设计40年

本文简要总结了英国生态景观设计的历史,阐述了在景观设计中如何纳入生态设计原则。通过对位于爱丁堡郊区里卡顿的一所新大学校园的规划与建设的案例研究,阐明了生态景观理论在景观设计中的实践。     

基于感知自然的现代景观设计

阳光、空气和水孕育着生命万物，一切自然之物以直接或间接的方式影响着人类。人和自然有天然的联系，人对自然有天生的眷恋，人类从学习和认识自然的过程中得到进步，自然规律、自然和谐、自然资源、自然的物质形态深深地影响人类意识形态的发展，尽管现代景观设计产生许多流派和风格，但景明设计和其他设计一样，深受自然万物的影响、景观设计师从自然中汲取灵感，许多根源于自然形态的优秀景观作品充满生命力，本文从设计与自然的关系入手，探讨自然因素对景观设计的影响，并分析两个景观作品案例，以描述现代景观设计与自然元素之间的关系。     

OPERATIONALIZING POLYCENTRICITY FOR LANDSCAPE RESILIENCE

Landscapes are complex adaptive socialecological systems that encompass human and natural and built environments, and provide essential public and common goods to societies. Facing fast socio-economic, environmental, and policy changes and increasing uncertainties, building resilience has emerged as a main objective for landscape planning, design, and management. A key strategy to make landscape social-ecological systems resilient is to form appropriate governance forms that can be responsive and adaptive to external shocks and other stressors. Polycentricity is such a form that has been proven to enhance resilience. By analyzing a variety of cases, it demonstrates polycentricity — both its breadth of inclusion and collaborative degree — can affect governance outcomes. This is the best of times to become more plural in theory and methodology in order to have a stronger capacity of navigating the complexities of landscape social-ecological systems.     

日本现代城市景观设计发展及启示

日本和中国是一衣带水的邻邦，中国古代文化曾对日本有过深刻的影响。但是日本从明治维新以来，吸取了大量西方有益的文化，使本国的新文化有了长足的发展。由于雄厚的经济、物质基础、先进的科学技术以及对传统文化的执着追求，日本现代景观设计已步入国际先进行列，深得国际评论界的赞扬，成为我们借鉴和学习的榜样。