This yard has one of the prettiest landscapes. The bed has a curved edge, and there is a bubbling fountain slightly off-center surrounded by perfectly placed plants and flowers. You don’t see many front yards with a fountain. Most of the houses I pass have neglected or bare-minimum front yards. What a difference a little landscaping makes! It makes the house seem so much more inviting. I can’t say that I have been much of a gardener or landscaper but walking in residential neighborhoods every day has given me an appreciation for a manicured front yard. It is the first thing people see when they come to your home. Why not make it look as welcoming as possible?
By the way, I live in a townhome and don't have a front yard but here is a photo of the planter by my front door. Let’s learn more about landscape design and architecture.
According to Wikipedia, landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garden design.
Design scope
Landscape design focuses on both the integrated master landscape planning of a property and the specific garden design of landscape elements and plants within it. Practicality, aesthetics, horticulture and environmental sustainability are also components of landscape design, which is often divided into hardscape design and softscape design. Landscape designers often collaborate with related disciplines such as architecture, civil engineering, surveying, landscape contracting and artisan specialties.
Design projects may involve two different professional roles: landscape design and landscape architecture.
- Landscape design typically involves artistic composition and artisanship, horticultural
finesse and expertise and emphasis on detailed site involvement from conceptual stages
through to final construction.
- Landscape architecture focuses more on urban planning, city and regional parks, civic and
corporate landscapes, large scale interdisciplinary projects and delegation to contractors
after completing designs.
There can be a significant overlap of talent and skill between the two roles, depending on the education, licensing and experience of the professional. Both landscape designers and landscape architects practice landscape design.
Design approach
The landscape design phase consists of research, gathering ideas and setting a plan. Design factors include objective qualities such as: climate and microclimates, topography and orientation, site drainage and groundwater recharge, municipal and resource building codes, soils and irrigation, human and vehicular access and circulation, recreational amenities — sports and water, furnishings and lighting, native plant habitat botany when present, property safety and security, construction detailing and other measurable considerations.
Design factors also include subjective qualities such as genius loci or the special site qualities to emphasize; client's needs and preferences; desirable plants and elements to retain on site, modify or replace and that may be available for borrowed scenery from beyond; artistic composition from perspectives of both looking upon and observing from within; spatial development and definition – using lines, sense of scale and balance and symmetry; plant palettes and artistic focal points for enjoyment. There are innumerable other design factors and considerations brought to the complex process of designing a beautiful, well-functioning garden that thrives over time.
The up-and-coming practice of online landscape design allows professional landscapers to remotely design and plan sites through manipulation of two-dimensional images without ever physically visiting the location. Due to the frequent lack of non-visual, supplementary data such as soil assessments and pH tests, online landscaping necessarily must focus on incorporating only plants which are tolerant across many diverse soil conditions.
Training
Historically, landscape designers trained by apprenticing — such as André Le Nôtre, who apprenticed with his father before designing the Gardens of Versailles — to accomplished masters in the field, with the titular name varying and reputation paramount for a career. The professional section of garden designers in Europe and the Americas went by the name “landscape gardener.” In the 1890s, the distinct classification of landscape architect was created, with educational and licensing test requirements for using the title legally. Beatrix Farrand, the sole woman in the founding group, refused the title, preferring landscape gardener. Matching the client and technical needs of a project and the appropriate practitioner with talent, legal qualifications and experienced skills surmounts title nomenclature.
Institutional education in landscape design appeared in the early 20th century. Over time it became available at various levels. Ornamental horticulture programs with design components are offered at community college and universities within schools of agriculture or horticulture, with some beginning to offer garden or landscape design certificates and degrees. Departments of landscape architecture are located within university schools of architecture or environmental design, with undergraduate and graduate degrees offered. Specialties and minors are available in horticultural botany, horticulture, natural resources, landscape engineering, construction management, fine and applied arts and landscape design history. Traditionally, hand-drawn drawings documented the design and position of features for construction, but landscape design software is frequently used now.
Other routes of training are through informal apprenticeships with practicing landscape designers, landscape architects, landscape contractors, gardeners, nurseries and garden centers and docent programs at botanical and public gardens. Since the landscape designer title does not have a college degree or licensing requirements to be used, there is a very wide range of sophistication, aesthetic talent, technical expertise and specialty strengths to be responsibly matched with specific client and project requirements.
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioral or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for construction and human use; investigation of existing social, ecological and soil conditions and processes in the landscape; and the design of other interventions that will produce desired outcomes. The scope of the profession is broad and can be subdivided into several sub-categories including professional or licensed landscape architects who are regulated by governmental agencies and possess the expertise to design a wide range of structures and landforms for human use; landscape design which is not a licensed profession; site planning; stormwater management; erosion control; environmental restoration; parks, recreation and urban planning; visual resource management; green infrastructure planning and provision; and private estate and residence landscape master planning and design — all at varying scales of design, planning and management. A practitioner in the profession of landscape architecture may be called a landscape architect, however in jurisdictions where professional licenses are required it is often only those who possess a landscape architect license who can be called a landscape architect.
Definition of landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is a multidisciplinary field, incorporating aspects of urban design, architecture, geography, ecology, civil engineering, structural engineering, horticulture, environmental psychology, industrial design, soil sciences, botany and fine arts. The activities of a landscape architect can range from the creation of public parks and parkways to site planning for campuses and corporate office parks; from the design of residential estates to the design of civil infrastructure; and from the management of large wilderness areas to reclamation of degraded landscapes such as mines or landfills. Landscape architects work on structures and external spaces in the landscape aspect of the design — large or small, urban, suburban and rural, and with "hard" (built) and "soft" (planted) materials, while integrating ecological sustainability. The most valuable contribution can be made at the first stage of a project to generate ideas with technical understanding and creative flair for the design, organization and use of spaces. Landscape architects can conceive the overall concept and prepare the master plan from which detailed design drawings and technical specifications are prepared. They can also review proposals to authorize and supervise contracts for the construction work. Other skills include preparing design impact assessments, conducting environmental assessments and audits and serving as an expert witness at inquiries on land use issues. The majority of their time will most likely be spent inside an office building, designing and preparing models for clients.
Education
Landscape architects are required to take four to five years of college to get a degree in the field. They learn how to create projects from scratch, such as residential or commercial planting and designing outdoor living spaces; they are willing to work with others to get a better outcome for the customers when doing a project. They will have to learn the basics of how to create a project in a matter of time and will require licenses in certain states to be allowed to work; students of landscape architects will learn how to interact with clients and will learn how to explain a design from scratch when giving the final project.
Landscape architecture has been taught in the University of Manchester since the 1950s. The course in the Manchester School of Architecture enables students to gain various bachelor's and master's degrees, including MLPM(Hons) which is accredited by the Landscape Institute and by the Royal Town Planning Institute.
History
For the period before 1800, the history of landscape gardening — later called landscape architecture — is largely that of master planning and garden design for manor houses palaces and royal properties, religious complexes and centers of government. An example is the extensive work by André Le Nôtre for King Louis XIV of France at the Palace of Versailles. The first person to write of making a landscape was Joseph Addison in 1712. The term landscape architecture was invented by Gilbert Laing Meason in 1828, and John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843) was instrumental in the adoption of the term landscape architecture by the modern profession. He took up the term from Meason and gave it publicity in his encyclopedias and in his 1840 book on the “Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of the Late Humphry Repton.”
The practice of landscape architecture spread from the Old to the New World. The term "landscape architect" was used as a professional title by Frederick Law Olmsted in the United States in 1863 and Andrew Jackson Downing, another early American landscape designer, was editor of “The Horticulturist” magazine (1846–52). In 1841 his first book, “A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America,” was published to a great success; it was the first book of its kind published in the United States. During the latter 19th century, the term landscape architect began to be used by professional landscapes designers and was firmly established after Frederick Law Olmsted and Beatrix Jones (later Farrand) with others founded the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1899. IFLA was founded at Cambridge, England, in 1948 with Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe as its first president, representing 15 countries from Europe and North America. Later, in 1978, IFLA's Headquarters were established in Versailles.
Fields of activity
The variety of the professional tasks that landscape architects collaborate on is very broad, but some examples of project types include:
- Parks of general design and public infrastructure.
- Stormwater management including rain
- Landscape design for educational function and site design for public institutions and government facilities.
- Parks, botanical gardens, arboretums, greenways, and nature preserves.
- Recreation facilities, such as playgrounds, golf courses, theme parks and sports facilities
- Housing areas, industrial parks and commercial developments.
planning and design.
- Contributions to urban design, town and city squares, waterfronts, pedestrian schemes.
- Natural park, tourist destination, and recreating historical landscapes and
historic garden appraisal and conservation studies.
- Reservoirs, dams, power stations, reclamation of extractive industry applications or major industrial projects and mitigation.
- Environmental assessment and landscape assessment, planning advice and land management proposals.
- Coastal and offshore developments and mitigation.
- Ecological design — any aspect of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with natural processes and sustainability.
Landscape managers use their knowledge of landscape processes to advise on the long-term care and development of the landscape. They often work in forestry, nature conservation and agriculture.
Landscape scientists have specialist skills such as soil science, hydrology, geomorphology or botany that they relate to the practical problems of landscape work. Their projects can range from site surveys to the ecological assessment of broad areas for planning or management purposes. They may also report on the impact of development or the importance of particular species in a given area.
Landscape planners are concerned with landscape planning for the location, scenic, ecological and recreational aspects of urban, rural and coastal land use. Their work is embodied in written statements of policy and strategy, and their remit includes master planning for new developments, landscape evaluations and assessments and preparing countryside management or policy plans. Some may also apply an additional specialty such as landscape archaeology or law to the process of landscape planning.
Green roof — or more specifically, vegetative roof — designers design extensive and intensive roof gardens for stormwater management, evapo-transpirative cooling, sustainable architecture, aesthetics and habitat creation. Therapeutic/ healing gardens are also a part of rooftop gardens. These types of gardens have proven to help reduce stress, anxiety and even help hospital patients recover faster. Plants have always been the center of a landscape design and now with these types of gardens, it is proof that nature is a vital part of the well-being of humans. In recent years, the need of and interest in therapeutic gardens have been increasingly rising. Recently, there has been a lot of research done and published on the topic, and as a result, the increase of interest for therapeutic gardens has spiked.
Relation to urban planning
Through the 19th century, urban planning became a focal point and central issue in cities. The combination of the tradition of landscape gardening and the emerging field of urban planning offered landscape architecture an opportunity to serve these needs. In the second half of the century, Frederick Law Olmsted completed a series of parks that continue to have a significant influence on the practices of landscape architecture today. Among these were Central Park in New York City, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York and Boston's Emerald Necklace park system. Jens Jensen designed sophisticated and naturalistic urban and regional parks for Chicago, Illinois, and private estates for the Ford family including Fair Lane and Gaukler Point. One of the original 11 founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the only woman was Beatrix Farrand. She was design consultant for over a dozen universities including: Princeton in Princeton, New Jersey; Yale in New Haven, Connecticut; and the Arnold Arboretum for Harvard in Boston, Massachusetts. Her numerous private estate projects include the landmark Dumbarton Oaks in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Since that time, other architects — most notably Ruth Havey and Alden Hopkins — changed certain elements of the Farrand design.
Since this period, urban planning has developed into a separate independent profession that has incorporated important contributions from other fields such as civil engineering, architecture and public administration. Urban planners are qualified to perform tasks independent of landscape architects, and in general, the curriculum of landscape architecture programs do not prepare students to become urban planners.
Landscape architecture continues to develop as a design discipline and to respond to the various movements in architecture and design throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Thomas Church was a mid-century landscape architect significant in the profession. Roberto Burle Marx in Brazil combined the international style and native Brazilian plants and culture for a new aesthetic. Innovation continues today solving challenging problems with contemporary design solutions for master planning, landscapes and gardens.
Ian McHarg was known for introducing environmental concerns in landscape architecture. He popularized a system of analyzing the layers of a site in order to compile a complete understanding of the qualitative attributes of a place. This system became the foundation of today's Geographic Information Systems. McHarg would give every qualitative aspect of the site a layer, such as the history, hydrology, topography, vegetation, etc. GIS software is ubiquitously used in the landscape architecture profession today to analyze materials in and on the Earth's surface and is similarly used by urban planners, geographers, forestry and natural resources professionals, etc.
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