New Landscape Design

Author: (USA) Holden Gong Kai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: New Landscape Design is a comprehensive global overview of the development of landscape architecture at the turn of the century. This overview primarily explores five themes: site art, minimalism, post-industrialism, symbolic places, and ecological diversity. These themes cover many topics of public interest—such as the imagery and functionality of urban spaces, ecological sustainability, indigenous peoples and their settlements, environmental education, and the role of human settlements in the landscape—that are precisely the goals pursued by landscape architecture as an art form, and the basis for selecting examples in this book. The book includes 39 projects, ranging from a disused steel plant in Germany to an indigenous settlement in Australia, covering urban parks, botanical gardens, administrative buildings, and ecological projects. It showcases the works of designers from around the world, including Studio Girot-George Hargreaves, Dan Kiley, Martha Schwartz, West8, and others. Landscape architecture not only focuses on fixed, defined objects but also studies the changes and processes they undergo over time. Most of the works in this book were completed after 1995, and some are still ongoing. However, the continuity of time is not the purpose of design. Lancelot Brown's term "place-making" summarizes the design goals of today's leading landscape architects.