The Disciplinary Infrastructure of Landscape Architecture - Essay Example

Ecology and Landscape Architecture Name Affiliation Ecology and Landscape Architecture Landscape architecture involves the design of structures, landmarks, and outdoor public areas to attain aesthetic, social, and environmental friendly outcomes. It requires logical investigation of existing processes, soil conditions, ecological, and social processes within the landscape and the design of interventions that deliver preferred results. Most of the pressing environmental issues including climate change, invasive species spread, biodiversity loss, water, and air pollution, are known to impact ecological systems on a global level. By thoroughly understanding and addressing such problems, landscape planners require perspectives that take into considerations interactions between physical and biological processes at various spatial and temporal scales. Stakeholders have an obligation to commission researches in the fields of ecosystem and landscape ecology by integrating modern approaches and tools including remote sensing, GIS technology, lab work, and field sampling (Kawasaki et al., 1988). The primary objective of landscape stakeholders should be to enhance the management of and provisioning of ecosystem services within a landscape framework. Research should focus on the effects of human activities on ecosystem processes and native and exotic species distributions, effects of multiple environmental stressors, the influence of ecosystems on water quality, and maintaining habitat requirements on ecosystem function. The scope of a landscape architect entails residence master planning, green infrastructure planning and provision, environmental restoration, storm water management, site planning, and landscape design during all varying aspects of design planning and management. Principles surrounding landscape and regional ecology apply in any land mosaic, and this ranges from the tropical rain forests, deserts, farmland, and urban areas. Ecology comprises of different objects that spread out in the form of an aerial view, and even contain living organisms. Therefore, ecology can, therefore, be referred to as a living organism (Julian, 2009). Just in a similar manner that a plant cell or a human body operates, the ecology, which is a kind of a living system, exhibits three distinct characteristics, which are change, functioning, and structure. Landscape architecture is a spatial pattern or arrangements of landscape elements. Functioning is the commotion and flow of materials, wind, water, plants, and flow of animals and energy, whereby change is an alteration in spatial pattern and functioning over a period. Structural pattern in any landscape comprises of three key universal elements which are the matrix, corridors, and patches, and these are the handles that can be used to contrast highly disparate landscapes and for generating general landscape architecture principles. These elements are also the handles utilized in a landscape design and land-use planning because spatial patterns highly control movements, flows, and changes. Human cultures and their ecosystem survive in a mutual relationship. In a real meaning, all landscape are ecological, since each aspect in place, regardless of the size, entails various species and biophysical processes that are likely to be affected by different human actions. In the same manner, all ecological conservation efforts are cultural, because they must involve and affect people. To be precise, such plans distribute costs and benefits differentially among human beings from different social -economic status. Moreover, a plans ultimate success will largely depend on satisfying human needs and values. When landscape architects ignore reciprocal relationship of human culture and ecosystem, these stakeholders are only turning away an essential reality of the views that are with individuals and other species. As a rule of thumb used in collaboration among design disciplines and even emerging fields of applied ecology, it is advisable that all landscape design, planning, and management must be evaluated by factoring the entire aftermath by considering biotic integrity, ecological health, and cultural well-being (human, social, and economic). A primary arena that can be utilized to develop a common ground in landscape design and ecology intermarriage, for instance, is to nurture an understanding of health that incorporates biology health with human health. When we talk about health, we are speaking from the viewpoint of biodiversity and sustainability, whereas in a landscape we are thinking of human health as a core concern courtesy of civic design. Health encompasses relationship among people and surrounding organisms, the relationship among processes and organisms with living bodies, and relationships between living bodies and the physical earth which is simply the landscape that we are living in or planning to live in (Nigel & James, 2009). Therefore, to attain real design and planning, education acquired must embrace ecological knowledge as much as it is seeking cultural experience. This requires that the knowledge of both the landscape architecture and ecologists should intermarry within frameworks that amalgamate ecology and cultural experience. All the landscape design and planning should focus on how humans as biological, social, and spiritual beings inhibit the ecosystem comprising of a myriad of species, and a world maintained and changed through biophysical procedures that are often imperceptible to direct senses. Ecological designers should refrain from causing ugliness, regarding human or environmental disturbances, and landscape architects should advocate for responsible design in space, time and in human and non-human stipulations that comprise of broad implications on how they act as responsible stakeholders. For such a challenge to be met, speakers are required to move beyond separate visions for human and nature, directed by the acknowledgment that people are important species within modern ecosystems and also leaning towards the argument that cultural well-being and conservation integrity are well linked (Elizabeth, 2001). Also, stakeholders should advocate for a vision of a community that believes in diversity and also explicitly involves contemplation for intrinsic values of different species in the ecosystem for intergenerational equity, gender, race, and cultural. To attain, such robust standards for landscape design, modern approaches are required in both education and industrial practice. Landscape architects should strive to collaborate deeper with ecologists. The stakeholders must always interpret and apply current understanding regarding ecological science in physical planning and landscape design. Nature of Landscape Design and Planning Landscape architects and ecologists should envision strong perception about nature, and this includes the beliefs, values, and ideas that they represent which is at the very heart of why they embarked in the profession in the first place. There have been different tensions and inconsistencies in landscape architecture stemming from inherent and unresolved conflicts from which they were drawn from. Landscape architecture comes from several assemblages of disciplines: geology, ecology, fine arts, architecture, and engineering. These assemblages come from dissimilar ideas pertaining towards the relationships of humans to non-human features and phenomenon. Architecture, agriculture, and engineering are founded on the notion that nature can be improved upon, and ecologists play a role of observers rather than actors when nature is involved. In a gardener’s point of view, human beings are considered stewards who manage plants, animals, and their habitats for human ends for either sustenance or contentment. To most landscape architects, nature is not treated as an active agent, even though it acts as the primary source of inspiration, because it is a site to occupy, a scene to be represented, and symbolic forms to embody. Despite the rapid interest in applied fields such as conservation biology and restoration ecology, most ecologists consider human beings to be intruders in nature and have therefore centered on wild and rural landscapes (John, 1983). The differences arising among disciplines can be emphasized by the fact that experts coming from different disciplines recognize credibility of different type of authority to defend the understanding of the world and justify their actions. Even though most of the experts derive power to some degree from charismatic leadership, the system of rules, and tradition, these individuals provide more or less weight to each of these types. For instance, modern science inclines on the idea of rational and systematic studies whose results can’t be replicated. Since time immemorial architecture as a discipline, has bolstered its authority in a traditionally way vested in a certain style (e.g., vernacular, classicism) and commendable buildings (Villa Savoye, the Pantheon). Most landscape architects are today seeking legitimacy for their buildings through suggestion to an original model or a stylistic ritual. It is a common desire to be seen as unique in landscape architecture field, and stakeholders involved in planning and ecological design are no longer an exception. Landscape architecture should be considered as a bridge between science and art, and more of a profession whose primary task is to heal the breach between aesthetics and technology, and between science and humanisms. Constructing Nature Landscape architects develop nature both literally and figuratively, however, the history of twentieth-century landscape architecture is expressed largely as a history of forms instead of the history of rhetorical expressions and ideas. This is the real story of the history of natural and ecological design. There have been several landscapes that have been constructed to imitate nature, even though sometimes they may appear similar, they express dissimilar and even conflicting values and ideas and Riverways in Boston and Columbus in Chicago, were constructed to resemble natural scenery of their regions around, but the motivations that inspired their construction were different in several aspects. Such iconic projects are used as precedents and models for ecological approaches towards landscape design without decisively evaluating values and motives underlay them, hence mystifying current confusion about issues of nature and authority. Reconstructing Nature, Recovering Landscape and Language, Renewing Landscape Architecture Most people are struggling to redefine nature, and the current landscape is mirroring this particular effort. There is no single consensus so far, and everyone is wondering whether nature is a sacred entity whereby human beings are considered one with all living creatures, or a wilderness refuge in need of fortifications from people? Or is nature considered a single bunch of resources for human use? Is nature a unique nature of web processes that link different gardens, cities, and globe at large? These are the queries that today coexist in modern society. These questions underscore how individual’s value and shape landscapes into masterpiece gardens. Despite the range of thoughts about the characteristics of nature, there is a global concern about the future environment and a burgeoning sense that it is required to reconstruct conceptions of nature. It is prudent to seek ways of perceiving and relating to non-human features and phenomena that emphasize on a vibrant sovereignty of non-human while at the same time fastening the significance of human needs and ideas. Landscape architects can play a vital role in enhancing potential contribution towards such an exploration and the landscapes that are shaped as part of the discourse. Masterpiece gardens have emerged as a medium that can be utilized to work out fresh ideas and different forms of human habitation. Therefore, such gardens have transpired as fertile grounds that can be used to explore to explore the relationship between and non-human. In gardens, there is valid acknowledgment of an attitude of a favorable organization, as well as recognition that definite nonhuman phenomena are beyond human control. The gardens or ecological landscapes are never predictable, and architects should cultivate landscapes with an acknowledgment of unanticipated events. Describing certain landscapes as natural while others cultural or artificial, neglect the truth that landscapes are never whole or the other. Landscapes mimic people and places. Therefore, landscapes architects should understand a rich language of design representing scope and concerns of that particular discipline. Landscape designers and planners should master a language that combines natural processes and human purpose, a language that enables planners to interpret landscapes, a language that allows architects to evaluate how well landscapes being developed satisfy fundamental spiritual, social and physical needs. Planners need to integrate a language that links the day to day activities with art and the past with the future and the scale of the garden with the scale of the region. Rediscovering the Landscape language is discovering and imagining modern metaphors, that depict the story, hence, nurture new landscapes (Masashi et al., 1988). References Bolleter, J. (2009). Para-scape: Landscape architecture in Dubai. Journal of Landscape Architecture, 4(1), 28-41. doi:10.1080/18626033.2009.9723411 Dunnett, N., & Hitchmough, J. (2004). The dynamic landscape: Design, ecology, and management of naturalistic urban planning. London: Spon Press. Kawasaki, M., Kawanishi, S., & Sasaki, T. (1988). A study on the Scape Design for a Port City by Analyzing the Image on the Linguistic Medium. Infrastructure Planning Review, 6, 97-104. doi:10.2208/journalip.6.97 Kawasaki, M., Kawanishi, S., & Sasaki, T. (1988). A study on the Scape Design for a Port City by Analyzing the Image on the Linguistic Medium. Infrastructure Planning Review, 6, 97-104. doi:10.2208/journalip.6.97 Rogers, E. B. (2001). Landscape design: A cultural and architectural history. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Simonds, J. O. (1983). Landscape architecture: A manual of site planning and design. New York: McGraw-Hill. . Read More