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As I always like to say: drawing is a tool for analysis, observing and thinking. That’s why a drawing can be much more than merely a recording of a view. It represents our thoughts and ideas at the certain time associated with a certain object or place. Field sketching and drawing is great for landscape architects, since it helps us remember a certain landscape or it’s part. But another layer of information can be added to the drawing. In the video bellow, I draw a view of a medieval urban scene. One can quickly understand the morphology of the place – a hill with a castle and a town that has developed around it. But in order to remember non visual information as well, I add names and functions of certain more important buildings in the view. There is also an element that...Read More

Landschaftsarchitekten design Town Hall Square Solingen The industrial city of Solingen is located in western Germany. In 1993, the city chose to condense a series of municipal services into a new and contemporary addition to the surrounding architecture. This brought about the desire to create a new municipal precinct comprising municipal services, office buildings, multigenerational housing, and commerce. This new quarter was advertised as a design competition, with the German firm scape Landschaftsarchitekten winning the landscape architectural honors. The first phase of the project was completed in 2008. Concept The team at scape Landschaftsarchitekten conceptualized Solingen Town Square as an “urban living room” — a public place for citizens to engage and interact, particularly ...Read More

Top graduate Joe Clancy shares his top book recommendations for your second year of landscape architecture. Continuing on from our first article, here are 10 books that helped me through my second year of Landscape Architecture. Prices quoted are from Amazon. However, shop around, as they aren’t cheap. Of course, check your University’s library first. Keep an eye out for my follow up articles on book lists for 3rd and 4th year. Note: Everyone will have their favorites and this list is only a small portion of the material out there. There are “must reads” and “classics” and so on, but I feel the choices below are, currently, the most relevant and current. 10. Design With Nature (Ian L. McHarg) In the twenty-five years since it first took the academic world by storm, Design With Nature has d...Read More

Vertical gardening in any climate can be extremely complex. The regional climate, or plant hardiness zone, is the biggest overriding climatic aspect that needs to be considered, along with the neighbourhood microclimate, and the microclimate of the wall itself. USDA Hardiness Zones in North America, image via Wikipedia REGIONAL CLIMATE The regional climate plays a big role in determining what kind of vertical garden system is appropriate for a given site. As an example, if the site experiences a long winter below 0°C, a hydroponic system would be out of the question if the garden is to stay in place throughout the winter. These types of systems are not designed to freeze, and if they are installed in colder climates, insulation/heating or complete removal will be necessary to protect the g...Read More

Vertical gardens have been growing in our cities and homes for centuries. The surge in vertical gardening technology in the 20th century has made this fact easy to forget. So, in case you’ve forgotten, or maybe you never knew, here is a brief history of the evolution of vertical gardening! via Landscape Architect’s Pages, Image © Davis Landscape Architecture Ltd, London, UK IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WERE VINES The first vertical gardens date back to 3000 BCE in the Mediterranean area. Grape vines (Vitis spp.) were, and continue to be, a very popular food crop for people in the region, so they were commonly grown in fields, homes, and gardens throughout the area. Sometimes vines were planted for the purpose of growing food, and others to simply provide shade in places where planting tre...Read More

Vertical gardens have recently become very trendy in the world of landscape architecture and design. There are many readily available vertical garden products and systems on the market, making them popular with the DIY community and also for corporate branding. This is the first in a 9 post series on vertical gardens, where I will be talking about different types of vertical gardens, their history, and some of the unique characteristics that have, and continue to make them unique and unexpected additions to the landscape. A successful vertical garden is an assemblage of many different types of plants, suited to adapt to verticality, specific moisture conditions on the wall, solar exposure, wind exposure, and varying levels of disturbance. As such, it bears much similarity to the roof garde...Read More

Top graduate Joe Clancy shares his top book recommendations for your first year of landscape architecture. Here is a list of 10 books that helped me through my Landscape Architecture studies. While I did not read all of these choices in my 1st year, as I had not discovered them yet, in retrospect I feel they are appropriate for helping students get through their first year. All books link to Amazon however, shop around, as they aren’t cheap. Of course, check your University’s library first. Keep an eye out for my follow up articles on book lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th year. Note: Everyone will have their favourites and this list is only a small portion of the material out there. There are “must reads” and “classics” and so on, but I feel the choices below are, currently, the most relev...Read More

After a two week break we return to the consistently awesome Sketchy Saturday feature on LAN. The break allowed the entries to really pile up making this week’s top 10 even harder than usual to get featured in;  in fact there was so many that we wanted to feature  that we’ve decide to carry over some of this week’s entries into the next edition of Sketchy Saturday. In this week’s Sketchy Saturday we see many styles at a very high professional standard of artistic representation. We hope you enjoy it. 10. Paul Dean Coker, Consulting Landscape Architect/Architect “This is the beach at San Simeon, CA, home of the renowned “Hearst Castle.” It is a State park, donated to the State by the heirs of William Randolph Hearst (and a great destination for landscape archit...Read More

Bicton Project designed by Ritz Exterior Design Australian-based landscape architects Ritz Exterior Design (RED) were contacted to create an environmentally friendly garden project in Perth, with an elevated sense of good taste, yet simple and in harmony with the stunning surroundings and the modern architecture of the house. The Site Assented over a limestone cliff, this modern, riverside residence has a privileged view of the Swan River. The front yard was originally a large lawn surrounded by boundary retainer walls, which the architects left in place. The pool area was already built, but left completely apart from the rest of the garden by some steps that cut the yard; the location of the house made filling the terraces with soil extremely expensive, because digging the limestone requi...Read More

EDSA completes landscape design for the highly anticipated Four Season resort Orlando at Walt Disney World resort. ORLANDO, FL (July 14, 2014) – The global landscape architecture firm, EDSA, was commissioned to develop the master plan and provide full service landscape architecture design for Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World® Resort, opening on August 3. EDSA’s expertise in planning and landscape architecture, hardscape design, water feature design and attention to detail unifies the ambiance of this highly anticipated resort. According to Rob Hutcheson, EDSA Vice President and Project Manager, “Our goal is always to ensure that the guest experience touches every aspect of our project design. Beyond creating outdoor spaces that have a positive influence on people, we want v...Read More

The Porsche Garden by John Warland and Sim Flemons. Off-street parking consumes large portions of front gardens in cities, through paving or the building of a garage. Why don’t we use that surface to connect with nature instead of losing it to cars? A family from west London faced the dilemma in an amazing and not very common way. Their front garden had plenty of possibilities to be a really nice place, but they wanted to keep their car secure there as well. It was the perfect moment to contact Flemons Warland Design for professional advice. Parking vs. Garden Jonh Warland and Sim Flemons thought outside the box, and their concept sketches were focused on an innovative idea: How about designing a garden with a secret underground garage accessible only when needed? The whole outdoor s...Read More

shma design “Summer” Garden and Pool project in Thailand. The outdoor garden and pool designed by the Thai landscape architectural firm Shma for the Summer Residential Condominium transformed the space configured by the seven-story building and neighboring wall into a restful refuge inspired by the sea. Located in Hua Hin, a seaside town in Thailand, the leisure space, completed in 2013, provides users with the feeling of being in a wide open space at the seafront. To produce a landscape resembling a shore enveloped in sea foam, the designers combined organic shapes and still colors. “Our concept derived from the ‘sea bubble’, which occurs once the wave rolls over the shores; then the bubble appears in unique forms. They come in various sizes, and none of them are looking the s...Read More