It is easy to be jaded by another academic construct, but Landscape Urbanism is at least moving Landscape Architecture back into critical and applied situations.
From Wiki
Landscape Urbanism is a theory of urbanism arguing that landscape, rather than architecture, is more capable of organizing the city and enhancing the urban experience. Landscape Urbanism has emerged as a theory in the last ten years and is far from being a coherent doctrine. Charles Waldheim, James Corner, Alex Krieger, and Mohsen Mostafavi are among the instructors, practitioners, and theorists who have been most responsible for articulating the terms of landscape urbanism. Interestingly, an early and influential landscape urbanism project, Paris’s Parc de la Villette, has been influential for both its actual built environment, designed by architect Bernard Tschumi, as well as the runner-up’s (unbuilt) design, by Rem Koolhaas. Still, most of the important projects related to this theory have yet to be built, so design competitions have been an influential stage for the development of the theory.
But….for the kicks, it is important to note that LU is just a variant on what many of are already doing, but not using it for marketing:
This website sort of nails it:
http://www.ruderal.com/bullshit/bullshit.htm
