landscape design and the language of nature

8/12/2019 Landscape Design and the Language of Nature

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Landscape Design and the Language of NatureSTEPHEN PERRY, ROB REEVES AND JEANNIE SIM

Recognition that we need to live in a more ecologically sustainable way and that the physical forms of designedlandscapes are an expression of the social values and cultural drivers of the time has underpinned the call by

some landscape design professionals for a new design aesthetic - one that reflects modern ecological concerns.However, for an 'ecological aesthetic' to be accepted, it must be capable of generating landscape forms that are

pleasurable to the general public, as it is the general public who will be responsible for delivering ecologicalsustainability in the long term.

The power of aesthetics to influence how we perceive the world around us has been recognised both by

designers and psychologists (Nassauer, 2002; Richards, 2001; T uan, 1974). Similarly, over the last few

years, an awareness of the importance of aesthetics to ecologically sustainable designed landscapes hasbeen growing. This has been reflected in the call by some landscape design academics and practitioners

for a move towards a new design aesthetic for our ecological age (Howett, 1987; Bull, 1996; Koh, 1988;

Nassauer, 2002; Spirn, 1988).

Aesthetics is not about superficial embellishment, but is a very powerful way of knowing and can have a

profound effect on our relationship to the non-human environment (Nassauer, 2002; Richards, 2001;Carlson, 2001; Leopold, 1989).

Carlson has argued, on the basis of Hepburn's deductions, that the aesthetic appreciation of nature will

range from the trivial to the serious. The trivial aesthetic response is based on the formalistic2 qualities of

an environment and its emotional impact, while the serious response requires a cognitive and much

deeper knowledge and understanding of the underlying properties and workings of the natural world or

the environment under consideration

Treib supports this when he states that it is the form and space of an environment that triggers our

perceptions and that sensory perception, coupled with cognition, is the primary vehicle for understanding

(Treib, 2002).

Design with meaning KEN TAYLOR

The garden as a major setting for human activity, and ignores gardens as places of experience withspiritual connections which 'attempt to establish meaning by giving forms to nature' (Riley 1988,p.136). content and not form

Content, meaning, context and significanceMeaning is connected with interpretation and presentation of not just the physical form of a place,

but also the associationism inherent in the ideas and ideologies that underlie the physical form of alandscape, including a designed landscape.

Cultural geographers have been foremost in this field, concentrating on reading and interpreting

landscapes and deciphering meaning. They see landscape as a cultural construct, a product of our

ideologies taking concrete form (Duncan, J and Duncan, N I988; Baker and Biger 1992). Landscape

thereby reflects the character of society. It is a cultural phenomenon 'defined by our vision and interpreted

by our minds'. (Meinig, D I979, p.3). Place meaning has also been embraced by cultural heritageprofessionals with a focus on the inter-relationship between people, events and places through time.

There are two linked challenges here for designers: how to engage users intellectually and

emotionally in the design through interpretative means; and how to give users the feeling ofparticipation. In this way meanings and attachment will accrue and enrich user experiences over time

Space connotes architectural volume, whilst place connotes being and dwelling in, 'where we experiencethe meaningful events of our existence' (Norberg-Schultz 1971, p.19).

These include perceptual space (connected with experiences and emotions) and existentialspace (lived-

in space).

There is a challenge for designers to engage users and lead them to understand what is meant. Meaning in

designs may be apparent or it may need interpretation and accumulate with time; it will be based on

experiences (including the challenge of new experiences as well as that born of familiarity or connectionwith history), human values and sense of fit.


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CONTEXT

Context is perhaps more readily assimilated than meaning. Context is the way in which we make

comparisons with other places; it is related to our range of cultural experiences through which we situate

a place, see it and interpret it, and construct meaning from it

The enquiry inherent in my discussion is that related to the proposition that we should locate designideas and actions within a cultural context so that they have the opportunity to acquire, over time,layers of symbolism, meaning and significance available to the community. We should also see this

as an opportunity to design in a pluralistic society, which brings a range of cultural baggage to the

ways in which landscape is seen and interpreted.

SIGNIFICANCE

Significance is a more difficult term. Significance suggests importance, connection with events and/or

people of note. 'Of note' does not mean exclusively or predominantly the well-known and famous.Significance inheres in ordinary places-ordinarily sacred-connected with ordinary people. But whether

icons or ordinary places, significance is a metaphor for symbolism. Significant places are symbols of who

we are and of our connections with places through emotions.

Significance can be expressed as the response we make to knowing and understanding a place. It is a

human value judgement. Cultural heritage practice offers a definition of the concept of significance whichcan be transferred to a discussion on design. Because of this cultural significance as a concept helps in

estimating the value of places, where those places that are likely to be significant are those which help an

understanding of the past or enrich the present and will be of value to future generations. 8

IDENTITYAxiomatic to discussion of theoretical aspects of place meaning and significance is the propositionthat 'improved knowledge of the nature of place can contribute to the maintenance and manipulation

of existing places and the creation of new places' (Relph 1976, p.44). Central to this concept is thatidentity is fundamental in everyday life: all places have identity, and this is relevant to landscape

designs as places for people. Also of relevance is Relph's view (p.6I) that 'identity of place is

comprised of three interrelated components, each irreducible to the other- physical features orappearance, observable activities and functions, and meaning or symbols'. Both tangible or physical

identity (biophysical factors) and intangible identity related to existential distinctiveness and humanexperiences are inextricably inter-woven with place meaning and significance. Fundamental to the

intangible aspects of identity are various components. The components which appear important to

me in landscape design terms are discussed below. II

SENSE OF PLACE

Ideally it is a combination of both, such as in the eighteenth century English landscape movementwhere allusion to genius of the place meant not just capturing physical character and locale. Geniusof the place then referred equally to the associations with the spirit of a place as a result of the

relationship between people, place and memory. As an intellecmal movement it was informed by anideology of landscape as a culmral construct with socio-political implications.

Richard Payne Knight's The Landscape, A Didactic Poem (1794-), in particular the lines 'Yet in the

picture alldelusions fiy, And nature's genuine charms we there descry; / Hence let us learn, inrealscenes, to trace The true ingredients of the painter's grace'.

A strong relationship between place meaning and identity on the one hand and cultural and historical

factors on the other is apparent. By this I do not refer to the mindless copying of design formats from

history, a sort of eclectic historical pastiche, but to where designs imply continuity of humanexperience, are situated within a cultural and conceptual context and have potential to be read by

users as part of the experience and enjoyment of the designed place. They are those designs wherethe designer opens opportunity for transaction and dialogue-participation-between the designed place

and users. Such transactions and dialogue will be based on users' existing experiences and cultural

background and on historical connections. The designer should also take the opportunity to provokethe imagination of users, giving them new experiences and making new connections with place.

James Corner (1991) refers to this as 'critically engaging contemporary circumstances and traditionPoetics of Gardensproposes the celebration of landscape architecture as an art form where designsare 'adventures of the imagination' (p.I88).


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Like Eisentein's sense of all scenes being a process of montage, so are all landscapes a montage or

series of layers, a text which can be read and which can tell a story, and can be interpreted to reveal

meaning and significance. This suggests that in landscape design work we need to design with layersof meaning which open up opportunities for exercises of imagination by users within a cultural

context.

MEMORY, NATURE AND CULTURECentral to the idea ofgenius loci and of layers in the landscape, including designed landscapes, is thetheme inLandscape and Memory (Schama 1995). All landscape, Schama claims, is ineluctably the workof the mind and memory. In the Introduction he emphasises his main thesis that landscape: Before it canever be a repose for the senses ... is the workof the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata ofmemoryas from layers of rock. (pp.6-7)Transposing the conflation of landscape, mind and memory to designed

landscapes opens interesting opportunities for shaping landscapes, in which personal and collective

memory allusions are translated. The challenge for the designer is the interpretation and presentation ofthe allusions in the design in a way that is available for users. Three contemporary examples serve to

illustrate the point.

In contrast to ecofundamental correctness, theirs is a humanistic approach where a complementary

dialogue between nature, culture and art is foremost. It is an holistic approach 'that encompassesboth nature and culture, that embodies function, sensory perception, and symbolic meaning, and that

embraces both the making of things and places and the sensing, using, and contemplating of them'(Spirn 1988; Abstract, p.108).

CULTURAL LANDSCAPE MODELParallel and relevant to an enquiry into meaning, and one from which landscape design criticism can learn

if it so chooses, is the ever-growing interest in everyday cultural (vernacular) landscapes. Here, the

central tenet is that landscapes are not what we see, but a way of seeing (Cosgrove I98+). It is a

humanistic approach to interpreting landscape as a cultural construct which has shifted logically to the

understanding that landscapes can not only be read but also interpreted as texts in which ideologies are

transformed into concrete forms (Duncan, J and Duncan, N I988). The touchstone for this development

was the insight gained on symbolism in landscapes, promulgated in writings predominantly by cultural

geographers in the 19708. Interest in cultural landscape theory and associated practice is an internationalphenomenon, as Jacques (1995) demonstrates in 'The Rise of Cultural Landscapes'.

AESTHETICS AND MEANING

John Dixon Hunt as in eighteenth century gardens, there is a need 'to establish a new agenda of meanings

for the garden, an agenda that offers plurality, variety, and not simply formal maneuvers [sic]' (p.I38).The implication is that aesthetics involve place identity related to human emotions and experience, and

thereby aesthetic questions are central to meaning. Aesthetics is not primarily to do with formal questions

of line and form in design. Eagleton (1990) is helpful to the discussion, offering the proposition that

'Aesthetics is a discourse of the body ... the term refers ... to the whole region of human perception and

sensation, in contrast to the more rarefied domain of conceptual thought' (p.13).

Aesthetics, therefore, concerns cultural context, associations and ways of seeing. Humanistic implications

for meaning in landscape designs are clear. The influence of twentieth century modernism has been to tryto objectify aesthetics and locate it in the designed object, removing it from the province of interpretation

and intention. This is akin to Kant's eighteenth century school of thought that aesthetic experience

involves detachment or disinterestedness.

The point here is that landscapes, including landscape designs, can never be isolated. All landscapeis representational and its aesthetic appreciation involves interaction between place and the

experiences we bring to engagement with place or landscape.

Nevertheless, if meaning is connected with presentation of physical signs and symbols which arecapable of interpretation by users through associationism, then designs can and do have meaning forthose who understand these signs and symbols and their encoded messages. The essence of meaning

essentially depends on the landscape architect being able to communicate with the receiver or user.

Such a transaction will occur where the signs and symbols are understood as part of a shared systemof beliefs or common ground. It will also occur where the receiver wants to know more about the


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intellectual origins of a designed place or is led by the designer to disco er these and is then able to

relate the result to his/her own sense of place in time. We need to foster continuing debate on the

notion of landscape designs as works of art replete with meanings, as 'expressions or representationsof a culture's position vis-avis nature' (Hunt 1993, p.14o). Perhaps as designers we should also learn

more about interpretative techniques practised in museums or in heritage management. It is generallyaccepted, for example, that the more knowledge that accrues about a place and its layers, the more is

the social sense of attachment. Landscape architects, therefore, need to interpret and present theirdesigns so that users can read them.On the question of significance we need to be more cautious, particularly in present-day society

where the system of beliefs is more diffuse than, say, in eighteenth century Britain. Significance is a

characteristic that develops over time through understanding symbolism in places. Clues tosymbolism can be built into a design and will assist the emergence of significance over time. To helpthis emergence, we should try to understand more about experience of landscape and how to capturean essence of locality and place meaning. Indeveloping meaning and significance in landscape designs,we must also relateto the modern context as well as to history and memory so that designed places canmake a plurality of cultural connections and engage continuity.Perhaps we ought also, from time to time,to respond to Luis Barragan'sproposal (quoted in Krog I991,p.103) that in view of the environmental,social,psychological and political chaos of the twentieth century, it is the duty of everygarden to offer a

place of serenity. To this I would add the notion of landscapedesigns giving pleasure and enjoyment toour senses in the long honouredtradition of the sensibility of the pleasure garden. This is a commonsensualtheme throughout different cultures and it resonates through our historical andphilosophicalunderpinnings as a profession. It suggests a common experientialneed in human beings, offering the

philosophical foundation for aphenomenological approach to design. This approach is one where culturalcontext and meaning inextricably weave a web of richness and diversity which is suggestive of deeply felt

human ideas on the relationship between art, culture and nature. Such a mix may then be seen as an

experiential equation where human identity in landscape designs evolves from Relph's three

componentsphysical features, activities/functions and symbolism/meaning- and itself becomes the

touchstone for human significance to accrue in designs.

Landscape and Memory: cultural landscapes, intangible values and somethoughts on Asia KEN TAYLOR

The connections, therefore, between landscape and identity and hencememory, thought, and comprehension are fundamental to understanding oflandscape and human sense of place.

But memory of landscape is not always associated with pleasure. It can beassociated sometimes with loss, with pain, with social fracture and sense ofbelonging gone, although the memory remains, albeit poignantly.We see and make landscapes as a result of our shared system of beliefs andideologies. In this way landscape is a cultural construct, a mirror of ourmemories and myths encoded with meanings which can be read andinterpreted.

Simon Schama (1995, pp.6/7) in Landscape and Memory contends that:Before it can ever be the repose for the senses, landscape is the work of themind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers ofrock.Yet in this proposition, wilderness like all ideas of landscape, is a culturalconstruct, a product of the mind framed by ideologies and experience.Landscape is memory, there is no unmediated perception of nature. (Ignatieff1995).A common theme underpinning the concept of the ideology of landscape itselfas the setting for everything we do is that of the landscape as the repository ofintangible values and human meanings that nurture our very existence. This iswhy landscape and memory are inseparable because landscape is the nervecentre of our personal and collective memories.


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Physical components ActivitiesIDENTITYSymbols/MeaningsFigure 1 Place identity and its components (after Relph, 1976)

cu ltural lands capes are at the interface of cu lture and natu re, tangible andintangible heri tage, bio logical and cu ltural diversi ty they represent aclosely wov en net of relationships, the essence of culture and peoplesident i ty they are a sym bol of the grow ing recognit ion o f thefundamental l inks between loc al communit ies and their heri tage,

hum ankind and its natural environm ent.Intimately connected with these landscapes are peoples stories and the thingsof which memories are made: the cultural richness that promotes a sense oflocal distinctiveness.

A living entity and record of social history: interface of culture and nature

Whilst there exist relict or fossil landscapes, most cultural landscapes are livinglandscapes where changes over time result in a montage effect or series oflayers, each layer able to tell the human story and relationships between peopleand natural processes. This is summarised in paper Understanding CulturalLandscapesDefinition (Leader-Elliot et al 2004) with the commentary that Itis now widely accepted that landscapes reflect human activity and are imbuedwith cultural values. They combine elements of space and time, and representpolitical as well as social and cultural constructs. As they have evolved overtime, and as human activity has changed, they have acquired many layers ofmeaning that can be analysed through historical, archaeological, geographicaland sociological study. The character of the landscape thus reflects the valuesof the people who have shaped it, and who continue to live in it. Culture itself isthe shaping force. Landscape is a cultural expression that does not happen bychance but is created by design as a result of human ideologies (Figure 2).

Integrity is a measure of the wholeness and intactness of the naturaland/or cultural heritage and its attributes. Examining the conditions of integrity,therefore requires assessing the extent to which the property:a) includes all elements necessary to express its outstanding universal value;b) is of adequate size to ensure the complete representation of the features andprocesses which convey the propertys significance;

c) suffers from adverse effects of development and/or neglect

landscape design and the language of nature

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