Landscape architects work with materials that are intrinsically dynamic soil, water, plants, and people. These elements connect us to nature and each other, enabling us to create outdoor spaces that foster human and ecological health within the built environment.
The remarkable projects in these pages illuminate a new approach toward orchestrating this living, changing palette by engaging directly in natural systems. Selected from all over the globe, these regenerative landscapes are functional rather than symbolic adaptable rather than static. They address environmental challenges through landscape infrastructural solutions for stormwater management, soil and groundwater remediation, habitat restoration and energy conservation. Equally important, they create authentic and beautiful outdoor spaces that humanize the increasingly dense urban environments in which modem civilization exists, Rooted in place, history and culture, these landscapes including parks, playgrounds, green roofs, performance venues, riverfronts, trails, campuses and urban farms are not limited to a particular scale or style. Some projects occupy a fraction of a city block others encompass waterfronts and forests. A few offer the orderly patterns commonly associated with the built environment while others embody the unkempt, informal character of a natural wetland or prairie. Humans crave connection to nature, as described by Eo
Humans crave connection to nature, as described by Eo Wilcon, the famous Harvard University biologist and theorist who coined the phrase “biophilia” to describe our innate emotional drive to affiliate with other living organisms. At the University of Virginia, Timothy Beatley’s current work applies this craving to the design of biophilic cities that offer daily contact with the natural world. Just as hospital patients heal more quickly when they can observe scenery through a window. urban dwellers thrive when exposed to authentic flora, fauna and a multisensory experience of place.
Yet eco-landscape design calls for a careful balance of function and aesthetics. As Joan Nassauer of the University of Minnesota wrote in her Landscape Journal article, “Messy Ecosystems, order y Frames”; ecological quality tends to look messy. Furthermore, landscape infrastructure is often invisible. The typical visitor does not perceive, for example, how a landform has been carefully sculpted to store contaminated soils or how a palette of deep-rooted plants is controlling erosion along a river bank. In effect, the appearance of disorder can easily be mistaken for neglect.
