Space, Place, and Landscape

The Landscape Urbanism Reader is a collection of essays that provide varying theories on the direction of landscape architecture in a modern age.  While some layout certain histories and trends, others focus on concepts they hope will change the path of landscape architecture and urbanism.  Though the essays were not particularly my cup of tea, they do provide valuable ideas, most interestingly the nature of human interaction with a landscape.

As an undergraduate I took a course called "Space, Place, and Landscape," a course designed to broaden one's conceptions of landscape by continually altering the definition and parameters set out by scholars.  Despite the fact that I never fully established my own definition, I did come to a better understanding of the fluidity of landscape, a concept fundamental to The Landscape Urbanism Reader.  Essentially it boils down to how humans are supposed to interact with a given space, whether that be dictated by the architecture or something else is subject to a more specific location.  Either way one can never really establish set guidelines as to what a landscape entails, nor how to "correctly approach this architecturally.

A good landscape, according to these particular scholars, tends to not only include the physical land, but also highways, buildings, people, and the environment.  One author, Alan Berger, coins the term "drosscape" to describe landscapes in relation to waste.  For him, both the natural and synthetics waste produced by the population contribute greatly to the way we interact with a space.  Though an interesting premise that seems to hold true, a drosscape shifts focus away from the actual earth, which I think should always be the focus on landscape architecture.  Naturally one must account for all aspects in a given space, but I believe it is the manipulation of land and the ability to construct something out of the natural environment that is the most powerful part of landscape architecture.