Landscape architecture

Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes.

The activities of a landscape architect can range from the creation of public parks and parkways to site planning for campuses and corporate office parks; from the design of residential estates to the design of civil infrastructure; and from the management of large wilderness areas to reclamation of degraded landscapes such as mines or landfills.

The most valuable contribution can be made at the first stage of a project to generate ideas with technical understanding and creative flair for the design, organization, and use of spaces.

[6] John Claudius Loudon was an established and influential horticultural journalist and Scottish landscape architect whose writings were instrumental in shaping Victorian taste in gardens, public parks, and architecture.

The geometric style was “most striking and pleasing,” displaying wealth and taste in an “early state of society” and in “countries where the general scenery was wild, irregular, and natural, and man, comparatively, uncultivated and unrefined.”[6] The natural style was used in “modern times” and in countries where “society is in a higher state of cultivation," displaying wealth and taste through the sacrifice of profitable lands to make room for such designs.

"[6] Repton refers to Indigenous peoples as "uncivilized human beings, against whom some decided line of defense was absolutely necessary.”[6] The practice of landscape architecture spread from the Old to the New World.

IFLA was founded at Cambridge, England, in 1948 with Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe as its first president, representing 15 countries from Europe and North America.

[14] In the second half of the century, Frederick Law Olmsted completed a series of parks that continue to have a significant influence on the practices of landscape architecture today.

Jens Jensen designed sophisticated and naturalistic urban and regional parks for Chicago, Illinois, and private estates for the Ford family including Fair Lane and Gaukler Point.

One of the original eleven founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), and the only woman, was Beatrix Farrand.

Her numerous private estate projects include the landmark Dumbarton Oaks in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C.[15] Since that time, other architects – most notably Ruth Havey and Alden Hopkins – changed certain elements of the Farrand design.

[citation needed] Since this period urban planning has developed into a separate independent profession that has incorporated important contributions from other fields such as civil engineering, architecture and public administration.

Roberto Burle Marx in Brazil combined the International style and native Brazilian plants and culture for a new aesthetic.

Innovation continues today solving challenging problems with contemporary design solutions for master planning, landscapes, and gardens.

GIS software is ubiquitously used in the landscape architecture profession today to analyze materials in and on the Earth's surface and is similarly used by urban planners, geographers, forestry and natural resources professionals, etc.

[citation needed] European nations enabled the widespread circulation of urban planning strategies by transferring landscaping ideas and practices to overseas colonies.

[19] Spatial mechanisms like the green belt, implemented through the Haifa Bay Plan and the British "Grand Model," were used to enforce political control and civic order and extend western ideas of progress and development.

The planning prototype demarcated open spaces, distinguished between city and countryside, limited urban growth, and created zoning divisions.

[19] Indigenous land management practices create constantly changing landscapes through the use of vegetation and natural systems, contrasting with western epistemologies of the discipline that separate ornament from function.

In Australia, the park-like condition was used to justify British control, citing its emptiness and lack of productive use as a basis for the dispossession of Aboriginal people.

[24] Since 1889, with the arrival of the French architect and urbanist landscaper Carlos Thays, recommended to recreate the National Capital's parks and public gardens, it was consolidated an apprentice and training program in landscaping that eventually became a regulated profession, currently the leading academic institution is the UBA University of Buenos Aires"UBA Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo" (Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism) offering a Bacherlor's degree in Urban Landscaping Design and Planning, the profession itself is regulated by the National Ministry of Urban Planning of Argentina and the Institute of the Buenos Aires Botanical Garden.

[citation needed] In Canada, landscape architecture, like law and medicine, is a self-regulating profession pursuant to provincial statute.

[27] In April 2013, NZILA jointly with AILA, hosted the 50th International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) World Congress in Auckland, New Zealand.

[citation needed] Landscape architecture in Norway was established in 1919 at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) at Ås.

SACLAP's mission is to establish, direct, sustain and ensure a high level of professional responsibilities and ethical conduct within the art and science of landscape architecture with honesty, dignity and integrity in the broad interest of public health, safety and welfare of the community.

[citation needed] The Institute provides services to assist members including support and promotion of the work of landscape architects; information and guidance to the public and industry about the specific expertise offered by those in the profession; and training and educational advice to students and professionals looking to build upon their experience.

The campaign aimed to raise the profile of landscape architecture and highlight its valuable role in building sustainable communities and fighting climate change.

Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park in New York City, is known as the "father of American landscape architecture".