Semestr 5

Landscape design

In the contemporary architectonical world, landscape has become a very important theme, that has its own discipline and its own professional approach.
The European Convention of Landscape, that has been in Florence in 2000, has define that: “Landscape” means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factor.
Is possible to say that the contemporary architectural approach to this topic, has brought the discussion on landscape far away from the simple “naturality” of the world.
That means that, when we talk about landscape is not enough to think about vegetations and open spaces, but it’s important to consider the human factor, the artificial materials and the meaning of landscape in the contemporary city and the role of it.

When Pablo Mendes da Rocha states that "nature is a shit", he tries to provoke the community, in the sense that all human efforts to modify the landscape are efforts that must “fight” against the natural situation.
As Luigi Snozzi always says, the settlement act of human is always a destructive act of nature.
An act of destruction that is followed by an act of reconstruction.
That for example is the origin of all the rural landscape, quite all over the world.
Finally, while is well known the importance of the open spaces inside the urban planning, a very important reflection about landscapes is about its relationship with the sustainability topic. That means to recognize to open spaces a new active role inside the city.

So how is possible to teach landscape?
As it is part of the discipline of composition, the course wants to give to the students the tools to understand the basic approach to landscape design.
Starting from the principle of geometric composition of space, the course will bring the student to understand the materials of landscape design, so to be able to apply them to specific project.
Finally, it is important to introduce the sustainability approach in the landscape too.
Following the energetical approach is possible to find two kind of sustainability landscape:
• The energy productive landscapes, composed with eolic and solar elements.
• The compensative landscape that use natural elements to improve the climate comfort

Course Organization

The course will be organize in 2 phases:

First Part
Selection of a common reference for all the group of student ( a studio firm specialized in landscape design)
Organizing the space starting form a common abstract painting. The student will develop the same “concept” applied on different scale.
Realization of a conceptual “maquette”

A3 panels on the conceptual approach (first phase)
• Concept - thematic landscape - master plan (scale to define)
• References
• individuation of vegetation
• individuation of materials
• Model on a base 40x40cm
Second part
Trasformation of the conceptual model in a real landscape design. The students will be free to chose an abstract contest or a realistic one where to apply their research

A3 panel of the project (second phase)
• master plan and landscape section scale 1:500
• sustainability approach
• bird view of the project
• model of the project on a base 40x40xcm

Bibliography (not compulsory)

Book
• Wassilis Kandisky - Point and Line to Plane (1980-03-03)
• Gilles Clément - The Planetary Garden" and Other Writings
• Gilles Clément - Manifeste du Tiers paysage, Paris, Éditions Sujet/Objet, 2004.

Review
• Lotus 140 ( Sustainability?)
• Lotus 157 ( city as a Landscape)
• Lotus 150 ( Landscape Urbanism)
• Lotus 149 ( Lotus in the field)

Architects

• Roberto Burle Marx
• Gilles Clements
• Pablo Nunes
• Patrick Blanck


Materials of landscape

• Vegetations ( trees, bush, grass)
• Tree ( Pine, Conifer, Maple, Blackthorn, Willow...)
• Water
• Sand, gravel, bark
• Marble and natural stone (basalt, marble, porphyry, granite, slate, sandstone, ...)
• Wood ( teak, durmast, iroko, bamboo, chestnut...)
• Asphalt
• Concrete tiles
• Tiles
• Brick

Sustainbility strategy

• Energy collector ( solar panel, wind turbine, urban wind turbine, ....)
• Water (recycling water, reuse of rain water, cleaning of existing water...)
• Microclimate solutions ( shadowing, temperature control,...)