representation

"The ability to intentionally construe and construct designed landscapes is enabled through various forms and activities of imaging."
(Corner, James. "Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes").

Imaging or methods of representing[1] the landscape is the medium used to understand, explore and express our creative ideas making it our most essential tool in understanding and envisioning the landscape. The emergence and development of landscape architecture as a profession has been directly correlated to the development of methods for representing and visualizing the landscape. For example, the "selectively framed landscape paintings of the 17th century which depicted scenic vistas gave way to the 'picturesque style' of landscape common to large English estates[2]." Aerial photography influenced the profession by allowing the designer to view their sight in its extended context and thus expanding the scope of landscape projects. Digital representation tools such as AutoCAD, GIS, 3D computer modeling, and immersive walk-through simulations, have also greatly influenced the profession by again, allowing the designer to see the landscape in a different light and imagine new realities. The symbiotic relationship between landscape representation and the visualization of new possibilities makes methods of representation vital to our design success.

As Alan Berger and Hope Hasbrouck describe in their 'Studies in Landscape Representation' class description, Landscape Architectural drawings should "pursue relationships between seeing, visualizing, the act of drawing, and considering what has been drawn," and through the act of drawing explore "issues that define landscape architecture site, phenomena, and change...form, light, shadow, volume, and space" [3]. However, most of our traditional methods of drawing exploration- the plan, the section, the elevation- have been adopted from ARCHITECTURE- our big brother which we all too often fall in the shadow of. Landscape and Architecture are fundamentally different. "In contrast to the relative stability of architecture, landscape is defined by unrelenting, often invisible processes" [4]. The flux and flow of processes that directly influence the landscape, such as ecological regimes, are often difficult to understand using the traditional methods adopted from architecture. These methods of representation keep the influential processes, which are so unique to landscape, invisible. This limits the designer from fully understanding the relationships within their design...as well as the relationship of their designed landscape to what lies beyond the project boundaries. We strive to achieve inspiring and holistically-driven design ideas based on a balanced understanding of the site, its surrounding context, and the systems that tie them together. Our landscape representations should reflect and assist in this process.

[1] Note that we are using the term "representation" as the medium of imaging used to conceive, develop, and articulate our designs. It is the image of our designed landscape as well as the image of our thinking.
[2] Corner, James. "Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes."
[3] http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/courses/details.cgi?section_id=5812&term=s2003
[4] Holly Getch Clarke- Land-scopic Regimes: Exploring Perspectival Representation Beyond the 'Pictorial' Project

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For August 10's Design Breakfast, we ask you to consider:

• How do you use drawing?
• Where does the strong conceptual idea driving your thinking and in turn your designs come from? Was it a feeling? A reaction? An idea that captivated you? From analysis? From a drawing? Could and should it come from a drawing?
• Are we selling ourselves, our understanding, and our possible interpretations and reinterpretations of the landscape short by using traditional methods of representation?
• What methods of representation could be more effective in our explorations of landscape?
• Could different methods of representation be more appropriate for different stages of the design process?
• What is the design process of ah'bé? What methods do we use? And what should we use?

Let us reflect on how we can use drawings to push our thinking out of the typical box (or plan, or section) in order to develop or enlighten our design thinking.

~ megan and vanessa