Recently, I reviewed Overgrown by Julian Raxworthy, in which he calls on landscape architects to create a new form of practice that learns from gardening and “optimizes the exciting properties of plants through changing the way landscape architects work†which he is calling “the viridicâ€. Raxworthy provides a series of positions “for reformulation of landscape-architectural practice that combines the landscape architect and gardener†including:
- breaking the split between human and plant
- recognising that the nature of a plant is to grow and that the result of the design happens after planting over seasons, years, and decades.
- landscape design should learn from maintenance techniques of gardening and tailor plans to suit.
- the role of the garden is a learning environment and testing ground.
- the nature of “the viridic†is iterative.
- leaving the office and our plans & simulations to learn from gardening and gardeners.
Through reading Overgrown and Cleveland’s Landscape Architecture I began to consider whether a new form of landscape architectural practice can be achieved? Can we move beyond our prejudices to embrace and learn from gardening? Can we design without falling back onto plans and specifications or can they be reformulated into more flexible documents to achieve the design through site design?
There are numerous examples of garden designers and landscape architects such as Olmsted, Guilfoyle, Repton, Mueller, Brown, worked with plans and gardeners in the field to create, sculpt, position, and evolve their designs. Of course, we as contemporary landscape architects cannot spend hours, days, weeks, on-site to achieve the design outcome we desire; however, we can use some of the ideas and methods to enhance our design process from concept to ongoing maintenance.