Gardens Essay -- Environment, Nature and Culture, Landscape

Throughout the history of mankind, the gardens have been created to feed the spirit. The landscape is a relationship between nature and culture; it expresses who we are and where we from. Furthermore, landscape architecture advances along with society and it adjust to the change of their tastes and way of life. It is at first hand the search for a balance of adapting the environment and the advance society. We can observe the different styles and designs process each culture has, simply by looking at what kind of elements, plants, and regulations it uses. For example in the United States a designer takes into consideration the ADA regulations while in Mexico they don’t, which will result in a different design approach. This means that we might witness a similar design containing a bridge crossing through a pond but one design might incorporate railings and the other one will not. This tells us how one society values the importance of incorporating safety and handicap accessi bility just by using different elements. The following essay intends to discuss how culture can contribute to the design of an exterior space and how it’s reflected in the work of a landscape architect. To accomplish this task I am going to look at two landscape architects from different regions and witness how diverse but also how unified they are to each other by looking at the way they incorporate elements from their culture and other societies. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IN BRAZIL The first landscape architect that I choose to accomplish my task is Burle Marx. Troguhout his life he designed hundreds of private and public space which helped him get recognized and obtain comitions throughout Latin- America, United States, and across the continent. Burle ... ...Because of the importance of the location of the site the designer took into consideration the culture aspect of the area. The Olympic forest Park combines the traditional Chinese landscape and the feng-shui philosophy with the contemporary design concepts and techniques. Two crucial traditional elements used were the mountain and water feature, these were incorporated in the planning and design of the Olympic Forest Park. An artificial mountain was created and dragon-shape lake flowing along the axis was designed. The mountain designed is called Yandshan Mountain, to accomplish the design of this mountain the designer analyze other important mountains around Beijing. On the south entrance, large stones are located throughout the plaza. the overall design includes rich landforms, mountain chain, islands, and downhill streams that offer diverse eco-habitats (Jie).