Landscape Architecture diagramming:
Perhaps the most significant between architectural diagram and landscape architecture diagram is that the latter needs to incorporate time. In Diagrams in Landscape Architecture, Jacky Bowring and Simon Swaffield trace a genealogy of diagramming methods in the field, inlcuding major figures such as James Corner (with his thought on the dual function of diagram: analytical and generative), Ian McHarg (ecological design method). Time is used, for example, to diagram ecological process in analytical diagrams (example: Fresh Kills project by Field Operations). But it actually is Kevin Lynch who (again) has a strong influence on developing diagrams that capture people’s sense of space and time, which is arguably capable of capturing key concepts and turn them into “analysis of design possibilities.”
As a regenerative tool, landscape architectural diagrams often separate layers of compelxity and then recombine them in order to create new associations for design possibilities. Terry Harkness’s landscape observatory, for example, is not only a genetative approach to design, but also a “pedagogy of seeing,” whose objective “is not limited to ecological process but, rather, leads to holistic comprehension of landscape genesis, cultural co-evolution, and social formation.”
Fresh Kills Park by Field Operations – image courtesy: http://indalandscape2011.blogspot.com/2011/01/fresh-kills-park-case-study.html
Terry Harkness’ Gardens from Region, 1990. image courtesy: https://www.landscapeandurbanism.com/2018/01/23/landscape-observatory-the-work-of-terence-harkness/
image courtesy: https://www.landscapeandurbanism.com/2018/01/23/landscape-observatory-the-work-of-terence-harkness/
