Landscape Architecture and Digital Technologies ─ Re-conceptualising Design and Making

Landscape Architecture and Digital Technologies explores how digital technologies are reshaping design and making in landscape architecture. While the potentials of digital technologies are well documented within landscape planning and visualisation, their application within design practice is far less understood. This book highlights the role of the digital model in encouraging a new design logic that moves from the privileging of the visual to a focus on processes of formation, bridging the interface of the conceptual and material, the virtual and the physical.

Drawing on interviews and projects from a range of international designers -including , Snohetta, Arup, Gustafson Porter, ASPECT Studios, Grant Associates, Catherine Mosbach, Philippe Rahm, PARKKIM, LAAC and PEG office of landscape + architecture among others, the authors explore the influence of parametric modelling, scripting, real-time data, simulation, prototyping, fabrication, and Building Information Modelling on the design and construction of contemporary landscapes. This engagement with practice is expanded through critical reflection from academics involved in landscape architecture programs around the world that are reshaping their research and pedagogy to reflect an expanded digital realm.

Crossing critical theory, technology and contemporary design, the book constructs a picture of an emerging twenty-first century practice of landscape architecture practice premised on complexity and performance. It also highlights the disciplinary demands and challenges in engaging with a rapidly evolving digital context within practice and education. The book is of immense value to professionals and researchers, and is a key publication for digital landscape courses at all levels.

Jillian Walliss has over fifteen year experience as a landscape architecture academic in Australia and New Zealand. Since 2007, she has worked in the Landscape Architecture program at the University of Melbourne where she teaches landscape theory and design studio. Jillian’s research focuses on the relationship between theory, culture and contemporary design practice, exploring design within the cultural and political contexts of democracy, nationalism and post-colonialism. This work has been published in prominent international journals including the Journal of Landscape Architecture, Space and Culture, Environment and History, Museum and Society and the Journal of Australian Studies. Jillian’s interest in digital technologies was initially provoked by the challenge of embedding digital technology within design studio. Her innovation in teaching with digital technologies was recognised by the University of Melbourne’s prestigious Edward Brown Award and outcomes from this work have been published in the Journal of Landscape Architecture, International Journal of Art & Design Education and presented at international conferences.

Heike Rahmann is a landscape architect and urban researcher at the RMIT University, School of Architecture and Design. She has worked with various practices within the fields of landscape architecture and urban design, and has been involved in partnerships with industry, community and government bodies, especially in Germany, Japan and Australia. Her research explores the intersection of landscape and contemporary urbanism with focus on design practice and theory. She has published widely on the creative, ecological and cultural manifestations of interstitial spaces, as well as on the issue of design research. Her most recent publication includes the co-authored bookTokyo Void: Possibilities in Absence (Jovis, 2014), which explores notions of vacancy and transformation processes in one of the largest urban areas in the world. Heike has taught design studios and core subjects, which introduce digital technology as tool for creative exploration and as a strategic link between design, construction and material applications. In 2012, her innovation with digital technologies in the design studio was recognised by the Melbourne Graduate School of Design Teaching Excellence award.