• History and Ideas
  • Prehistory to Middle Ages
  • Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment
  • 19th Century
  • 20th Century
  • From Millennium to Olympics
• The Genius of Place
  • Design and Vision
  • Planning the Landscape
  • Management and Conservation
  • Historic Conservation
  • The Science of Landscape
  • Cities and Towns
  • Gardens and Parks
• The Power to Change
  • Climate Change
  • Sustainable Communities
  • Environment
  • Housing
  • Hunger
  • Transportation

Planning the Landscape

Landscape architects work to plan the landscape at the very largest scale.  They are concerned with natural and built systems over large areas or corridors such as park systems and transportation networks.  This work often involves environmental remediation and reclamation, which is the process of cleaning and restoring land and water that have been damaged or polluted.  Large environmental remediation projects include work on mining landscapes, such as collieries, and wetland eco-systems to make them safe for people and for nature.

For example, the Eden Project was built on an abandoned clay pit.

Latz + Partner's Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord is a remarkable example of how an abandoned steel mill has been turned into a park. The original infrastructure, including blast furnaces and tanks, have been retained, and polluted areas are being cleaned with the aid of plants.

Landscape planning on this scale is based strongly in the ideas of Ian McHarg, an American landscape architect who developed the systems of land analysis that have led to the development of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).