Essential Reads

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Hi all, I would very much appreciate your recommendations on books that are important and supplementary for the study of landscape architecture. Thank you.

Tags: books, design, la, read, urban

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Permalink Reply by Pok Kobkongsanti on September 16, 2008 at 4:28am: I do like Pete Walker's Invisible Garden.
A bit of history though.....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rico Flor on October 10, 2008 at 2:16am: Add to your readings articles by John Brinkerhoff Jackson...great commentary on Social Geography (as a layer in the landscape)...
Topophilia by Yi Fu Tuan....
One of my favorites, Ecological Landscape Planning and Design: The Mediterannean Context by Jala Makhzoumi and Gloria Pungetti...
Any article by Jan Gehl, the Kaplans (for environmental psychology/man-environment studies)...
Also an old architecture favorite that is actually useful in any discipline: Hidden Dimensions by Edward T. Hall...
For the sheer pleasure of it, try Site Perspectives by L. Azeo Torre...

My personal wish list to read...Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander...books by Clare Cooper Marcus...yes, the Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold has been recommended, nice to have that in my pile...and Walden Pond by Thoreau for that matter...

Life's just too short....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tandin Wangmo on September 16, 2008 at 7:41am: this is a great list! thanks everyone!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by RFox on September 16, 2008 at 7:20pm: Anything by:
Bill Hillier
or
Nikos Salingaros; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Brandon Reed on September 17, 2008 at 11:06am: "The Timeless Way of Building" by Christopher Alexander

Can you be more specific as to what part of Landscape Architecture you are focusing on?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Geoffrey Katz on December 24, 2008 at 12:16pm: Poetics of Gardens. Moore, Mitchell, and Turnbull. MIT Press 1988; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Deborah Christman on December 30, 2008 at 9:22pm: This was great book! I loved the layered diagrams. Helped me recall info from my history of L.A. classes.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Steven Chavez on December 24, 2008 at 7:03pm: America By Design (Videos) by Spiro Kostof; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by henry cohen on December 25, 2008 at 7:13am: If you can find it, Gardens make me laugh, by James Rose.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Peter M. Boyle on December 25, 2008 at 11:16am: -Ecological Design by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowen

-Time-Saver Standards for Landscape Architecture by Charles Harris and Nicholas Dines

-A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

-The Next American Metropolis by Peter Calthorpe

-Gardens are for People by Thomas D. Church; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Brent Wall on December 31, 2008 at 6:57am: Large Parks edited by George Hargreaves and Julia Czerniak
Landscape for Livingby Garrett Eckbo
The Garden Makers by George Plumptre
Moving Horizons: The Landscape Architecture of Kathryn Gustafson and Partners by Jane Amidon
Radical Landscapes: Reinventing Outdoor Space by Jane Amidon and Kathryn Gustafson
The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects by Lewis Mumford
Outdoors: The Garden Design Book for the Twenty-First Century by Terence Conran and Diarmuid Gavin; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Les Ballard on December 31, 2008 at 10:13am: This series of tapestries may refer to 5 super senses rather than just our 5 senses. The background is full of flowers and animals all with a meaning. See The Oak King and The Holly King: Myths and Legends of the Unicorn Tapestries, Henry Williamson, available via Samuel Weiser, New York. (E.& O.E.)

am an Englishman of a certain age and grew up in the Peterborough fens and Essex woods and seaside. In the fens, of course, it is bleak at times but then you find whole microenvironments in the banks of the dykes, just like the grykes in limestone pavements. What shapes us is our individual environments, parents and - I think - the childrens' books we read. Apart from the coffee table tomes, therefore, I think we all have to find our own versions, for our time, of Wind in the Willows, Swallows and Amazons, The Secret Garden, The Black Arrow and Biggles (honest, read the landscape descriptions). A young man of my acquaintance is entirely rapped with Bladerunner and The World of Warcraft. While I like Lord of the Rings, I would not design a landscape that looks like a post carnage Mordor battlefield. Let us hope that the young man does not become an LA, or has other influences!

I am still reading and learning of course - we always do (or should) - and I find inspiration in the art books that the library acquires, the window boxes the pensioners make at the apartment block near me and, indeed, for preference, everywhere I go. My new year's resolution this eve is to see a higher percentage of what I look at and to look at more of what is good. May we all do likewise.

Luv n Lite,
Les Ballard; ▶ Reply to This