Posts Tagged landscape architecture
Elements of Garden Design | Water
It is difficult to imagine another element so central and so vital both to basic life and to a diverse range of aesthetic and recreational pleasure. The use of water in the built environment is thousands of years old and is interwoven throughout its long history with symbolism and religious rites as well as with sensual delight. Aqua landscapes or Water Gardens, as they are known, have been prominent in English Imperial Gardens, French Baroque Gardens, Chinese Classical Gardens as well as the Moorish Royal Gardens.
Water Gardens typically include the integration of artificial ponds, streams, waterfalls, statues, rocks, aquatic plants, fishes, watercourses and fountains with the natural surroundings and environment in order to create a pleasing atmosphere.
Origin of the Italian Garden Style | Influence on Modern Landscape Architecture
Italian Garden Architecture is another style that evolved after the Persian Gardening Style… This added another element of interest in the “Development of the Modern Garden Architecture”.
The possibility of building a villa arose at a time when control of the hinterland by cities rendered fortified rural settlements unnecessary. Existing country houses belonging to the large land owning town nobility could be converted and newly built villas built solely for enjoying rural life did not need to be defensible as a castle. Both types represent the cultural ideal of rural life the so called villeggiatura.
Italian garden Design Style
Italian gardens are characterized by the abundance of architectural features or built features in the garden. Staircases, balustrades, cascades pavilions and pavements – even the cypress avenues are imitations of colonnades. The origins of the style are to be found in ancient Rome. They took the pains to site their villas on the countryside with exceptional views, where cooling breeze would reach them above malarial valleys. Within the villas there were courts and colonnades designed for every phase of wind and weather.
Evolution of Persian Gardening Style | The Paradise Gardens
Persian Garden Style evolved after the Egyptian Style of gardening. It marked the beginning of “Modern Garden Architecture”. The Persian garden was an answer to the aridity of the local climate where the high walled garden and the shady trees with its air cooled by streams and fountains, was a simple recipe for paradise. Mediterranean and hence all Western Gardens have their origins in Egypt between three and four thousand years ago. Since Egypt is a natural desert depending on the Nile for its fertility, its gardens were planted along reservoirs and irrigation canals.
Taj Mughal Gardens - Persian Style
The canals were straight for practical reasons; trees planted followed straight lines along the canals, It was also natural for the canal to have fish, lotus and supply of water. Hence, the theory goes that axial designs and layouts of gardens, the ‘formality’ of all classical Mediterranean inspired gardens to the present – via the Persians whose style swept eastwards to India and westwards via Spain with spread of Islam, and by the Romans whose adaptation of the Egyptian Style was repeated in the Renaissance.
Elements of Garden Design | Landform
Garden design is a major part of Landscape Architecture. Study of the landform helps us in site planning and Landscape design.
Topography and slopes determine, framing, screening of views, plant growth with which the former is achieved. siting of built surfaces and artefacts in landscape. However, the topography and the associated slopes when based on geology and soil characteristics assist in economic and sustainable landscape design.
Castle lake garden
All of landscape design ultimately depends on soil and water retention. At large or small scale, the shape of the earth indicates geological forces at work or of modern landuse, hints at the work of our ancestors or of ancient people.
Development of the Modern Garden | Landscape Architecture
Our present set of ideas as to what constitutes a garden has long roots back into history. As far as we know gardening started quite independently in two different places – Egypt and China.
Chinese Garden
Egyptian gardens were based on irrigated small land holdings in the desert and Chinese Gardens were based on Imperial Hunting Parks. These two sources started two diametrically opposite traditions that can be termed as formal and informal; the straight edge and the flowing; the architectonic and the naturalistic.