Table Of ContentCatherine Dee
To Design Landscape
Art, Nature & Utility
To Design Landscape
To Design Landscape sets out a distinctively practical
philosophy of design, in an accessible format. Based
on the notion that landscape design is a form-based
craft addressing environmental processes and utility,
Catherine Dee establishes a framework for approaching
such craft with modesty and ingenuity, using the concept
of ‘aesthetics of thrift’.
Employing numerous case studies as diverse as
Hellerup Rose Garden in Denmark; Bloedel Reserve,
Bainbridge Island, USA; Rousham Gardens, Oxfordshire,
UK; and Tofuku-ji, Kyoto, Japan to illustrate her ideas,
the book is a beautiful portfolio of Dee’s drawings,
which are both evocative and to the point.
The book begins with a Foundations section, which
sets out the basis of the approach. The Principleschapters
then elaborate eleven significant considerationsapplicable
to any design project, regardless of context and scale.
Following on, the Strategies chapters reinforce the
principles, and suggest further ways to design, which
are adaptable to different conditions. The book ends with
a focus on Elements: case studies and verb lists provide
sources for the designer to consider how the components –
vegetation, water, terrain, structures, soils, weather
and sky – might be engaged, mediated and joined.
Dee’s book is for all those who craft landscape, from
the gardener, to the professional landscape architect,
to the student of design.
Catherine Dee trained in fine art before studying
landscape architecture, and today practises both. She is
author of Form and Fabric in Landscape Architecture:
A Visual Introduction (Routledge 2001) and several
articles on the relationship between design, drawing and
art. She is a founding editor of the European Journal of
Landscape Architecture (JoLA) (2006) and creator of its
peer-reviewed visual essay section ‘Thinking Eye’. A highly
regarded design teacher, she holds an academic post in the
Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield, UK.
Catherine Dee
To Design Landscape
Art, Nature & Utility
First published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2012 Catherine Dee
The right of Catherine Dee to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, me-
chanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Dee, Catherine, 1958-
To design landscape : art, nature and utility / Catherine Dee.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Landscape design. 2. Landscape design--Philosophy. I. Title.
SB472.45.D44 2011
712.01--dc22
2011005712
ISBN13: 978-0-415-58504-0 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-58505-7 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-80620-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Egyptienne, Trade Gothic and Bell Gothic
Cover and graphic design: Oliver Kleinschmidt, Berlin
To my mother and father
Acknowledgements
Thank you Marc Treib. Your encyclopaedic knowledge of landscape
architecture and contemporary art was freely and most generously
shared. Your support, acute critical suggestions and editorial advice
played the most significant role in the book’s development. Thank you to
my friends; co-editors of the European Journal of Landscape Architecture
(JoLA), from whom I have greatly enjoyed learning during the many
long meetings as we worked to found the journal: Bernadette Blanchon,
Malene Hauxner, Karsten Jorgensen and Martin Prominski. Thank you to
Anne Spirn, friend and kindred spirit. Your work has inspired me since
I first encountered landscape architecture. Thank you to all the students
I have had the pleasure to teach and to learn from. Thank you to John
and Will for bearing with me: I hope family life did not suffer too much.
Thank you to Alex Hollingsworth and Louise Fox at Routledge, for your
support and patience. Oliver Kleinschmidt, thank you: I could not have
wished for a better graphic designer. The book is as much yours as mine,
and how wonderful it has been to work with someone who knows his
craft, and practises aesthetics meticulously.
Contents
Foundations Principles
1 | To design landscape 3 5 | Sculpting time 14
2 | Craft 6 6 | All possible forms 24
3 | Form 8 7 | Nature, culture, both 36
4 | The aesthetics of thrift: 10 8 | Soft, rock-hard
art, nature and utility and evergreen time 48
9 | Elemental register 56
10 | Hand and machine 68
11 | Modesty and ingenuity in art 80
12 | Economy of means 90
13 | Utilitarian form 98
14 | Context is everything 110
15 | Raking 118
Strategies Elements
16 | Abstraction 128 23 | Green 196
17 | Hardly 140 24 | Terrain 208
18 | Intervention 148 25 | Wet 220
19 | Keep 156 26 | Furnish 232
20 | Absence 168 27 | Dirty, rotten 240
21 | Lucky 178 28 | Wind 248
22 | Interplay 188 29 | Sky 254
Bibliography 262
Case studies
listed by designer 266
Case studies
listed by site 267
Index 268
ix
