The Aesthetics of Ecological Design: Seeing Science as Culture

Abstract

Landscape architecture has ecological thinking at the core of its legacy, yet ecology's meaning and significance in design attenuates, if not divides, the profession. On one end of a continuum are those who see the primacy of landscape design in ordering ecological process, on the other, in aesthetic explication. This article speculates that for ecological design to coalesce as an environmental vision, the continuum must merge. Ecological design literature has elided its aesthetic implications while extensively considering theory, ideals, criteria, and methodologies. Examining ecological design in tandem with landscapes of notable aesthetic quality elucidates the difficulties in reconciling their conception of visibility, temporality, reiterated form, expression, and metaphor. Consideration of these realms of contention suggests a culturally persuasive aesthetic of ecological design and a reassessment of its philosophical foundations.