About This Issue

This Fall 2024 issue of Landscape Journal has six articles, five book reviews, and one conference review. The first article, by Amer Habibullah and D. Fairchild Ruggles, examines how 21st-century Islamic gardens reflect on the past to reinterpret present-day design. Shaun Rosier revisits the sublime in his essay on aesthetic perception within the built landscape. Daniel Kletzing then ponders the values and visions of environmental nonprofit organizations led by members of Indigenous communities. Interviews and content analysis inform his recommendations for academics who collaborate with these communities and organizations.

Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, observed that “nothing is permanent except change.” Educators in landscape architecture may do well to post this insight prominently in every design studio. The effects of time on designed landscapes can be profound. Longitudinal studies explicitly examine landscape change, enabling researchers to evaluate assumptions that were made during the design process. Eliza Pennypacker and Stuart Echols did just this in examining the effects of time on “artful rainwater design” projects. Landscape Journal is eager to publish longitudinal studies that examine design practices and their social, economic, and/or ecological impacts over time.

Educators with both extensive professional practice experience and licenses to practice have a long tradition in landscape architecture. Rare was the landscape architecture professor 50 years ago whose graduate education went beyond earning a master’s degree. Yet for many reasons—including declining public funding of state universities—advanced research degrees have become more common among the faculty teaching in accredited landscape architecture degree programs. Galen Newman and colleagues opine on professional licensure for contemporary landscape architecture faculty members. Their essay considers the potential implications of these trends for the profession and our discipline.

The final article in this issue is a “Perspectives from Practice” essay. Megan Barnes, at the Landscape Architecture Foundation, organized a series of conversations with accomplished professionals in research leadership positions. This collaboration resulted in the essay published in this fall issue.

The issue’s five book reviews reflect a range of landscape scholarship interests. Our reviewers—Richard C. Smardon, John Dean Davis, Anthony J. Miller, S. Scott Shannon, and Frederick Steiner—write on recently published books by Richard J. Weller and Tatum L. Hands, Rosetta Elkin, Sonja Dümpelmann, Alan Tate and Marcella Eaton, and Sue Ann Kahn. Taner R. Özdil offers a detailed review of the 2023 CELA conference in San Antonio, TX.

Collectively, these articles and reviews provide thoughtful perspectives on some of the discipline’s most interesting issues in 2024. Thank you, as always, to our excellent peer reviewers whose manuscript reviews offer authors insightful observations and invariably constructive suggestions for revision.