Landscape Architecture and Shapes

Abstract

Nowadays, the word landscape is used to name very different realities and, frequently, very far from its original meaning, which is connected to the rural territory. The adjectives that are usually used with it help to define its meaning and to extend the conceptual framework in which the word landscape is integrated. Therefore, we can talk about the interior landscapes, musical landscapes, artistic landscapes, poetical landscapes or human landscapes. Creating contextual architecture means incorporating into the project data, guidelines or relations imprinted in the territory or a place of the intervention. This amounts to link the architectural work with the structures which define the area where it will be located. The new intervention becomes another layer of the process of transformation and it can be consistent or collide with what already exists, in terms of the form. This document aims to fulfil the primary need of pointing with precision the conceptual framework in which what has been defined as the Landscape Architecture and Shapes is integrated. It is a discipline that studies the analysis and assessment of the material, environmental and formal conditions of the landscape, but always oriented towards the production of open spaces through the project and the implementation of the specific techniques. This article intends to offer a broad and systematic perspective of the different aspects involved in the Landscape Architecture, with the support of relevant examples of the culture of the landscape.