Synthetic patterns: Fabricating landscapes in the age of ‘green’

Abstract

This paper considers the efficacy of pattern in contemporary landscape design; in particular, it highlights projects that use pattern in response to_and as a critique of_the conventional forms that today's environmental mandates have taken. Much of the professional conversation revolves around problem-solving, instead of how these predominant environmental concerns are equally significant in terms of expression and experience. By harnessing these recent mandates and framing them within perceptually and conceptually integrated configurations, pattern can be used as a bridging mechanism between a landscape's utilitarian and aesthetic functions; between systems and signs. The use of pattern, due to its association with surface, is often met with suspicion and deemed unsuitable for ‘sitespecific’ responses. This paper traces the source of such scepticism_and the limited definition of pattern that has prompted such distrust_and highlights projects that suggest the potential for new, synthetic patterns as a means to organize landscape processes.