The Knowledge of Landscape

Abstract

Despite the long and significant history of landscape architecture practice, formal education of landscape architecture as an academic discipline is a relatively new field in Iran. The purpose of this research is to provide a descriptive profile of both prominent and neglected topics and key considerations in contemporary Iranian academic landscape architecture context after about 20 years of a freestanding landscape architecture educational program. In this research two different kinds of academic sources are analyzed in a period of five years between 2012 and 2016. First, master’s thesis in landscape architecture in three well-known universities of Iran and second, all related papers in four academic journals affiliated with them. After identifying main topics and key considerations by classification and interpretation research strategies, all sources are coded in MAXQDA software. Analyzing of this data paints a descriptive portrait of recent Iranian landscape architecture academic educational and research priorities. Patterns related to topic areas of landscape architecture academia and their considerations reveals a propensity toward interpretation and social dimensions versus ecological and technical dimensions. The results of this research are a starting point in academic landscape architecture program assessment in Iran for its future direction and development based on the expectation of landscape architecture education and pedagogy goals.