The Walker‘s Perspective: strategies for conveying landscape perception using audiovisual media.

Abstract

This paper presents a method and three case studies for the integration of video into the practice of landscape architecture. As a design practice, landscape architecture is heavily dependent on visualisations. Traditionally maps, perspectives and photographic stills were used, but today these techniques are clearly no longer up to the task: they convey little information about the way we perceive landscape. Landscape perception has changed dramatically since the introduction of the moving image and highspeed travel. Contemporary visualisations of landscapes must therefore include these dynamic parameters in order to meet the profession’s needs. We propose video as a new tool for visualizing the perception of, and communicating about, landscape. In this paper we first introduce an analytical grid for the evaluation of video as a means of visualising landscape perception, from the vantage point of the slowest traveller, the pedestrian. Using three case studies, we then describe how video may be used to understand the specific situation of a walking perceiver. The findings are important both for practitioners and researchers in landscape architecture and for researchers of all disciplines interested in human perception.