If you're wondering what the latest trends are in landscape design, then you'll want to pick up this new book by Richard Hartlage and Sandy Fischer of Land Morphology in Seattle. In The Authentic Garden: Naturalistic and Contemporary Landscape Design
(Monacelli Press, 2015), the two landscape architects profile 60 gardens across the country, public and private, by some of the country's top designers. The authors focus on landscapes that evoke deep emotions and reinforce today's trend in sustainable gardening. But as Hartlage says in the introduction, as he traveled around the United States, he noticed a trend: "designers who really know plants and who are comfortable using a variety of plants tend to practice multiple design styles. Only a few firms have signature styles and stay within those confines." Moreover, he says, while the wealthy are building grand gardens at a record rate, baby boomers and others are moving into urban areas, abandoning yards, and welcoming innovative public gardens like the High Line in New York and Milennium Park in Chicago.
The book is divided into chapters that focus on plant characteristics in design: naturalistic gardens, plants as architecture, meadow gardens, ecological plantings, seasonal and temporary plantings, graphic planting design. You'll note designs by top landscape architects like Raymond Jungles, Michael Vergason, Andrea Cochran, Steve Martino, Mario Nievera, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol and OLIN, just to mention a few. Beautiful images by top garden photographers accompany the text, and,there's a great list of local nurseries in the back of the book, to boot.
This book is pure eye candy for designers who want to get with the latest in landscape design.
How does or how should one design a landscape? What serves as the principle inspiration for some of today's most innovative projects? In this new book by landscape architect Susan Cohen, The Inspired Landscape: Twenty-One Leading Landscape Architects Explore the Creative Process
(Timber Press, 2015), you'll find that it's not the plants. The sculptures of Martin Puryear and Joan Mitchell's paintings provided the creative patterns used by Sheila Brady of Oehme van Sweden at the new native plant garden at the New York Botanical Garden. Mikyoung Kim's design for the Crown Sky Garden in Chicago was inspired by ribbons, and Stephen Stimson's project at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst is rooted in his understanding of the agrarian ecology and local farming traditions.
Author Cohen explores the creative process used by 21 landscape architects around the world for some of their most celebrated projects. Aside from photographs of each landscape, there are initial inspirational sketches and drawings, as well as final site plans.
Designers who want their works to be remembered should all take clues from this work.
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