Landscape architects design, build and maintain landscapes. They are also involved in research, teaching and community outreach.
In conducting a visual evaluation, identify areas of your landscape that have negative features. For example, your view from a window may be marred by an air conditioner or utility box. Landscape plantings can be used to hide these unsightly structures.
Unity
Unity is the sense of integration and wholeness you get from a design. It’s achieved through the repetition of elements, harmony, balance and consistency. For example, using several types of plants with similar shapes, foliage and bloom colors can create a sense of unity in your landscaping.
Landscape architects have a wide range of skills and experience in creating beautiful outdoor spaces. They can use a variety of tools to draft plans and designs, including computer software and drawing by hand. They also have a keen eye for identifying plant, terrain and design hazards.
Unity Lawn and Landscape is a company that understands the importance of landscape design in community building and economic revitalization. It’s why they focus on the aesthetics of a space while keeping it functional and sustainable.
Balance
The elements of a landscape design must be balanced in order to be pleasing. This includes a sense of proportion, balance between voids and masses, and balance between colors. The use of repetition in a composition also helps to achieve balance. Repetition of plants, colors, or textures helps create a unified theme and rhythm.
Some aspects of balance are purely aesthetic and can be based on personal preferences, intuition, or current consensus. For instance, there may not be any hard scientific facts to prove that a curved foundation planting is more attractive than one that is straight, but most contemporary people seem to agree that a gracefully curving garden bed softens the linearity of a house wall better than a rectilinear one would. Likewise, angular lines can be visually stimulating, but they must be used sparingly to avoid visual confusion and choppy compositions.
Harmony
Landscape architects use mathematical concepts such as geometry and calculus to analyze a site, create accurate plans and designs, and ensure that outdoor spaces are functional and sustainable. They also rely on mathematical tools such as computer-aided design (CAD) software.
Harmony refers to visually pleasing combinations of similar or related elements. In a painting, for example, an overall harmony of warm, repeating rectangles is relieved by the addition of small areas of contrasting cool or organic shapes.
Landscape architecture is often thought of as gardening or land stewardship, but it goes far beyond these common activities. It encompasses a broad range of projects that are crucial to our everyday lives and environmental stewardship. Whether it’s planning an entire city park or amending a pond to improve habitat for frogs, the work of landscape architects is all around us.
Dominance
Landscape architects use geometry, trigonometry, and other mathematical concepts to determine angles and distances. This helps them create accurate plans and designs that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Harmony is achieved by using similar shaped plants and objects throughout the landscape. Dominance is the ability of a single element to subdue other plants in its presence, giving it a more prominent role. This can be achieved with large trees, a fountain, or even a statue.
Landscape architects also work with local government and organizations to create green spaces that are more ecologically friendly. For example, they might design a system that slows down stormwater runoff by utilizing permeable pavements and water-retaining soils. This can help reduce flood damage and pollution in urban areas.
Proportion
The proportion of a landscape is an important aspect that can affect its balance and harmony. It is achieved through the careful selection and placement of plants, hardscape elements, and other features. Landscape architects use various mathematical concepts to analyze the site and create accurate plans and designs. These include geometry, which is the study of shapes and sizes.
The correlations between the landscape metrics and ecosystem service values were evaluated using the decision tree method (Rakotomalala, 2005). Correlograms showed that NP, LSI, SHAPE_AM, IJI, AI, and TA had a high degree of coherence.
In contrast, a low coherence is evident for FRAGSTATS metrics (SHEI and patch aggregation), suggesting that landscape change is influencing these spatial structures. The results indicate that a more diverse range of landscape types is required to sustain ecosystem services.