简介

As a practitioner and teacher of landscape architecture, I try to understand how practical landscape problems are shaped by the social and environmental values of designers. These values are hidden in plain sight everywhere in the built environment. Values motivate and guide professional practice and place-making through mechanisms such as property laws, environmental policy, and theories of design. That makes landscape literacy important: all citizens should be able to read, interpret, and critique the values that shape and condition our shared landscapes. My teaching may be described as a ‘three-legged stool’: Site Design—so students may gain confidence integrating site analysis, social context, conceptual inquiry, and design process; Landscape History, Theory, and Representation—to explain how different values have been expressed through the landscape medium at different times, in different cultures, for different reasons; Creative Research for Designers—because broadening the definition of design and research strategies makes it possible for landscape architects to work in really interesting ways across disciplines, media, materials, and scales. 
 All of this makes it possible for my students to enjoy the profound clarity, beauty, and utility of integrating design values and research in preparation for their future practices.