Disciplinary convergence: landscape architecture and the spatial design disciplines

Abstract

Despite resurgent interest in landscape, the viability of landscape architecture has been questioned from within the field. The article positions this uncertainty as a symptom of shifts among the spatial design disciplines, which are enmeshed in a process of appropriation, relinquishment, and overlap of territory. Whereas the convergence of the spatial design disciplines has been interpreted as emblematic of landscape-based trans-disciplinary practice, a more contested cross-disciplinary interaction is identified and explored through analysis of design competition prizes and professional magazines. The discussion focusses on the interactions between architecture and landscape architecture, and considers potential implications for education and practice.

Keywords:

• Architecture
• discipline
• landscape architecture
• profession
• urban design

Notes

1 ‘Inter-disciplinary anxiety’ is where the crossing of boundaries leads to concerns regarding the integrity of institutional identity and an irretrievable loss of intellectual autonomy (Huggan 2002: 245).

2 ‘Trans-disciplinary’ refers to a holistic unity of knowledge that is greater than the sum of the constituent disciplines. Individual disciplinary boundaries are significantly reduced in importance, since the production of knowledge occurs using methods influenced by all participating disciplines.

3 ‘Cross-disciplinary’ refers to research that unilaterally investigates a topic outside of the researcher's original discipline, without interacting or cooperating with the visited disciplines. While disciplinary territory is crossed, there is no mutual exchange of knowledge or ideas.

4 The design competition clearinghouse www.deathbyarchitecture.com was launched in 1995.

5 Urban design was omitted due to the absence of an equivalently consistent professional magazine throughout the study period.

6 As Kwinter (2002: 6) noted, one decade after his widely influential essay ‘Landscapes of Change’, the article ‘post facto managed to interest a few landscape designers (to whom it was absolutely not addressed)’.

7 From analysis of curricula of ten top-ranked U.S. landscape schools (as listed by Design Intelligence 2015).

8 This is illustrated through comparison of the cover images of monthly U.S. professional magazines. Between 1992–2013 (inclusive), Architect ran twenty-four portraits of architects, while Landscape Architecture ran five portraits of landscape architects.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karl Kullmann

Biographical notes

Karl Kullmann is an Associate Professor at the College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches studios in landscape architecture and urban design, and courses in landscape theory and digital delineation. Kullmann's scholarship and creative work explore the urban agency of the designed and discovered landscape. Kullmann has published widely on this subject through diverse lenses, including urban topography, spatial orientation, green infrastructure, wasteland sites, urban decline, and representation. This research is actively tested through Kullmann's Berkeley-based design practice, which includes built urban landscape projects in China, Australia, and Germany, and numerous design competition prizes and exhibitions.