Processes and Processors

BACKGROUND The work submitted is a speculative design enquiry within a subfield of Landscape Architecture: that of Computational Landscape Architecture. It contributes to two fields: computational design and contemporary landscape architectural practice. The gap that this work addresses is how computation, as both a design methodology and a tooling method, can be used to combine conceptual openness and technical rigour when designing complex landscapes. CONTRIBUTION The work examines this question through a speculative design that proposal evidences that capabilities of new tools in enabling novel design outcomes. This was informed by an underpinning process of precedent/discourse analysis and software development, but the work itself is the ultimate demonstration of how this research question was answered. That is to say the aims of how to improve landscape architectural practice was best evidenced by showcasing new methods within the design process itself. The work highlights a disjunct between landscape architectural discourse and practice in terms of the aims and realities of the design process. The new tools developed here offload the task of understanding complexities to the computer and in doing so liberating the designer to better consider strategic questions. Secondly, the work highlights a gap where existing tools are too attuned to the design of buildings and demonstrates alternative approaches that better accommodate ecological criteria - such as vegetation design - and more dynamic conditions - such as soil composition. SIGNIFICANCE This work was completed at a time when this new field was becoming more widely discussed. It has been featured in several publications as an exemplar of these new lines of research enquiry, notably in two prominent books: Landscape Theory in Design and Beyond BIM. The work has also served as exemplars in several of my peer-reviewed publications such as for the KERB journal and the ACADIA conference.