Lessons from a Landscape Architect: Design and Plan for People

TASA ID: 334

If you have ever driven out of a quiet residential neighborhood and found the five lanes of high-speed traffic sucking you into a vortex that will not let you go west, but instead, you are forced to go north, you may be a victim of large land mass zoning. Without regard to historical significance, indigenous architecture or landscape architecture, disregarding the normal behavioral patterns of human users’ government forces have created huge vast tracts of similar patterns. Despite current interest in new urbanism, mixed uses and pockets of parks and integrated mass transit for people moving, we are still creating mega blocks of solid homogeneity without significant integration of services and amenities.

We long for the village lifestyle where one could walk (walkable communities), bike and hike without interruption, and actually experience the integration of shops and social opportunities. Urban planners, architects and landscape architects must rally to replace this pattern.

Reducing conflicts as between pedestrians and vehicles would be an immediate benefit. Genius loci or a sense of place could bolster the human animals, sense of well-being and compatibility with the environment.

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