Is landscape architecture one of the world’s most important professions? Yes.
There is an immense public demand for good urban and rural landscapes. We want to live in them. We want to visit them. We want them to exist. So why aren’t we making more of them? One possibility that the task does not fall within the technical, conceptual and professional scope of the professions which undertake most of the work. For cities, the work is normally done by architects, town planners and surveyors. Many have a good understanding of the works of man. But their understanding of the works of nature is almost always deficient. Yet communities depend on harmonious designs for relationships between the works of nature and the works of man: between landform, water, plants, buildings and pavings. And composing these elements to create public goods and common goods is the heartland of landscape architecture. With good design, we can have sustainable and beautiful places in which to grow food, to work, to live, to build cities, to plan for multi-objective rivers, lakes, forests, grasslands, deserts and mountains, to enjoy ourselves and to celebrate, to worship, the nature of the world.