Landscape Architectural Research E-Book

M. Elen Deming

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 492

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A practical, single-source guide to successful strategies for landscape architecture research

As the scope of landscape architecture expands to engage with other disciplines, and streams of information directing this field continue to grow and diversify, it becomes increasingly important for landscape architects to be able to implement a range of effective research strategies when seeking, creating, and validating knowledge. Landscape Architecture Research offers a framework for advancing better design thinking solutions by supplying readers with a system of inquiry tactics that open up a wider range of research possibilities. With a logical and innovative approach that favors legitimacy of knowledge based on collective, grounded practices, rather than strict adherence to protocols drawn only from scientific models, this comprehensive, illustrated guide produces a sound argument for establishing a new paradigm for legitimizing research quality. Landscape Architecture Research presents:

• Case studies that show how the range of presented research strategies have been successfully used in practice
• New perspective on the relationship between theory, research, practice, and critique, a relationship that is specific to landscape architecture
• Detailed coverage of the ways that new knowledge is produced through research activities and practical innovations in landscape architecture

The first and only book on this topic of growing importance in landscape architecture, Landscape Architecture Research keeps professionals and students in step with the latest developments in landscape architecture, and delivers a dynamic and flexible game plan for verifying the integrity of their work.

Leseprobe

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 : Introduction

1.1 Knowledge in Landscape Architecture

1.2 The Need for a Guide

1.3 The Gatekeeping Dilemma in Context

1.4 Mapping the Terrain

1.5 Building a Research-Based Discipline

References

Chapter 2 : Knowing Landscape Architecture

2.1 Introduction

2.2 The Nature of Professional Disciplines

2.3 Domains of Knowledge in Landscape Architecture

2.4 Research Needs

References

Chapter 3 : Theory/Research/Scholarship/Critique

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Competing Ideals of Theory

3.3 Representing Theory

3.4 Theoretical Conversations

3.5 Research and Scholarship

3.6 Studio Design as a Research Setting

3.7 Theory and Critique

3.8 Conclusion

References

Chapter 4 : Integrating Design and Research

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Problems and Purpose

4.3 Framing a Research Question

4.4 Degrees of Research

4.5 Assessing Research Quality

4.6 A Developmental Heuristic

References

Chapter 5 : Descriptive Strategies

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Observation

5.3 Secondary Description

5.4 Descriptive Social Surveys

5.5 Complex Description

5.6 Descriptive Case Studies

Descriptive Strategies: Summary

References

Chapter 6 : Modeling and Correlational Strategies

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Descriptive/Synthetic Models

6.3 Analytical Models and Correlation

6.4 Simple Correlation

6.5 Multiple Correlations

6.6 Spatial Correlations

6.7 Predictive Modeling

6.8 Dynamic Simulation Modeling

Modeling Strategies: Summary

References

Chapter 7 : Experimental Strategies

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Classic Experiments

7.3 Field Experiments

7.4 Quasi Experiments

7.5 The Metaphor of Experimentation

Experimental Strategies: Summary

References

Chapter 8 : Classification Schemes

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Collection/Inventory/Catalogue

8.3 Typology

8.4 Taxonomy

8.5 Index

8.6 Bibliography and Literature Review

Classification Strategies: Summary

References

Chapter 9 : Interpretive Strategies

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Ethnography

9.3 Discourse Analysis

9.4 Iconology and Iconography

9.5 Historiography

Interpretive Strategies: Summary

References

Chapter 10 : Evaluation and Diagnosis

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Parameters, Norms, and Rubrics

10.3 Design Evaluation

10.4 Diagnostics

10.5 Landscape Assessment

Evaluation and Diagnosis Strategies: Summary

References

Chapter 11 : Engaged Action Research

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Action Dimensions in Pedagogical Research

11.3 Participatory Design in Service Learning

11.4 Participatory Action Research (PAR)

11.5 Transdisciplinary Action Research (TDAR)

Engaged Action Research Strategies: Summary

References

Chapter 12 : Projective Design

12.1 Design as Research

12.2 Design Operations

12.3 Design Interpretations

12.4 Design Reflections

Projective Design Strategies: Summary

References

Chapter 13 : Logical Systems (Axioms, Rules, and Argumentation)

13.1 Introduction

13.2 Logical Relationships

13.3 Synthetic Logic

13.4 Expanded Field Analysis

13.5 Spatial Syntax as Logical System

13.6 Pattern Language

Logical Systems: Summary

References

Chapter 14 : Research and Practice

14.1 Introduction

14.2 Integrating Research Strategies into Practice—Evidence-Based Design

14.3 Integrating Research into Practice—Polemical Transformation

14.4 Integrating Knowledge into Practice—Grassroots Movements

14.5 Organizing Practice-Based Research

14.6 Reprise

References

Index

Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Deming, M. Elen, 1956–

Landscape architecture research : inquiry, strategy, design / M. Elen Deming, Simon Swaffield.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-56417-2 (pbk.); ISBN 978-0-470-95065-4 (ebk.); ISBN 978-0-470-95076-0 (ebk.); 978-1-118-05708-7 (ebk.); 978-1-118-05709-4 (ebk.); 978-1-118-05710-0 (ebk.)

1. Landscape architecture—Study and teaching. 2. Research—Methodology. I. Swaffield, Simon, 1952– II. Title.

SB469.4.D46 2011

712.072—dc22

2010016940

All science should be scholarly, but not all scholarship can be rigorously scientific . . . . The terrae incognitae of the periphery contain fertile ground awaiting cultivation with the tools and in the spirit of the humanities.

—John Kirtland Wright, cited in Yi Fu Tuan, Topophilia

Preface

This is a transnational project, coauthored by professors living and working on opposite sides of the world. The translational challenges of the work, however, far exceeded what we originally anticipated. Our international partnership has forced us to reconcile different academic cultures, practices, and standards—a microcosm of the wider challenges addressed in the text itself.

It then goes without saying that this is also an ambitious project. Both authors readily acknowledge that any book about the state of research in landscape architecture will be an incomplete, evolving project—simply by definition. It is also a work in progress in the sense that the arguments are provisional and intended as a constructive contribution to an extended debate that will continue to shape our discipline. Our propositions, classifications, and examples will no doubt provoke and stimulate varying reactions, and we look forward to our colleagues’ response.

It is also important to acknowledge that we are both generalists, having been privileged for many years with an unusual vantage on contemporary research in the field of landscape architecture from the perspective of editors, educators, and scholars. This is both an advantage and a potential limitation. In reviewing and interpreting the diversity of research strategies within our discipline we have had to simplify and translate. We hope that our own process of learning the very different traditions involved has not compromised their integrity or richness, and will help others facing the same interpretive challenge.

Both of us have served as editors of peer-reviewed journals, Swaffield as founding editor of Landscape Review (1995–2009) and Deming first as coeditor and then sole editor of Landscape Journal (2002–2009). We both serve on a number of editorial advisory boards. Our exposure to authors and peer reviewers alike has inspired our approach to this book, which is to use informative examples of what researchers are already doing to illustrate the main concepts. We hope that all students and practitioners who pick up this book will share a sense of empowerment in understanding how to make a difference through research and from knowing how, exactly, their work matters.

We believe the most important contribution of this book is not the specific selection or elucidation of examples we have chosen but, rather, the overview and the elasticity of thinking strategically about research. The vast majority of the examples we chose were compound studies—combining, for instance, classification with logical argumentation (Fredericks 1982), description with evaluation (Francis 2002), and so on. This makes it all the more challenging for beginning researchers to develop a confident sense of understanding the relationship between strategy, design, and the need to know. In defence, we suggest that there is no such thing as a “pure” strategy—all research is constructed to address particular questions in particular contexts, and the examples reflect this process of matching approach to purpose. Similarly, research design is about fitness for purpose and the art of the possible.

However, there is a logic to developing a research strategy, and to its implementation, and we believe there has been benefit in probing the disciplinary literature in a systematic way: like an x-ray that illuminates the skeleton, it renders a more diagrammatic understanding of research strategy, design, and methods in our discipline. We hope the classification we have produced and the illustrations we have offered will open new vistas of comprehension, of analogy, and of pragmatic innovation that both inspire and guide new researchers, as well as provoke and challenge those already set in particular paradigms and conventions.

Acknowledgments

MED: Having practiced and taught for many years, when I finally returned to graduate school I was treated to a seminar in research inquiry taught by Michele Addington. In 1997, in her efforts to guide graduate students toward producing a well-crafted thesis proposal in the shortest possible time, she facilitated a remarkable discussion of research methods—an epiphany for me. The universe of possibilities that emerged in those discussions served to demystify the processes of scholarly investigation that had eluded me for so long. That liberation changed my world view.

The initial impulse to write this book simmered up a few years later, at the ECLAS conference in Ås, Norway, in 2005, where Simon Swaffield presented an early version of his paper “Theory and Critique in Landscape Architecture: Making Connections” (2006). Filled with admiration for the clarity of the rubric he constructed there, knowing the importance of the project, yet still dissatisfied with specific limits of the vision, I threw down the gauntlet on the spot: “Either you write the book, Simon, or I will.” This work is the result of that early meeting of the minds, a stimulating and productive collaboration that has withstood the rigors of distance, time, training, exposure, misunderstanding, negotiation, reconciliation, and multiple stints of one or the other of us serving in administrative posts.

My work on this project was supported by financial assistance from a Wadsworth Endowment Faculty Research Award in the Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The benefactors of this endowment, Jean and Brent Wadsworth, have been extraordinary friends of landscape architecture at Illinois. For well over a decade they have supported student excellence and faculty research aimed at improving the evidence base for the profession of landscape architecture and for society at large.

In part, the grant supported a research assistant, Lori Tella (MLA 2009), who helped us gather web sources on various research methods and test our initial rubric against the published literature. Debbie Huber’s capable assistance at a key point in the writing is also deeply appreciated.

SRS: The origins of my interest in research strategies lie at the start of my tertiary education. In the early 1970s the Department of Geography at Cambridge University was a whirlpool of competing paradigms that opened me to the challenge of mediating between alternative ways of knowing. The confidence to chart one’s own path came later, from my PhD studies at Lincoln University, under the scrutiny and with support of supervisors from three diverse disciplines—Professor Kevin O’Connor, the late Dr Angus McIntyre, and Dr (now Professor) Harvey Perkins. Preparation of a reader on theory in landscape architecture stimulated my interest in the research foundations of our professional discipline, and as Elen has explained, our collaboration grew from there.

Most of the preparation of the text has been undertaken as part of my role as Professor of Landscape Architecture at Lincoln University, and I am grateful for the support and encouragement I have received from Stefanie Rixecker as the Dean of the Faculty of Environment Society and Design, and from Neil Challenger since he took over as Head of the School of Landscape Architecture. I received support from the Lincoln University Strategic Investment Fund to gain relief from teaching in 2010, and the Velux Foundation in Denmark has supported me as a visiting professor at Copenhagen University during the latter stages of production process.

Theresa Caracausa provided essential help in identifying and reviewing examples, as a summer scholar supported by the Faculty, and her pragmatic evaluations from a student’s perspective helped shape the choices. Mathew Durning prepared the authors’ illustrations, with additional support from Erica Gilchrist. Michelle Collings provided invaluable help in preparing the authors’ manuscript for submission.

MED and SRS: Our work on this book was made possible by many forms of mutual trust and collegiate support. We are grateful for the support and encouragement of the editors and staff at John Wiley and Sons who have guided the process from its inception, particularly Margaret Cummins and David Sassian. That this book exists at all is testament to their patient efforts.

There is also the trust between colleagues. We owe a huge debt to those authors whose work we selected to feature in this edition. They not only read and suggested improvements to our synopses of their own published work, but their encouragement and advice on the larger project was very welcome.

We especially acknowledge the kind cooperation of the editorial and administrative staff at the University of Wisconsin Press Journals Division, publishers of Landscape Journal. We drew many examples of research strategies from the studies published in that journal since 1982.

We offer thanks to all those members of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) and the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS) who provided review comments on the conference papers that helped shape the text. We also thank the key informants we approached and whose knowledge particularly informed the discussion of gatekeepers and research quality criteria.

A number of colleagues reviewed early versions of the manuscript proposal and offered helpful feedback. It goes without saying that the inevitable errors, misunderstandings and omissions remain the authors’ own. James Anderson, Laura Lawson, and John Stallmeyer (College of Fine & Applied Arts, University of Illinois), Lindsay Sowman (Lincoln University), Robert Brown (University of Guelph), Cheryl Doble and Dayton Reuter (State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry), all read portions of early drafts and offered constructive criticism. Jeffrey Blankenship (Hobart & William Smith College) provided the signpost to the epigram. The most powerful and useful criticism came from former coeditor of Landscape Journal, James F. Palmer, who read the whole manuscript and challenged us to make it better. We are profoundly grateful for such colleagues, who are generous enough to constructively and honestly disagree with us. We hope that we have addressed the challenges they posed.

Of course, the importance of trust between coauthors cannot be overstated. As we noted in the Preface, the intellectual project represented in the text, and its writing and production, have been undertaken as a collaboration across a continent and an ocean, with a small number of working meetings, and many emails. We each acknowledge the intellect, experience, groundedness, humor, and personal generosity of our coauthor.

Simon also offers profound thanks and acknowledgement to Jenny, Matthew and Martin at home in Governors Bay in New Zealand. An author’s family is the silent partner in any scholarly production, providing encouragement, love, and support when progress is slow and when things go wrong, and tolerating the intrusions into family life of the time and energy spent on the project.

Finally, we must gratefully acknowledge the mutual trust between students and their faculty. Many students have worked with us over the years and shown us the need for what we have written here. The sincerity and efforts of gifted and enthusiastic students—their capacity to generate new knowledge not from knowing exactly what to do, but from knowing how to ask the right questions—is what motivates this book.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1 Knowledge in Landscape Architecture

The “new normal” in landscape architecture is the production and consumption of knowledge. The past two decades have seen an unprecedented increase in the standards and complexity of disciplinary expertise, and with that comes increasing pressure to formalize the ways in which we seek, create, and validate knowledge. As the discipline expands and engages with other disciplines to address the profound challenges of the twenty-first century, there is pressure to include a broader base of thinking in the field and to deepen the way we think. These dynamics intersect in research.

This book offers researchers in landscape architecture a place to begin shaping their research program. It comprises a critical review of research strategies that have built and continue to build the knowledge base in landscape architecture. Its primary audience is students in higher education who are working on capstone or terminal studio projects, advanced independent studies, theses, or dissertations, as well as faculty who are supervising graduate students. As the number and size of Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) thesis and PhD programs expand (Tai 2003), candidates and examiners require guidance and clarity of expectations about acceptable research methodology—that is, the principles, practices, and procedures of inquiry that characterize the discipline.

The career development and eventual success of academic staff also hinges increasingly upon their research agenda: its productivity, value, and impact. Universities and funding agencies demand metrics of performance and productivity that indicate the quantity and quality of research activity and dissemination, and programs are frequently ranked on this basis. In some countries, public funding for universities is tied directly to research output (Forsyth 2008), and there may be financial incentives that favor postgraduate education that involves substantial research outcomes. All of these activities involve creation of new knowledge, for which a clear strategy, or systematic process of inquiry, is needed.

An important secondary audience for the book is landscape practitioners in private-sector design, multidisciplinary or corporate consulting firms, public-sector agencies, and academia. In the design and development industry, as well as in government sectors and at not-for-profit agencies, research is becoming integral to shaping policy and practice. Indeed, success in business often depends on developing strategies for innovation in order to maintain competitiveness. “Evidence-based design” (Davies et al. 2000) is an area of fast-growing interest, as clients, public officials, and practitioners seek credible sources of knowledge of landscape and social processes upon which to base their evaluation of design proposals and policy recommendations. Forms of peer review are increasingly used in all of these situations, but they still beg the questions of which research strategies are effective and appropriate for the discipline and by what criteria should new knowledge be evaluated.