Fieldwork in Landscape Architecture: Methods Actions Tools

Coming from Routledge in 2024

Fieldwork in Landscape Architecture: Methods Actions Tools by Thomas Oles and Paula Horrigan addresses the initial encounter between landscape designer and landscape site, an encounter that determines the entire course of the design process. The book offers a four-part framework (‘what you seek,’ ‘what you carry,’ ‘how you act,’ and ‘what you leave behind’) for learning and practicing fieldwork as a landscape design skill, and contains over sixty first-person accounts by international practitioners and educators about the methods and tools they bring to the field, from drones to dance. The first title of its kind, Fieldwork will be an invaluable resource for students and instructors of landscape architecture, as well as for anyone interested in the practice and experience of direct encounter with real places.

Advance praise for Fieldwork in Landscape Architecture:

Fieldwork in Landscape Architecture is well-researched, deep in both theory and practical approaches, and yet highly enjoyable to read given its strong foundations and exemplary case-studies. Largely free of jargon and emphasizing the voices of designers and design educators, the book is a rare achievement of simultaneous clarity and expanded vocabulary in the discourse. Any designer interested in expanding their understanding of their own work in the field will find this book rewarding and handy.

Simon Bussiere, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Ecological Design, University of Hawai'i, USA

Fieldwork in Landscape Architecture demystifies the most important and most personal practices of landscape architecture. The book is a compendium of approaches that inspire a practitioner, hard at work at her desk, to return to the site. It reminds us of the ever-present potential of fieldwork to generate singular and site-specific ideas with ease and directness. While the volume shares tools particular to the trade of landscape architecture, there is a universality about its fundamental guidance: to be in the world with curiosity, questions, and possibly a clinometer to discover the distinct voice of our own intuition.

Amy Seek, Landscape Architect, New York, USA

Why hasn’t this been done before! The diverse voices contained in this work explore how fieldwork is design work at a critical moment in the process—the first encounter with sites and situations. The methods gathered here, from sketching to drone mapping, tactile inventories, sensory transects, deep listening, and more, engage the phenomenal depth and complexity of landscape. Fieldwork in Landscape Architecture is a guide and open invitation for discovery and innovation as each of us goes out into the field. I want my students in studio to have it right now.

Matthew Potteiger, Professor of Landscape Architecture, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, USA