Comments on: The Goal: Truly Sustaining Landscapes http://dirt.asla.org/2013/02/06/attaining-truly-sustaining-landscapes/ Uniting the Built & Natural Environments Tue, 21 May 2013 20:36:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Pamela Hartford, Landscape Historian, Salem MA http://dirt.asla.org/2013/02/06/attaining-truly-sustaining-landscapes/#comment-23751 Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:38:05 +0000 http://dirt.asla.org/?p=13002#comment-23751 It sounds thorough enough, and yet: what about agriculture? It is understandable that productive landscapes are not within the purview of a botanical garden, a reasonable basis for Beck’s expertise, but the sustainable landscape MUST also include every possible way of integrating more food production into a variety of scales of landscape, and do it ecologically. Done correctly, agriculture is not the enemy of either biodiversity or sound ecology. Furthermore, redirection of massive amounts of fertilizer (ie human waste) back into the landscape would be the essence of sustainability. The landscape architecture profession is woefully irresponsible toward productive cultivation; few universities are bringing this curriculum back into play.

Perhaps it would help if the ASLA mission statement underwent some revision in light of this reality:

to lead, to educate, and to participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of our cultural and natural environments.

Per Travis Beck, there really is no need to make a distinction between cultural and natural; we should be stewards of our environment.

Productive landscapes can be artfully designed. The ferme orne was party to the birth of the profession in Europe and England, but unfortunately, not in the US. Early professional proselytization toward ‘tasteful and natural design’ had (and still has) enormous impact; it is time for the profession to take the lead in articulating a new value system for landscapes large and small, and an aesthetically pleasing one, at that. Lest we forget: “…Weren’t earlier gardens as often as not abstractions and pared down, refined forms of horticulture and agriculture?….In one way or another, we have worked with agricultural elements and references ever since.” Laurie Olin, Across the Open Field, 2000.

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