Designing Parks

Without imagination a park is a mere dry decor for people who come and go - a meaningless facade whereas it should be the most artistic of landscape architecture. This present study contributes to the formation of theories of landscape design by means of a comparative design analysis. In this it considers contemporary park design and the sources influencing designers while it also aims to discover and reveal the qualities and potential of recent developments. The competition for the design of the Parc de la Villette, Paris in 1982-3, attracted considerable international attention and provided the material upon which this book is based. The complex brief constituted a particular challenge for the participants causing them to sharpen their ideas and broaden their understanding and method of approach. This book covers all the stages of the fifty most interesting designs for the Parc de la Villette from graphic abstraction via spatial reality towards compositional concepts and themes; from reaction to location and programme to traditions of form.
The book ends with a series of reflections on composing in landscape architecture: the form and context of the urban park in general and the Parc de la Villette in particular.