Design Strategies for Regionality in Contemporary Landscape Architecture

Abstract

This paper has attempted to reexamine current international circumstance and the meaning of regionality and discover the practical design strategy in the process of observing the trend of contemporary landscape architecture from the perspective of regionality. Contemporary landscape architecture has started to discover possibility in the local value and create identity. This tendency can be classified as follows:First, regionality is re-examined as a medium which can integrate nature, culture and city. As a concept which contains time and spatial continuity, landscape is a matter of the identity of land and area. Second, regionality has been reinterpreted and recreated by designers. Landscape designers attempt to restore the past memories and traces instead of adding a new concept after erasing previous physical features. This design attitude has spatialized time continuity. Third, site is seen as a palimpsest, not tabula rasa in contemporary landscape architecture. It has been attempted to visually materialize the natural and ecological processes and spatial features. Fourth, site is approached in a tectonic approach instead of analytical approach. It is attempted to organize and restore the geological and archeological memories and ecological processes.Differentiation has emerged as a critical design strategy in contemporary landscape architecture. However, regionality is also formed through an interaction with continuity as well as through differentiation. In this sense, the following possibilities can be reviewed as practical design strategies to realize regionality: First, a terra-tectonic approach discovers and selects possibility in the site and expresses the site, creating practical possibility which strengthens regionality. If the memory and conditions of the site are different, the identity would different as well. Second, continuity of region itself is a gene pool with comparative advantage. As a rough sketch of design, it acts as a loose conformity on designers' experience and practice. Of course, this approach is not absolute with some limitations.It is necessary to explore practical strategies.

Exploring property orientation preferences and local variations

“…Studies on property orientation from the perspective of the Fengshui philosophy have been reported for long in Korean literature (Kim, 2009; Choi, 2016; Kim and Lim, 2021). Studies in this line of research tend to emphasize that the layout of sites and buildings should be designed in accordance with the geomantic practices recommended by the Fengshui philosophy.…”