Research in Landscape Architecture Methods and Methodology

Defining a research question, describing why it needs to be answered and explaining how methods are selected and applied are challenging tasks for anyone embarking on academic research within the field of landscape architecture. Whether you are an early career researcher or a senior academic, it is essential to draw meaningful conclusions and robust answers to research questions.

Research in Landscape Architecture provides guidance on the rationales needed for selecting methods and offers direction to help to frame and design academic research within the discipline. Over the last couple of decades the traditional orientation in landscape architecture as a field of professional practice has gradually been complemented by a growing focus on research. This book will help you to develop the connections between research, teaching and practice, to help you to build a common framework of theory and research methods.

Bringing together contributions from landscape architects across the world, this book covers a broad range of research methodologies and examples to help you conduct research successfully. Also included is a study in which the editors discuss the most important priorities for the research within the discipline over the coming years. This book will provide a definitive path to developing research within landscape architecture.

Introduction (Adri van den Brink, Diedrich Bruns, Simon Bell and Hilde Tobi) Part I: Raising Awareness, 1. Advancing Landscape Architecture Research (Diedrich Bruns, Adri van den Brink, Hilde Tobi and Simon Bell), 2. Research in Landscape Architecture: A Process Approach(Hilde Tobi and Adri van den Brink), Part II: Setting the Stage, 3. The Role of Theory (Ian H. Thompson), 4. The Relationship between Research and Design(Sanda Lenzholzer, Ingrid Duchhart and Adri van den Brink), 5. The Challenge of Publication(Maggie Roe), 6. Assessing Research Priorities and Quality(Jurian Meijering, Hilde Tobi, Adri van den Brink and Diedrich Bruns), Part III: Selected Approaches and Methods, 7. Case Studies(Simon Swaffield), 8. Landscape Biography(Jan Kolen, Hans Renes and Koos Bosma), 9. Social Media: The New Resource(Ron van Lammeren, Simone Theile, Boris Stemmer and Diedrich Bruns), 10. Virtual Environments(Sigrid Hehl-Lange and Eckart Lange), 11. Walking(Henrik Schulz and Rudi van Etteger), 12. Design Guidelines(Martin Prominski), Part IV: Addressing some of the Grand Challenges, 13. Cultural Landscape Meanings and Values(Ken Taylor), 14. Landscape and Health(Catharine Ward Thompson), 15. Thermally Comfortable Urban Environments(Robert D. Brown and Terry J. Gillespie), 16. The Urban Water Challenge(Antje Backhaus, Ole Fryd and Torben Dam)

Adri van den Brink is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

Diedrich Bruns is Professor and Chair of Landscape Planning and Land Use at Kassel University, Germany.

Hilde Tobi is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Research Methodology Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

Simon Bell is Professor and Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Estonian University of Life Sciences and Associate Director of the OPENspace Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.