This thesis explores variation of ecological design preference due to the population demographics: urban, city, small town and rural areas in public gardens under four major paradigms of landscape preference: mystery, legibility, complexity and coherence. The findings of this study reveals that high ecological design preference has a significant relationship with mystery category. Ecological design preference in complexity and mystery has a statistically important relationship with rural areas and cities respectively. The outcome of this study shows that the preference of ecological design has considerable possibility to differ according to the paradigms of visual landscape preference and respondents’ population demographics.

This paper proposes that the cultural understanding of nature under the Modern paradigm is inadequate. I propose that the result of this deficient representation of nature has been the degradation of the environment and our culture. The degradation of the environment is well studied, but I suggest that our culture is degraded by limited contact with nature and the loss of nature as a potential source of value and source of meaning. This paper explores the writings of several philosophers and social critics who support this supposition. In order to develop a more representative understanding of nature this paper suggests that landscape architects study Aldo Leopold's theory of landscape aesthetics. Leopold's concept of experiential knowledge is discussed as a means of offering our culture a deeper appreciation of nature, but also as a means for landscape architects to improve their own education and design process. Based on the experiences of flyfishers this paper suggests that the practice of Leopold's landscape aesthetic is both possible and fulfilling. / Master of Landscape Architecture

abstract: As a significant level of the reformation and transformation of our society has been provoked by environmental deterioration, ecological approaches in environmental design have drawn much attention from professionals as an alternative world view and also as a practical design approach. Particularly in landscape architecture, ecological understanding has been at the very core of the profession since its emergence and plays an important role in the decision making processes. While ecology supports the profession with an objective rationale, aesthetics plays another major role in providing various understandings about the aesthetic experience of people, which is rather subjective. However, the ways to seek the balance between them are still controversial. Furthermore, the conventional aesthetic value system of landscape appears to have limitations for guiding us to an appropriate appreciation, especially in dealing with newly emerging urban landscape patterns such as regeneration of post-industrial landscapes. Understanding these issues, there have been continuous attempts to describe the relation between ecology and aesthetics, suggesting that a new approach known as "ecological aesthetics," can bring us a new set of viewpoints seeking a reunion of nature and culture, and science and art. It asserts that "there is a type of beauty" in the landscape associated with its ecological health which people could aesthetically appreciate; and therefore, revealing the "hidden" beauty of nature in more visible ways should be the primary concern of today's ecological designers. This research mainly consists of extensive literature research and a case study on two landscape restructuring projects of post-industrial landscapes in Seoul, Korea. The literature research redefines the tasks of landscape architecture based on the idea of ecological aesthetics, and the case study seeks the potentials and limitations of current design projects. This research proposes a framework for landscape perception and reflects on the lessons that would be useful for better practice and research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Environmental Design and Planning 2011

The 42-kilometer beach in Harrison County, Mississippi necessitates continual re-nourishment projects to ensure its survival due to constant erosion events. The stability that the root structures of vegetated beaches provide have been shown to be a countermeasure to these erosion events. It has also been shown that the public will utilize landscapes that they find to be attractive. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to ascertain whether beach users find vegetated beaches more attractive than un-vegetated beaches. In several Harrison County communities, beach users were surveyed through the use of a Visual Preference Survey and an accompanying questionnaire to determine their opinions on the design of the beach, its design elements, and the purpose of those elements. Results were mixed, however it was determined that beach users found beaches vegetated with multiple types of florae to be more attractive than non-vegetated beaches.

This diploma thesis deals with landscape as a way of seeing, its critique and its defense. The thesis will initially focus on the presentation of the critical concept of ways of seeing by English art critic and writer John Berger. On the basis of this, the thesis will move to the exploration of the critical concepts of landscape and landscape painting by British humanistic cultural geographer Denis E. Cosgrove and American visual theorist and philosopher W. J. T. Mitchell. Subsequently, it will also deal with the relationship of these concepts to the concept of landscape by English historian and art historian Simon Schama. Cosgrove and Mitchell both deal in a similar way with the critical reflection of the idea of landscape in terms of postmodern and postcolonial criticism. Both authors are influenced by Berger's concept and claim that our aesthetic perception of landscape is not a natural vision, but an acquired, historically created way of seeing. This way of seeing then raises a number of questions in relation to the traditional conception of landscape aesthetics and can lead to a rethinking of traditional concepts such as aesthetic attitude, psychical distance or the idea of disinterested pleasure. Opposite to it, the thesis intends to present an optimistic concept of landscape by Schama. The...