Theory & Discourse
Whither Landscape Architecture: Personal Musings and Messages | Shishir R. Raval
LA 57
The issues plaguing mankind can be clubbed under two broad heads- human systems and natural systems.
Landscape comprises primarily three disciplines- Ecological Science, Environmental Psychology and Ethics.
Once learnt and mastered, these have the potential to strongly influence the design techniques that we employ in our term as professionals and, thus, affect our future as a society.

"What we love only from self-interest, we will sooner or later destroy."
- David W. Orr, Earth in Mind, p. 142
As somewhat sentient and engaged citizens in the present-day global-local (glocal) communities, many people are aware of various glocal issues. The global and national crises are articulated by various forums and media. The more local ones are in our face by way of everyday experiences of living and the news in local media or at paan-shops. Some of the critical glocal issues are:

1. Human System: Governance Failures and Polarization, Glocal Economic Vulnerabilities (livelihood decline and mounting debts), Involuntary Migration, Techno-crimes, Loneliness, Depression, Obesity, and Undernourishment

2. Natural System: Extreme Weather Events (Climate Change), Ecosystem Collapse (resulting loss of Ecosystem Services), Environmental Calamities, Resource Degradation, and Biodiversity Loss

There are two main attributes of these issues. One is that these issues cause enormous financial burdens and human woes. The other is that while these issues are often presented and addressed as individual phenomena, further exploration and introspection reveal that these are systemic, interconnected, and wicked. A majority of these issues are rooted in the values, decisions, and actions by individuals. They are also symptoms of something else that is going wrong and not addressed adequately. Later in this essay we will reconnect with these ideas.

 


ISSUE NO: 57
Report
Canals as urban green lungs search workshop 18

Landscape Discourse
Landscape discourse looking in & around

Landscape Discourse
Suneet Mohindru


Landscape Architects
How relevant are we and whom do we serve

Akshay Kaul


Landscape Architecture and Ecology in India
Nikhil Dhar


Reflect | Reassess | React
Charting Futures

Aniket Bhagwat

What Landscape Means
Aruna Ramani Grover

Friends for life
Memories and associations of places and nature

Narendra Dengle

Memory creating identity for landscape forms
Prerana Chatterjee


The need for a national urban open space policy
Saurabh Popli & Dr Sanjeev Singh

Directing the course
Geeta Wahi Dua


'We're not a profession, we're a conspiracy'
Sandip Kumar

Whither Landscape Architecture?
Personal musings and messages

Shishir R. Raval


interview
Re-looking at practice and education

In conversation with Prem Chandavarkar

Role of landscape in today's world
In conversation with Michael Jakob

students' design competition
Nurturing childhood with nature
Landscape Foundation students' competition-2018
Results | Winning Entries | List of Participants


seeing the unseen
Imagined realities

In conversation with Malavika Karlekar

book review
Whither indian urban spaces read and heed
Urban spaces in modern India

Review by Shishir R. Raval

Unsung heroes of the streets: kerbstones
Mehul Jain






















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