Landscape Architecture: Planting Design Illustrated (3rd Edition) - Softcover

Chen, Gang

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0984374191 ISBN 13: 9780984374199

Publisher: ArchiteG, Incorporated, 2012

Synopsis

Absolutely fascinating! Informative, enlightening, and entertaining! This is one of the most comprehensive books on Planting Design. It fills in the blanks in this field and introduces poetry, painting, and symbolism into Planting Design. It covers in detail the two major systems in Planting Design: Formal Planting Design and Naturalistic Planting Design. It has numerous line drawings and photos to illustrate the Planting Design concepts and principles. Through in-depth discussions of historical precedents and practical case studies, it uncovers the fundamental design principles and concepts as well as underpinning philosophy for Planting Design. It is an indispensable reference book for Landscape Architecture students, designers, architects, urban planners, and ordinary garden lovers. What Others Are Saying About “Planting Design Illustrated”... “I found this book to be absolutely fascinating. You will need to concentrate while reading it but the effort will be well worth your time.” —Bobbie Schwartz, Former President of APLD (Association of Professional Landscape Designers) and Author of The Design Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together “This is a book that you have to read, and it is more than well worth your time. Gang Chen takes you well beyond what you’ll learn in other books about basic principles like color, texture, and mass.” —Jane Berger, Editor & Publisher of gardendesignonline “As a longtime consumer of gardening books, I am impressed with Gang Chen’s inclusion of new information on planting design theory for Chinese and Japanese gardens. Many gardening books discuss the beauty of Japanese gardens, and a few discuss the unique charms of Chinese gardens, but this one explains how Japanese and Chinese history, geography, and artistic traditions bear on the development of each country’s style. The material on traditional Western garden planting is thorough and inspiring, too. Planting Design Illustrated definitely rewards repeated reading and study; any garden designer will read it with profit.” —Jan Whitner, Editor of the Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin “Enhanced with an annotated bibliography and informative appendices, Planting Design Illustrated offers an especially “reader friendly” and practical guide that makes it a very strongly recommended addition to personal, professional, academic, and community library Gardening & Landscaping reference collections and supplemental reading lists.” —Midwest Book Review “Where to start? Planting Design Illustrated is, above all, fascinating and refreshing! Not something the lay reader encounters every day, the book presents an unlikely topic in an easily digestible, easy to follow way. It is superbly organized, with a comprehensive table of contents, bibliography, and appendices. The writing, though expertly informative, maintains its accessibility throughout and is a joy to read. The detailed and beautiful illustrations expanding on the concepts presented were my favorite portion. One of the finest books I’ve encountered in this contest in the past five years.” —Writer’s Digest 16th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards Judge’s commentary “The work in my view has incredible application to planting design generally and a system approach to what is a very difficult subject to teach, at least in my experience. Also featured is very beautiful philosophy of garden design principles bordering poetry. It’s my strong conviction that this work needs to see the light of day by being published for the use of professionals, students & garden enthusiasts.” —Donald C Brinkerhoff, FASLA, Chairman and CEO of Lifescapes International, Inc.

About this title

From the Author

"Heretofore unanalyzed aspect of landscape design
 
"Many books have been written on the subject of landscape design but, until recently, none had been written solely on the topic of planting design. Gang Chen, a licensed California architect (not a landscape architect), fills this vacuum with Planting Design Illustrated. He immediately distinguishes planting design for formal gardens from planting design for naturalistic gardens.

He begins with a discussion of the approach to planting design problems and then moves on to basic planting design principles. I particularly liked his drawing of texture design that illustrates the theory of contrast, this theory frequently discussed but rarely concretized. I also thought that his analysis of color theory was excellent, including the effect of factors such as the texture of the leaf, reflections from surroundings and the intensity of the light.

While massing is frequently cited as an important element in design, it is a concept that is rarely analyzed but Gang Chen defines it as the three dimensional quality of plants and relates its importance, in combination with emphasis on form, to the ultimate view. There is also an excellent discussion of the relationship between solid and void space, the type of pattern to be used, and the transition between them. This discussion includes spatial organization and contrast with analogous allusions to literature and art. In his examination of planting patterns, he says that "the secret of a good design is to achieve the balance between repetition and contrasts, between unity and changes."

The author is very erudite and uses his extensive knowledge of the arts to simplify and concretize what all designers know or should know, with many analogies to music, particularly in his discussion of rhythm.

Beneficial to every landscape designer and architect is knowledge of the history of landscape design. Most books written about formal garden design are based on Italian and French gardens but Gang Chen leads us further back in history, taking us through the evolution of formal garden prototypes while discussing how different cultures influenced that evolution. He demonstrates, with sketches, how formal gardens look from above and below and also how they evolved from hilly regions to flat ones. I was especially pleased to read of his belief that there should be unity of the building and the garden since this is an element that is often lacking in design.

While many books have been written about Japanese gardens and a few about Chinese gardens, none analyze naturalistic planting design. Gang Chen uses Chinese gardens as a case study in order to explore their cultural, symbolic, emotional and psychological aspects. These gardens serve as a subjective interpretation of the natural landscape found in China. He then demonstrates how Japanese gardens are a climatic and cultural adaptation of Chinese gardens as French gardens were of Italian gardens but distinguishes the differences between them and then compares them to the evolution of the English naturalistic gardens.

In his analysis of Chinese gardens, Gang Chen emphasizes the importance of two crucial concepts, plant iconography and Yi-Jing, to Westerners. Plant iconography is relatively easy to understand; it is the symbolism of plants and thus Eastern gardens frequently use fewer kinds of plant material than Westerners. Yi-Jing is a bit more difficult to grasp but critical to naturalistic design. It "focuses on the interaction between the designer's subjective ideas and the objective site conditions."

I found this book to be absolutely fascinating. You will need to concentrate while reading it but the effort will be well worth your time."
 
--Bobbie Schwartz, Former President of APLD (Association of Professional Landscape Designers) and Author of The Design Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together


"What makes this book exceptional (in my student opinion) is that it has pulled so many pieces of the design process and final product together...  
Planting Design Illustrated is completely different than any of the books that I had looked at. Sure, they discuss some of the same topics but, as with many of the books that I saw, they got sidetracked into the horticultural aspects and the actual design theory seemed to take a back seat.

Mr. Chen's book stays true to the course and, again, really does an amazing job of bringing all of the pieces together. It was a pleasure to read."
-Tammy Martin, Student, Landscape Architecture Program, Irvine, CA
"Where to start? Planting Design Illustrated is, above all, fascinating and refreshing! Not something the lay reader encounters every day, the book presents an unlikely topic in an easily digestible, easy to follow way. It is superbly organized, with a comprehensive table of contents, bibliography, and appendices. The writing, though expertly informative, maintains its accessibility throughout and is a joy to read. The detailed and beautiful illustrations expanding on the concepts presented were my favorite portion. One of the finest books I've encountered in this contest in the past five years."
-Writer's Digest 16th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards Judge's commentary
"It is a great reference book for the designer as well as a good gift book for the serious amateur gardener."
-Stephen J. Trudnak, FASLA

You can find more information in customer discussion sections under this book's listing on Amazon, located on the lower portion of this web page.

From the Inside Flap

Mr. Donald B., FASLA, CEO and Chairman of a well-known landscape design firm, accidentally read a copy of my original manuscript on planting design. He was amazed by what he read and encouraged me to seek out the possibilities of getting the manuscript published. I hadn't known Donald before. He requested a friend of mine (an employee of his firm from whom he got a copy of my manuscript) to set up a lunch meeting with me. He told me in that meeting that he could not describe how impressed he was by my manuscript, and he felt like he had found a hidden treasure and loved to let others know about it and share it. He thought it was too good a piece to be left sitting on the shelf, and considered it to be a much needed piece in the field of planting design education and practice. In fact, he loved the manuscript so much that he requested my authorization for his firm to reproduce six copies of the manuscript for its in-house use. He also requested that every designer in his firm read my manuscript and use the principles and concepts in their design.
 
Donald's firm is a well-known landscape design firm that designed many landscape projects in Las Vegas and other places, including Mirage Hotel, Bellagio Hotel, etc. Donald is a well-respected landscape architect and has over 50 years of experience in landscape design. He is a Fellow of American Society of Landscape Architects (FASLA, the most honorable and highest level of member of ASLA), and his encouragement really gave me more confidence in trying to get my manuscript modified and published as a book...
 
For both professional designers and ordinary garden lovers, this book can be a very useful resource. Various planting design principles and concepts are discussed in plain English. It can not only help ordinary garden lovers, novice landscape designers, and landscape students to learn how to proceed in planting design, but also serve as a desktop reference book for seasoned landscape architects, architects and urban planners, and other design professionals. It can assist ordinary people or armchair travelers to understand and appreciate a garden and its planting design at a higher intellectual level...
 

Edition details

• Publisher: ArchiteG, Incorporated
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0984374191
• ISBN 13: 9780984374199
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 288