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

About the Author

Gang Chen holds a master's degree from the School of Architecture, University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, and a bachelor's degree from the School of Architecture, South China University of Technology. He has over 20 years of professional experience. Many of the projects he was in charge of or participated in have been published extensively in Architecture, Architectural Record, The Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, etc. He has worked on a variety of unusual projects, including well-known, large-scale healthcare and hospitality projects with over one billion dollars in construction costs; award-winning school designs, highly-acclaimed urban design and streetscape projects, multifamily housing, high-end custom homes, and regional and neighborhood shopping centers.

Gang Chen is a LEED AP BD+C and a licensed architect in California. He is also the internationally acclaimed author of other fascinating books, including Building Construction, Planting Design Illustrated, ARE Mock Exam Series and LEED Exam Guides Series, which include one guidebook for each of the LEED exams. For more information, visit GreenExamEducation.com

From the Back Cover

Planting design, like other kinds of art, is a cumulative process. We not only need to bring forward new ideas, but also need to inherit from the past. The challenge for us is not whether we should learn from history, but how to learn from history, how to differentiate what is constant and timeless and what is temporary and only has academic value...

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
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0984374191
• ISBN 13: 9780984374199
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 288