LECTURE 03:

DEFINITIONS/TERMS USED IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

ALLEY/AVENUE:
• Long walks or drives bordered by evenly spaced trees or by hedges.
• It is a narrower but more inmate walkway.
• The term AVENUE often used interchangeably to describe long walks or drives bordered by rows of evenly
spaced tree or by hedges.
• Avenue is now more often used where the spacing between the rows is quite broad; often
accommodating a drive way. The term avenue of trees is commonly used in landscape architecture.

Avenue Arbor Pergola

ARBORS:
• It defines and encloses spaces with an open type of roof to support the plants almost equal to ‘latha
mantap’ of Indian garden.
• Pergolas and gallery are related to arbor.

PERGOLA:
• It is a colonnade that supports beams and cross members to form an open roof.
• The structure may be free standing also.

GALLERY:
Normally it is an essential arch tunnel of greenery trained over alight structure of metal or lath.

ENGLISH KNOT GARDEN:

• Beds planted or otherwise designed in ornamental knot like patterns.
• They are normally square in shape with geometric patterns.
• Low growing herbs are used.

Gallery English knot garden Parterres

PARTERRERS:
• Italian gardens had steep slopes, terraces and rushing water as their garden features.
• But French who had flat lands adopted and emphasized surface design with still water, low shrubs etc.
• The parterres had geometric patterns, but simple designs.
• They resemble embroidery in cloths.
• The plants used may be low shrubs either flowering or foliage type.
• The other similar to this are carpet bedding and herbaceous borders.

BIRD BATHS:
• They serve a dual purpose by furnishing water needed by wild birds and water as decorative element in
the absence of pools, fountains, ponds etc. It is a shallow basin set on a stone or marble column and
maybe a focal point in small garden

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 Bird bath Dove cote Gazebo Grottoes

DOVE COTE /COLUMBARIUM

• It is specialized bird house for keeping doves or pigeons.
• These can be seen as old as from Romans to modern day.
• They were made ornamental feature of the garden by their shape, material used etc.

GAZEBOES:
It is a combination English ‘gaze’ and ‘ebo’(make it) that is ‘I shall gaze’. It is a small structure that overlooked
an enclosed garden. But currently it is an open structure from where one can enjoy the scenery with in and
outside the garden. It may be used as garden feature with architectural continuity or a contrast to the
architecture

GROTTOES:
• They originated in Europe with classic Greek nympheums.
• In Greece rocky caves with water flowing, ferns etc., with hints of mystery were used as places for worship
and offering to nymphs.
• These were artificially created by Romans and known as grottoes.
• In Chinese gardens rocks of strange and irregular forms were symbols of sacred mountains.
• Water was always associated with grottoes in the form of drips, gurgles, fountains or water surprises.

MAZES AND LABYRINTH:

• They are a network of paths or passages through which it is difficult to find the way.
• They create challenging and interest so that one can reach the goal in the center which may be a
fountain or any other center of interest.
• If hedges are used as walls it is called hedge maze.
• Labyrinth is another form of parterre design with low growing herbs or shrubs.
• They are circular patterns created with pebbles or a different type of flooring material to create interesting
flooring patterns.

Maze Band stand Conservatory

BAND STAND:
• This is an interesting architectural feature found in public parks and gardens as focal points. This can be
used for entertainment purposes like orchestra etc.

CONSERVATORY:
• It is a term generally applied to decorative glass house permanently attached to the house.
• Later they were used as display house of exotic plants.
• For big gardens this may be a separate building.
• This is purely for the display of plants as well as decorative feature for display of plants as well as a
decorative feature along with shelter to plants from hot sun or severe cold etc.

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 Green house Lath house Pleach Ruins

GREEN HOUSE:
• It is a glass enclosed structure where an atmosphere can be controlled with a careful balance of heat,
moisture, light and air to suit the kind of plants that can be grown there.
• Freshly transplanted plants can be kept there for establishment.
• They are primarily growing places only and not showcases like conservatory.
• Wide range of shapes and sizes available and currently equipped with modern devices to control
temperature, light, humidity etc.

LATH HOUSE:
• They are simple structures made of lath and narrow strips just to provide shade and shelter to the plants.
• They may act as transition place between green house and the ground where plant is to be grown.

PLEACH:
• Pleaching is the term used to train and shape a tree or shrub in a particular form which does not grow
naturally.
• It is done by bending and intertwinig the branches.
• Thus it almost resembles topiary but pleaching is more architectural where as topiary is purely decorative
normally in animal shape or geometrical shapes.
• Arches, palisades, alleys etc., can be created by pleaching.
• Pleaching alleys are done by growing double row of trees or shrubs and after the growth the upper
branches are bent and twined together to form a green tunnel.
• The lofty pleached alleys of French garden were well known features.

RUINS:
• They were distinctive features of earlier landscaped gardens.
• They were another expression of romantic revolution.
• They may be natural or artificially created to look like a ruin.
• Even an existing ruin outside the site can be linked to the garden design concept.

Stiles Summer house Tea house

STILES:
• It is a device to cross over a fence,wall etc. where there is no gate.
• It allows passage to cross smoothly and no damage occurs to the fence, hedges by animals etc. and
prevents short cuts.

SUMMER HOUSE:
• It is a garden building type where one can enjoy his time reading, writing etc.
• It is more enclosed and private than a gazebo but still informal and airy.
• They may be located at interesting spots in the garden

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TEA HOUSE:
• Common feature in Japanese gardens where tea drinking with guests was a regular practice.
• Later it was transformed into aesthetically good, still simple in design..
• Normally wooden posts, thatch roof, rough stone floor, unplastered wall, etc., were the common features of
the tea house.
• Guest will enter tea house from waiting space on their knees which is a symbol of humbleness and
equalities of all participants.

Topiary Tree House Trellis

TOPIARY:
• It is an art of shaping and clipping trees and shrubs into unnatural decorative forms.
• They are done over a wire cage which is fabricated to the required shape or geometrical objects like
cubes, pyramids, sphere, etc.

TREE HOUSE:
• It is a shelter built above the ground over the tree which may be as small as playing for children or upto an
architect designed house.
• They can be used as observation points, watch tower, etc.
• Pleached tree house is more elaborate where tree itself trained to look like a house with the trunk of the
tree as the main column.
• Any tree house built depends upontrees shape, size, their branches position, etc. but to match with trees as
much as possible.

TRELLISES:
• These are simple structure to support and display of plants at the same time act as training them to the
required shape. It is suitable more for vegetable garden plants and climbers.
• For aesthetic purpose flowering vines are trained over the trellis.
• Trellises need not be an enclosing device and it can even be used in front of a wall or in the shape of
archways, entrances, etc.
• It may be used to give vertical emphasis to a large flat area or against a flower bed or an element for
repetition. Three dimensional trellises in the form of obelisks, pier were common in earlier days.
• Trellises out of bamboo are the most common feature in the gardens which is originated from Japan.

TYPES OF LANDSCAPES
Natural landscape:
Landscapes that are formed or evolved by the action of natural forces of nature through geological times.
These forces may be:
1. Wind: Deserts
2. Water: Coastal Landscapes, Alluvial Plains
3. Ice : Glacial Landforms
4. Tectonic movements of earth crust: Mountains
• In Natural Landscape the elements are not designed by anybody
• They appear as a part of the ecological process of evolution
• Creation…….Growth ……..Destruction is a continuous cycle which the earth is experiencing
• Over these natural landforms, vegetation evolves over a period of time depending on the underlying
geology, the existing climatic conditions and ecological and ecological succession, which gives the
landscapes its character.
• Some of the natural landscapes hence formed are:
• Alluvial plains: Plains are formed due to deposition of alluvial soils transported by rivers flowing down
the mountains. Eg: the Gangetic plains of North India
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 • Glacial landforms: Glacial ice when it moves, erodes its underneath earth leaving behind deep gorges
and transports the boulders that come along its way to a lower elevation. Eg: Chandigarh- Boulders
found here are glacial deposits
• Coastal landscapes: Formed due to the erosive action of the waves on the coastal landforms.
Varieties are found depending on the nature of rocks like beaches, cliffs etc. Eg: Beaches of Goa
• Mountainous landscapes: these may be due to upliftment of earth’s crust or due to erosive action of
natural elements. Eg: The Himalayan ranges- due to tectonic movements, Rolling landscapes of
Kudremukh- Landform due to erosion
• Grasslands: predominantly grass is the vegetation type normally found on rolling topography, due to
clay soil. Eg: Grass lands at Ooty

Manmade landscape:
• Manmade landscape is a field where the Landscape Design comes into picture.
• By definition there is no such thing as an entirely manmade landscape. There are degrees of adaptation of
natural systems by man. There are two types of adaptation:
1. It may be related to man’s use of the land for growing crops, raising stock or supplying resources.
2. It can take the form of ‘impressions’ made on the land as an expression of philosophical and artistic urges,
the needs of the soul. Eg: the great gardens of the world such as the French and the Italian gardens
• The city is becoming increasingly dehumanized with the urban scene (skyline) dominated by massive
buildings, roads, automobiles, hoardings.
• Hence the need for humane, habitable environment
• Some of the manmade landscapes:
o Cultural landscapes/ Rural landscapes: these are landscapes formed due to the cultural practices
mainly due to farming practices
o Urban landscapes: urban parks, transportation network, suburban landscape etc
o Landscape of reclaimed lands: Usually along the river banks and coastal areas
o Disturbed landscapes: landscapes created after open pit quarry for extraction of natural resources
o Social forestry: afforestation done by man for commercial and environmental purposes
o Landscapes along the transportation corridors

NEED FOR LANDSCAPING

• Humanizing the atmosphere
• To impart scale to the resultant environment
• Function-Provide shade and shadow
• Aesthetically pleasing
• Color contrast with respect to built mass
• Textural Contrast
• Absorbs noise, dust, pollutants, vibrations, CO2
• Conservation
• Ecology- To evolve a balanced ecosystem in the long run

ELEMENTS IN LANDSCAPING
DESIGN ELEMENTS: Process of Design/ Concept/ Design Philosophies
• Form
• Functional
• Aesthetical
• Scale
• Texture
• Massing
• Space

LANDSCAPE ELEMENTS: Resources and Technology

• Land
• Water
• Botanical
• Circulation
• Construction
• Recreational

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FACTORS THAT DETERMINE A LANDSCAPE DESIGN
NATURAL FACTORS
• Geological base: Soil
• Climate: Hot and Dry
- Hot and Humid
- Upland Cool
• Climatology: Rainfall, Temperature, Humidity, Wind direction
• Topography: Terrain
• Natural vegetation: Existing flora

ARTIFICIAL FACTORS
• Skyline: Skyscape
• Civil Engineering works: Structures
• Existing Open Spaces
• Roads, Streets, Parking, Circulation
• Contours and Gradient
• Existing Focal Points

LANDSCAPE ELEMENTS
SOFTSCAPE
• Water
• Botanical Features
HARDSCAPE
• Circulation Elements
• Construction Elements
• Recreational Elements

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