Innovations in Landscape Architecture and Urban Designing

Abstract

Urbanization has become a worldwide phenomenon after the second half of the last century. Today more than half of the world population lives in urban environments. According to the World Bank data, 51% percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas as of 2010 (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.U RB.TOTL.IN.ZS/countries/1W?display=gr aph). Urbanization is a complex and multidimensional concept with its spatial, ecological, economic, social and cultural aspects. While urbanization is widely accepted as a foundation of modernizing (Clarke Annez & Buckley, 2009), it has also caused environmental and socioeconomic challenges (Adams & Sierra, 2009). Consequently, planning and design of urban areas are faced with challenges to create both ecologically and economically sustainable cities.[1–8] Natural landscapes have been dramatically transformed by the urbanization process throughout the world. Consumption of resources is highest in urban environments, which causes negative impacts on physical environment. Traffic, air, water and soil pollution, improper land use and greenhouse gas emissions are some of the major issues due to urbanization. There are multiple impacts of urbanization on ecology, environment, socio-cultural and economic aspects of life. Therefore, planning and designing of physical environments; specially those of natural resources attributing to sustainable and environment-friendly urban development requires a holistic and comprehensive understanding and application to develop built-in synergy. The paper highlights with suitable illustrations the various recent innovations in the field of urban designing based on landscape architecture