garden and landscape design

Table of Contents

Introduction
Functions and concerns of garden and landscape design
- Aspects of landscape architecture
- Art, science, and nature
Design
- Aesthetic components
  - Elements
    - Space
    - Mass
    - Line
    - Colour
    - Light and shade
    - Texture
    - Scent
    - Time, climate, and season
  - Principles
    - Unity and variety
    - Rhythm and balance
    - Accent and contrast
    - Scale and proportion
    - Composite three-dimensional spatial form
  - The design process
- Physical components
  - Natural
    - Earth
    - Rock
    - Water
    - Plants
  - Structural
    - Earth-related structures
    - Enclosure structures
    - Shelter structures
    - Engineering structures
    - Special buildings
    - Sculptural components and outdoor furnishings
Kinds of design
- Private or residential design
- Public design
Historical development
- Western
  - Antiquity
    - Egyptian
    - Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian
    - Greek and Hellenistic
    - Roman
  - Middle Ages
    - Islamic
    - Western European
  - Renaissance to modern: 15th to 20th centuries
    - Italian
    - 17th- and 18th-century French
    - 17th- and 18th-century English
    - 19th century
  - Modern
- Non-Western
  - Chinese
  - Japanese
  - Indian
  - African, Oceanic, and pre-Columbian

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

Palace of Versailles: gardens

The undulating roof of Renzo Piano's California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, contained many skylights and was covered with a field of native plants.

Gardens of Campos do Jordão, Brazil.

Japanese contemplative garden

Structural pools in the gardens of the Generalife at the Alhambra, Granada, Spain.

Sloped earth, trees, and colourful ground cover in Bluebell Wood, Winkworth Arboretum, Surrey, England.

Kinkaku Temple, Kyōto, Japan

Singapore Botanic Gardens: gazebo

A pre-Civil War stone house in Manassas National Battlefield Park, near Manassas, Virginia, U.S.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

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Rooftop and patio gardens amidst modern office and residential towers in downtown city center, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (green roofs, roof gardens)

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Lancelot Brown, also known as Capability Brown, designed the gardens of the estate Stourhead near Mere, Wiltshire, England.

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Giacomo della Porta. The Fountain of Neptune also known as the Calderari fountain in the northern end of Piazza Navona. The basins are work of Giacomo della Porta. The statue of Neptune by Antonio Della Bitta was added in 1878.

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Plant seedlings emerging from rich fertile soil

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Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Engraving by Cosomo Colombini (d. 1812) after a Leonardo self portrait. Ca. 1500.

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An ancient egyptian hieroglyphic painted carving showing the falcon headed god Horus seated on a throne and holding a golden fly whisk. Before him are the Pharoah Seti and the goddess Isis. Interior wall of the temple to Osiris at Abydos, Egypt.

11 Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

Diverse elementary school children wearing school uniforms running outside of school. Boys girls

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Aphrodite. Greek mythology. Sculpture. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty.

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garden and landscape design: Facts & Related Content

Written and fact-checked by The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Facts

Also Known As	landscape gardening • landscape design

Photos

Palace of Versailles: gardens

The undulating roof of Renzo Piano's California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, contained many skylights and was covered with a field of native plants.

Gardens of Campos do Jordão, Brazil.

Japanese contemplative garden

Structural pools in the gardens of the Generalife at the Alhambra, Granada, Spain.

Sloped earth, trees, and colourful ground cover in Bluebell Wood, Winkworth Arboretum, Surrey, England.

Kinkaku Temple, Kyōto, Japan

Singapore Botanic Gardens: gazebo

A pre-Civil War stone house in Manassas National Battlefield Park, near Manassas, Virginia, U.S.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

See All Images →

Topics

park fountain sundial labyrinth landscape architecture crop circle topiary nymphaeum picturesque folly interior design film dance radio printmaking sculpture painting drawing stagecraft history of photography

Key People

Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Le Blond

French landscape designer