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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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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After a perfect launch, spectators try to catch a last glimpse of Space Shuttle Columbia, barely visible at the top end of the twisted column of smoke.

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Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in 2019. (Meghan Markle, British royalty)

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A Factory Interior, watercolor, pen and gray ink, graphite, and white goache on wove paper by unknown artist, c. 1871-91; in the Yale Center for British Art. Industrial Revolution England

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Hindu Holi Festival celebrations with colored water, powder and colorful flower petals thrown over celebrants at a Hindu temple in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India on March 24, 2021.

Holi: Festival of Colors

The Colosseum, Rome, Italy. Giant amphitheatre built in Rome under the Flavian emperors. (ancient architecture; architectural ruins)

New Seven Wonders of the World

Common, or southern, cassowary (Casuarius casuarius).

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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