LENNE Tempus Curriculum Development Project
Teaching Package
Final Version: 24th November 2008
Working Group: Vegetation and Plant Material
Matilda Djukic, Mihailo Grbic (Belgrade)
Ed Bennis (Manchester)
Sasa Orlovic (Novi Sad)
Eva Gustavsson (Alnarp)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Course Philosophy of Vegetation and Plant Material
Generic Competences
Subject Specific Competences
Course Units
4.1
Vegetation and Plant Material, Lectures
Background and reasons for adopting a more a more
sustainable approach to environmental design and how it
can be elaborated in the design with plants and plant
communities. In order to obtain stable and long-living
vegetation units some principles of complex systems
thinking are presented and discussed.
4.2
Vegetation and Plant Material, Seminars
Application of strategic thinking of dynamic vegetation
system in relation to the professional activities of
landscape design, landscape planning, landscape
management and horticultural management.
4.3
Vegetation and Plant Material, Workshops
Recording and monitoring some existing design prototypes
in order to gain knowledge of how the site has been or can
be built and how its future development can be forecasted.
4.4
Vegetation and Plant Material, Studio
Work
Design of a specific site by taking complex vegetation
units into consideration. The students are expected to
present a master plan and several planting schemes for a
green area, where the characters shall be elaborated with
special regard to the potential of the existing landscape
and the possibilities to strengthen a long-lived, resilient
and attractive environment.
Alnarp
Belgrade/ Novi
Sad
Manchester
2 ECTS (14 contact
hours / 40 total
student hours)
Alnarp
Belgrade/ Novi
Sad,
Manchester
3 ECTS (28 contact
hours per week/ 60
total student hours)
Alnarp
Belgrade/ Novi
Sad,
Manchester
3 ECTS (42 contact
hours / 60 total
student hours)
Alnarp
Belgrade/ Novi
Sad,
Manchester
12 ECTS (200 total
student hours)
5. Main Course Literature
6. Relationship to other subject areas previous studies
7. Timing of teaching within the context of the degree programme
1. Course Philosophy – Vegetation and Plant Material
Challenges to be dealt with:
Urban public landscape, new boundaries and definitions
Growing demand for quality
Decline in public landscape maintenance
Standard approaches towards plant use and planting procedures
Influence of climate change
Epidemic plant diseases
Derelict post-industrial land
Human health conditions
1. Course Philosophy – Vegetation and Plant Material
Need for new directions :
Unique knowledge for the landscape architecture discipline, especially
the spatial dimensions of vegetation
Vegetation - a manifest component in long-term and sustainable
design and planning
Governing through of ecologically forbearing methods
Special profile towards dynamic change, creative management
Participatory management, emotional and physical involvement
(embodied experience)
Test of new species
Landscape Design – With Vegetation as Medium
Landscape Management – A Principle Basis for Creative Governance
Landscape Planning – A Social-Ecologically Informed Approach
Modernistic design principle of “less is more” with instant result of pleasing
species combinations
The importance of management and maintenance for shaping aesthetic
qualities with feel, look, usefulness, spatiality, continuity and biodiversity.
Kirchsteigenfeld, Potsdam
Borneo Spurenburg, Amsterdam
Tom Stuart-Smith,
Trentham Garden
Ulf Nordfjell
How to fulfil these visions?
Technical skill
Biological knowledge
Landscape Horticulture
Management
Landscape Management
conservation
Dynamics restoration
development
Arboriculture and
maintenance regimes
Short-long term perspective
Dynamic
vegetation
design
Type and size of
vegetation
structure
Planting techniques
and preparation for
planting or sowing
Species and cultivars
Natural vegetation
- types
- distribution
- patterns
Biodiversity
Eco-corridors
Shelterbelts
Agro-Forestry
Sustainability
Policy
Ethics
Landscape Planning
Vegetation &
Landscape
management
Plant Material
Plant identification
and classification
Distinctive
ornamental
qualities
Planting design
- built environments
- cultural landscape
- infrastructure
- reclamation
Historic plants
and
historical
planting
design
principles
Plant quality and
specification
Aesthetics
Function
Vegetation
systems
- types
- structures
- patterns
Soil, water,
biotope
conditions
Plant origin
related to
climate and habitat
conditions
Design
prototypes
- characters,
- biotopes
- structures
Landscape Design
4.1
Vegetation and Plant Material, Lectures
Background and reasons for adopting a more a more sustainable approach to environmental design
and how it can be elaborated in the design with plants and plant communities.
In order to obtain stable and long-living vegetation units some principles of complex systems thinking
are presented and discussed.
Some themes for lectures:
2. Sustainability and the role of plants and plant communities in promoting good health conditions in our cities.
4. Habitats and biotopes, concepts for understanding co-existence between plants
5. Habitat creation. Design and establishment techniques.
6. Design and establishment of vegetation for dry areas.
9. Design and construction of plantations as a resource for treatment of surface water.
10. Plant use in streets and dense housing areas.
11. Plants for special purposes, such as shelter-belts, barriers, clipped hedges, erosion control, slope stabilization.
13. Plants as product of an age. Historical aspects of plant use and planting design.
14. Restoration of degraded post-industrial land. Biological treatment of polluted soil.
2 ECTS (14 contact hours / 40 total student hours)
4.2
Vegetation and Plant Material, Seminars
Application of strategic thinking of dynamic vegetation system in relation to the professional
activities of landscape design, landscape planning, landscape management and horticultural
management.
Alnarp
Seminar 1 (4 hours) - Introduction of the themes for seminar 2-5.
The role of vegetation for a sustainable urban landscape and how a thorough strategic thinking must
involve all the steps from design and planning to management of landscape and individual plants.
Seminar 2 (6 hours) - Implications for Landscape Design
From the knowledge of plants and how to design with plants the students are expected to give an
account of how it is applied in various projects.
Seminar 3 (6 hours) – Implications for Landscape Planning
Space analyses, where the knowledge concerning the distribution of areas suitable for vegetation is
discussed. Of special interest are issues of structure, scale and size for development of specific
characters and various functions.
Seminar 4 (6 hours) - Implications for Landscape Management
Issues of dynamics and stability. The students are expected to monitor the type of management,
which are required for a range of vegetation typologies.
Seminar 5 (6 hours) - Implications for Horticultural Management
Issues concerning plant selection and soil preparation in relation to the proposed vegetation design
and environmental influences on growth. The students are expected to make an account for how
standard routines for plant specification and quality, choice of provenance, pruning, plant health,
water and nutrient management will influence the possibilities to realize sustainable plantings.
3 ECTS (28 contact hours per week/ 60 total student hours)
4.3
Vegetation and Plant Material, Workshops
Recording and monitoring some existing design prototypes in order to gain knowledge of how the site
has been or can be built and how its future development can be forecasted.
Workshop 1 (14 hours) – Identification of design prototypes.
The students are expected to register and make a textual and/or graphic analyse of some actual plantings in relation
to its environmental context, both in terms of its biological and social function. The design has to be compared with
more theoretical models. It should also be discussed in terms of it transferability towards other functions, structures or
characters.
Workshop 2 (14 hours)- Comparison between built and non-built vegetation structures
This workshop is about reading and understanding a more natural (non-built) plant association, with similar characters
as the planting studied in workshop 1. Similarities and differences are pointed out and stability and possibilities for
development are discussed.
Workshop 3 (14 hours) – Enrichment and supplementing planting
This workshop is aimed to raise the question of how to improve a basic planting through supplementary planting. The
sites, which have been studies in workshop 1 and 2 are examined in order to make corrections through smaller
changes.
3 ECTS (42 contact hours / 60 total student hours)
4.4
Vegetation and Plant Material, Studio Work
Design of a specific site by taking complex vegetation units into consideration. The students
are expected to present a master plan and several planting schemes for a green area, where
the characters shall be elaborated with special regard to the potential of the existing
landscape and the possibilities to strengthen a long-lived, resilient and attractive
environment.
The outcome of the course will include a master plan for a larger area, out of which a smaller or larger area
will be selected for more detailed design with plants.
The type of project will vary and it would be a favour to connect the design problem to an existing design
commission. Depending on the choice of project area, the studio course can work with several alternative
scenarios, conditions and problems.
For the smaller area the student is expected to produce an illustrated master plan, with corresponding
planting schemes, plant and construction specifications as well as a management plan for a time span of 5,
10 and 50 years development.
The master plan has to be verbally specified and articulated in terms of vegetation goals for the chosen main
characters and time-spans.
Alnarp
12 ECTS (200 total student hours)