Landscape and landscaping
All creatures of nature seem superbly equipped for living their lives in their natural habitat and for meeting normal situations. All except, the humans. Man has the ability to weigh the factors of a problem and reason out a course of action. Man’s essential strength- the reason for his survival and future achievements- is perception and deduction, the very essence of planning. Man to face his needs and comforts has built structures- home, schools, factories- with little thought for trees, or clean air, or sunlight. Looking about us with a clear and critical eye we find much to disturb and shock us. We are the victims of our own planning. We trapped our body and soul, in the artificial mechanistic environment we created about ourselves. It has been said by many men in many ways that, other things being equal, the happiest man is the man who lives in closest, fullest harmony with nature. But restoring man to the woods, letting him have his water, earth and sky and plenty of it- is not the ideal environment for man. Gradually, painfully he has improved, secured and sustained his shelter and varied supply of food, and extended control over his environment to improve his way of living.
He can achieve his integration by modulating structural forms with natural ones, by bringing nature- hills, ravines, sunlight, water, plant and air into his areas of planning concentration, and by thoughtfully and sympathetically spacing his structures among the hills, along the river and valleys, and out into the landscape. The word ‘landscape’ can mean a park, a piece of wasteland, a beach, a mountain, a forest. It is also about how people relate to these places and to nature - what they value about it, and how they respond to changes in the landscape. A well conceived landscape can help integrate a development into an area, make a positive contribution to the street scene and add to the market value of the site. It can easily be noticed that how important each landscape really is as a part of our world. Landscaping is our way of making the world around us accommodating to our needs, more beautiful, more livable.