| buy book | THE ART OF LANDSCAPE DETAIL By Niall Kirkwood. London: John Wiley. 1999 Kirkwood’s starting point is the importance of detail as a continuous part of conceptual landscape design. He claims that (US) landscape education does not address this issue. His intention is to enable students and practitioners to develop their conceptual ideas through the medium of landscape detail thinking from the start. Will The Art of Landscape Detail help lecturers make students understand and internalize the formative role of detail during the conceptual design stage? The structure is relentlessly methodical and analytical, and does not inspire. However, as a text book, its usefulness could lie in its specification-like left brain approach, and in the student assignments provided. These could raise awareness of the fabric of the built landscape and help develop a creative design detail vocabulary. Contemporary interest is added in the case studies section, where personal interviews elicit the differing approaches of big name American landscape designers, as applied to their well-known projects. Martha Schwartz, Laurie Olin, Sasaki, Dan Kiley, Susan Child, and George Hargreaves are included. All in all, though, the book is more about the practice and some practicalities than the art of landscape detail. ELSA LEVISEUR |