image: Andrew Potter
With the holidays and end-of-year break nearly upon us, you may be looking for a few new books, whether to give as gifts or to read yourself. In addition to the Best Books of 2016 highlighted on The Dirt, we also asked ASLA’s Professional Practice Networks (PPNs) for books that should be required reading for all landscape architects. Though many of these are classics you may have already read, we hope you find a few titles to add to your must-read (or must re-read) list.
The top 5 books selected by PPN members were:
- Design with Nature, by Ian McHarg
- A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold
- Landscape Architecture, by John Simonds
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs
- Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, by Michael Dirr, Hon. ASLA
A few authors were mentioned for multiple works, including Kevin Lynch for three different books (The Image of the City, Site Planning, and What Time is This Place?) and Julie Moir Messervy for two (The Inward Garden and Contemplative Gardens). Other popular choices, each selected by four or more respondents, were:
Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv
A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander
The Image of the City, by Kevin Lynch
The Landscape of Man, by Geoffrey Alan Jellicoe and Susan Jellicoe
Bringing Nature Home, by Douglas Tallamy and Rick Darke
Design on the Land, by Norman Newton
Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards, by Leonard Hopper, FASLA
Site Engineering for Landscape Architects, by Steven Strom, Kurt Nathan, and Jake Woland
Time-Saver Standards for Landscape Architecture, by Charles Harris, FASLA, and Nicholas Dines, FASLA
The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
image: Richard Misrach
If you are looking for a particular genre or topic, here are a few more titles that were mentioned:
Biographies
A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century, by Witold Rybczynski, Hon. ASLA
Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted, by Justin Martin
Apostle of Taste: A Biography of Andrew Jackson Downing, 1815-1852, by David Schuyler
image: Landscape Architecture Frontiers (LA Frontiers)
Ecology & the Environment
Design for Ecological Democracy, by Randolph T. Hester, Jr., FASLA
Win-Win Ecology: How the Earth’s Species Can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise, by Michael Rosenzweig
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson
Design for Human Ecosystems, by John Lyle and Joan Woodward, FASLA
Futures by Design: The Practice of Ecological Planning, by Doug Aberley
Flight of the Hummingbird: A Parable for the Environment, by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, by Terry Tempest Williams
Gardens
Gardening with Nature, by James van Sweden
Gardens Are For People, by Thomas Church
The Education of a Gardener, by Russell Page
The Brother Gardeners: A Generation of Gentlemen Naturalists and the Birth of an Obsession, by Andrea Wulf
The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design, by Anne Whiston Spirn, FASLA
image: SWA Group
Business, Leadership, & Management Guides
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t, by Jim Collins
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek
Project Management for Design Professionals, by William Ramroth
Ready, Set, Practice: Elements of Landscape Architecture Professional Practice, by Bruce Sharky, FASLA
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen
Novels, Drama, & Poetry
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
Dune, by Frank Herbert
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
Plum Island, by Nelson DeMille
1984, by George Orwell
Arcadia: A Play, by Tom Stoppard
At the start of 2014, a questionnaire was sent out to members of ASLA’s Professional Practice Networks (PPNs). The theme: career paths in landscape architecture. As you can imagine, responses were varied, and included many insightful comments and suggestions. Synopses of the survey results were originally shared in LAND over the course of 2014, and we are now re-posting this information here on The Field. For the latest updates on the results of the annual PPN Survey, see LAND’s PPN News section.
No category for history?? I wouldn’t leave out Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory, for instance.
Kristin: Couldn’t agree more! What about Theory in Landscape Architecture by Simon Swaffield?
I’d like to add a suggestion: The Fundamentals of Landscape Architecture by Tim Waterman.