Planning policy and landscape architecture : street design in theory and practice

Abstract

Recent trends in planning and landscape architecture are moving the two disciplines closer together, yet there persists a lack of awareness of each discipline to the other. Planning’s roots in street design and landscape architecture’s new theory of landscape urbanism, which focuses on infrastructure, provide common ground for a fruitful dialogue between the two – a dialogue that could have particular significance given the historical influence of design theory on streets and urban form. To investigate these relationships, this report considers the history of street design, landscape urbanism, the planning framework, and the implementation of street design in two cities, Colorado Springs and Austin. This report explores how planning and the new ideas of landscape urbanism in landscape architecture can mutually inform each other to address street design.