Whittemore, Andrew D., "The Perception of a Suburban Natural Landscape"

For years, the natural landscape has been continually altered and degraded to meet the immediate needs of society. Most notably, the traditional suburban landscape, achievable only by clearing the land of all its natural vegetation, is guilty of such practices. Only within the last few decades has this approach to suburban landscape design come under question. To an ever growing body of theorists, an alternative approach to design, emphasizing the retention or replanting of indigenous vegetation, is gaining ground.

Unfortunately, one need only travel as far as the nearest subdivision development to realize that the alternative landscape design approach has not been readily adopted. Some blame the limited application of these alternative landscape styles on the professionals involved in suburban landscape design. It has been said that the professionals rely heavily on their own intuition - an intuition that reflects society's distaste for the natural landscape.

The thesis proposes to determine whether the professional's view of society's landscape preference is in fact, an accurate perception. In addition, if this perception is indeed accurate, then how much of an influence has this perception had on the design of suburban landscapes.

The approach to the thesis involved two surveys. The first of these surveys involved a photo-questionnaire, used to measure society's preference for landscape styles. The second survey focused more on the various factors which influence the professionals involved in subdivision design.

It was found that the professional's perception of society's preference for the natural landscape was indeed, a correct one. This preference however, was determined to be shared only by a slight majority of the survey population. Subsequently, the survey results infer that society's preference for landscape styles is not adequately reflected in the current landscape designs. In fact, the survey results appear to be suggesting that society's preference for landscape styles is of little significance on landscape design, rather landscape design is the product of many different influences.

Atlantic Planners Institute

This page and all contents are produced by the Atlantic Planners Institute, an affiliate of the Canadian Institute of Planners.

This document was last modified on November 30, 2000.