Project Description

I Introduction

In November 2015. at a seminar on design methodologies at Southeast University, Giu Daqing, professor of The Chinese
Universiry of Hong Kong, said: "The architectural education I received ar Southeast University from the late 1970s to the
We spenr a lot of time on learning drawing and rendering techniques in the first year, but had no idea how could these
techniques be used in architectural design. "The traditional teaching methods of Chinese Architecture based on painting
as introduced by Chinese architectural pioneers at universities such as Northeastern University )who graduated from the
University of Pennsylvania (UPenn hereafter) from the 1920s to the 1930s". These methods had further been grafted and
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Art. Today it becomes important to ask whether Landscape Architecture should develop its own methods for essential capabiliry Over the past seven years, the author has develope a terrain based Landscape Architecture course for field investigation and site documentation at the Department of of Art. This course was stemmed from the authors experience as a student at the UPenn from 2004 to 2007 and altered to the current curriculum of the Department. Unlike knowledge imparting through indoor classrooms, this course teaches observe, and survey in real landscapes, and gh new methods of red week studio, studenrs wfyi terrain (Fig. 1, 2). During the 10 week studio, students were expected to use their senses -sight, smell, and sound and connections berween things in the landscape, be it seen or The paper interprets the intrinsic characteristics of Landscape Architecture and highlights the importance of perception to landscape design, and then introduces a set of methods of authentic terrain based field investigation and site.

2 Three Characteristics of Landscape

Site data is readily available without ever leaving:computer. Why then is going to a site in person needed: In the
1992 essay"Representarion and Landscape, James Corner wrote , " landscape is a kind of medium which has extremely rich
connotation in the sense level and phenomenology context . nothing can replace or equate to the direct experience that
the body obtains in these places , let alone only a picture . " For Corner , a landscape is defined by three characteristics : spatiality , timeliness , and materiality . These characteristics make landscape design different from other forms of replicable art.

2.1 The Spatiality of Landscape
Landscape is everywhere. The spatial experience of landscape reflects personal sensory experience of one’s bods rather than the visual form what it presents . This is in line with Corners position that the landscape is not just a painting from a single view , but a space deeply shaped by humans’long-time living-upon activities " . Similarly , perceptual phenomenologist
Maurice Merleau-Ponty has noted that perception and experience comes from the body movement in space and environment

2.2 The Timeliness of Landscape
Landscapes evolve over time . Just as a landscape cannot be spatially stripped into a single visual dimension , nor being in
Id places is obtained through long-term accumulation of various fragmented events " . This timeliness means that landscapes need to be read repeatedly , and in different times , weather conditions and movements.