ABSTRACT
A system is an array of interrelated or interdependent elements that form a complex whole, and it has spatial and temporal boundaries that can be open, closed, or fluid. Historically, landscape architects have taken a deep interest in natural systems because they are frequently part of what constitutes a designed landscape. Designers have also probed if they are part of the system or in control of it. Systems played a key role in the topic of the first chapter, Forming, because understanding a landscape as a system can involve identifying patterns and forms that are a result of processes in a landscape system. McHarg thought, for example, that by understanding how natural systems operated, you could design with nature, and that the analysis of nature would lead to the most appropriate forms. By the 1990s the idea that design was resolved by creating forms was questioned as the notion of “strategy” emerged as an approach with no singular answer, but rather a series of outcomes where the designer’s response was only one of the many facets of the design process.
