ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the design process and its different phases. It discusses the role and potentials of language and language-based tools in the design process. The chapter addresses the potentials of language-based tools and the options to integrate them in landscape architecture teaching. Language is expressed in written and spoken form with each of the two having specific characteristics. Written language in comparison with spoken language requires a stronger reflection of the content to be expressed. Language seems to play a key role in analytical phases of a design, respectively in the decision-making and reflection processes and, of course, in communication and discussion. The different positions make clear that language is used as a design tool throughout all phases of the design process. A well-documented research project on language as design tool was done by Roger Martin, a professor in the landscape architecture programme at the University of Minnesota.
