ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to pull out from the previous 12 chapters some key messages and to provide overall reflections from the view of landscape architecture. The content of the chapters, the subjects chosen for particular examination and the style of the writing are all taken into account in this analysis and the discussion is set within the context of a growing focus within environmental disciplines on cross-disciplinary working. This has arisen from an acknowledgement that the complexity of environmental issues and the need to address ‘real world problems’ requires knowledge from many different discipline areas (ESF/Cost, 2010; Marzano et al., 2006; Brewer, 1999; Brewer and Lövgren, 1999), a point now supported in European policy by the European Landscape Convention (ELC). In the professional sphere, landscape architects nearly always work as part of a multi-disciplinary team and commonly pull in the services of other specialists. However there is some considerable difference between working as separate professionals based on understandings and using techniques of that discipline area, and working in an integrated fashion as part of an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary team (Figure 13.1). While all methods of working tend to be dynamic (Tress et al., 2006; Marzano et al., 2006) and the boundaries between these ways of working commonly cross or overlap, it is useful in the context of this book to consider the benefits of how such knowledge exchange can help achieve more integrated ways of working.
