Innovations in
Landscape Architecture

Innovations in
Landscape Architecture

Innovations in
Landscape Architecture

The subject of innovation and specific strategies used to promote innovation are widely disseminated
in the business and technology driven sectors, yet, how we define and apply innovation within the
context of landscape architecture is lacking critical examination. Perhaps that’s because it is difficult
to frame innovation within the discursive practice of the discipline. Suzanne Mathew, in her
interview for this book, suggests that innovation in landscape architecture is a difficult topic to
articulate because the discipline is not practiced within a fixed set of conditions. Maybe a critical
examination of the innovation in landscape architecture is lacking because its practice deals with
dynamic systems, shifting cultural conditions, and the need to respond to externalities that often
prove difficult to predict, and, therefore, evade standardized methodologies for innovation. Or,
possibly, it is because, by definition, innovation requires a dedicated effort to initiate new ideas or
methods, and a profession-wide commitment to engendering change may encounter a bit of fear.
In his iconic 1933 presidential inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered the
powerful assertion that ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ (Roosevelt 1933). His sentiment
was aimed at reassuring the American people that, as a collective group, we would indeed withstand
the hardships imposed by the Great Depression. In many ways, we have recently sustained challenging
economic, political, and cultural hardships borne of the most recent global economic collapse. While
this book does not directly deal with the socio-economic impacts of our global economic condition, it
does find itself in parallel with a portion of President Roosevelt’s address that states,

Jonathon R. Anderson AND Daniel H. Ortega