LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Landscape design is a kind of art that represents arrangement of green spaces, beautification, and organization of landscape architecture as well as application of architectural forms in parks or gardens. The main task of the landscape design is the creation of harmony, beauty in combination with usability of building infrastructure: in other words landscape design is created to combine nature with culture.
The notion of “landscape design” appeared in Western Europe, in the first turn in densely populated and industrialized countries such as Germany or Great Britain where mass industrialization and the growth of suburbs resulted in the pressure on the environment.
The first stage of preparation of an area of land for landscaping begins with the landscape sketch. It means that a landscape designer creates a site drawing. The main rules of a landscape sketch are the following:
·The planting and placing of plants should have a group character as plants of the same or closely related species should be planted in close proximity to one another. If not the area will have a scanty look.
·While planting and landscaping it is preferable to avoid straight lines. The plants should not be planted in a straight line as this will not favour the development of bushiness. Absolutely strict symmetry is also undesirable because of its unnatural look. However a definite steadiness and balanced composition of design elements should be certainly present.

Speaking about the components of landscape design it is worth mentioning that they are very diverse. Their main groups are:
·Buildings that form the centre of a landscape project. The main scope is to smooth over the far-fetchedness of regular-shaped constructions, to ease their tension on the environment. The buildings can be either one-or-multistoried, single or complex, private or commercial, intended for various purposes.
·Lawns, formed by various sorts of grass.
·Green plantations in the form of trees, shrubs, flowers and their combinations (garden, flowerbeds, etc).
·Different ornamental elements (lakes, meres, brooks, fountains, stones, sculpture).
·Smaller ornamental details (pendants, lamps, lights).

The base of all landscape designs is the lawn. There are:
English lawn- that is created from sedge and closely related Gramineae grasses. The lawn has regular, cut and slightly unnatural look. This lawn design is very often chosen for industrial areas or playing fields.
Mauritian lawn - Its composition includes grass, wild flowers. It has non-central and rather nice, neat and bright look. The Mauritian lawn does well for private sector buildings with individual planning for recreational and entertaining purposes.
Parterre lawn – parterre lawns are laid around monuments, fountains, sculptures, by building entrances. Usually they are laid on the areas that have square, oval or round forms. This kind of lawns has the highest demands: the lawn should be of the best quality, velvety, even and have low herbage. Parterre lawns are intended for ornamental purposes not for walking, recreation or sport games.