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Designing Places

Design in the landscape

Much successful development is rooted in the landscape: in the shape of the land, its materials, its character, its appearance and its ecologies. All these are the result of natural and cultural processes. Traditionally the landscape and the materials that can be won from it have shaped the patterns of building, helping to make places locally or regionally distinctive.

Isle of Barra, Western Isles	Ben Nevis, Highland	Peebles, Scottish Borders

Development designed to make the most of its setting in the landscape is likely to avoid today's common failing of looking and feeling as though it could be anywhere. Understanding the landscape is the basis for knowing such essentials as what plant species will flourish, how drainage systems can work successfully and how buildings can best be sited. Places that are distinctive and designed with a real understanding of the natural world are likely to be enjoyed, cared for and valued.

Scotland's well loved places show how the landscape can inspire in very different ways in different settings: from cities whose grandeur is enhanced by dramatic natural settings to the smallest village nestling in a hillside.

Landscape design can create places in harmony with natural processes of change. Landscape architects are particularly conscious that design is a matter of directing a process of continuous change and that success depends on carefully managing what has been created.

In the countryside, inappropriate developments, however small, can have large impacts. Sensitive location and design is needed to avoid urban sprawl, ribbon development, new buildings on obtrusive sites, incongruous materials and house styles more characteristic of suburban than rural areas. To protect the countryside we need to find opportunities for infill development, for converting and rehabilitating existing buildings, and for planning buildings in groups rather than on their own.

Townscape, Edinburgh

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