About My Landscape Practice
Western landscape architecture, with design & planning, is a young profession when considered within the broad picture and history of human land use. Modern 'Earth work' and 'land art' too are young, but carry an age-old human reference that can range as wide and far as to include pictographs and hieroglyphics, terracing and farming, coppicing and forestry, aquaculture and canal building.. In short, the history of our interaction with our landscapes is an inherent part of our humanness that is, throughout time, a balanced play between innovation, tradition, practicality, and esthetics.
Contemporary landscapes too, whether they are residential, commercial, municipal, or natural all exist in a varying balance of uses.News of resource depletion, species extinction, and climate change vie for our attention amidst the personal needs we have for our landscapes: privacy, views, safe places for our children to play, interaction with nature, and beauty. It is our responsibility in this critical time to embrace the spiritual nature of our work in ways that are at once broadly cultural and intensely subjective.
'Shaped by human hands', in this sense, can be considered a symbol that is evolving.
The business of Cavanagh Landscape Design LLC, too, is evolving.
Though I have engaged in years of landscape maintenance, design, management and construction, I find value and necessity in approaching each landscape and each image with a beginners mind and with the mantra of a craftsman: embrace, innovate, and create.
At the heart of every landscape choice, should be a genuine search for and consideration of the conscious intention. The ultimate inspiration for a landscape undergoing change is open to all possibilities. These are but a few forms that inspiration can take:
- Edible Gardens
- Feng Shui Practices
- Labyrinths & Meditation gardens
- Medicinal and Native Plant Uses
- Rain gardens
- Reforestation Practices
- Recycling & Composting Practices
- Sensory Gardens
- Solar collection systems
- Water Collection & Reuse Systems
Recommended for further reading on Landscape Design & Architecture:
Frederick Law Olmstead, Gertrude Jekyl, Jens Jenson.
For Earth-Works, Land Art and Architecture:
Malcolm Wells, Christo, Charles Ross, James Turrell,
Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Andrew Goldsworthy
