How do landscapes and gardening shape design thinking and practice?

For architect and educator Leon van Schaik, the way we understand our world is not an abstract consideration, but deeply rooted in physical experience. For better or worse, this understanding informs our interpretation of our environment, and any attempts we might make to reshape it.

In this conversation, van Schaik and landscape architect SueAnne Ware discuss the influential landscapes and garden ideas that van Schaik explores in his book, Doing, Seeing; Seeing, Doing—from Persian paradise gardens to the mosaic burning that maintained pre-colonial Australia’s ‘parkland’ landscape, the nested arches of Edwin Lutyens to Renaissance axiality, and his own modest garden in rural Victoria.