Studies On New Ideas And Practice Of Chinese Garden And Ecological Landscape Architecture

The Chinese Garden could be regarded as the mother of the world, one of the earliest landscape architecture forms in the world for its profound achievement with unique combination of philosophy, art, architecture and horticulture and has deeply influenced the development of world landscape architecture. However, in the events of modernization and urbanization of landscape construction, the Chinese Garden has been well appreciated and adopted by garden designers all over the world because of its unique tradition, art and culture connotation and special architectures but it has also been challenged by its urgent requirement for innovation in its form and ways of display under the influence of western culture and modern technology. So how to reform or renovate the Chinese Garden with the inheritance of its traditional garden taste and essence, how to spread "Water Gap Garden", how to redefine the concepts of the Chinese Garden and how to develop the concepts and theory of the ecological landscape architecture or the sustainability landscape architecture which makes up to an important part of development models of a sustainability city are taken as primary questions to be answered in this study.To reform or renovate the Chinese Garden should be based on the innovation and development of a landscape architecture theory. By analyzing the nature of Chinese Garden at current state resulting from collision and fusion of Chinese culture with western culture, from succession or abandon to traditional culture, and in the processes of developing ecological urban construction, a conclusion was reached that the Chinese Garden originates from the form of nature or simulates the nature, but excels or better than the form of nature. This conclusion is drawn for the first time by author as a new philosophy of garden construction which obeys the law of 'the harmony of nature and human' and implies an aesthetics of garden environment.With the guidance of the above landscape architecture theory-"originate from nature, superior to nature" a new definition of landscape architecture is given as below: The landscape architecture is a planned and expanded space of the human residence, an artificial landscape construction which is imitated but exceeded the form of nature, is designed for the enjoyment of human being for the plants and other forms of the nature, for leisure activity and for some exhibition of architectures and is also a function compound of art and culture but under restrictions of the conditions of social economy, culture and history at certain period of time.In applying the innovation landscape architecture theory to guide our practice, the author has obtained a series of successes. From 2005 to 2007, the author successively participated in Hampton Court Palace Flower Show for three times and presented Chinese gardens with different themes, which expressed and showed all about humanity and the relationship between human being and the nature. These gardens were highly appreciated by the attendances to the shows as they could taste the embodied philosophy of Chinese Gardens 'the harmony of nature with human'.The garden in Jingyuan Housing Estate is another good example in applying our landscape architecture theory. In this case, the idea of ecological landscape architecture theory is properly manifested with regard to its perfect coordination between human and environment, construction and protection, succession and development, traditional and exotica, aspects of ecological technology and so on. Thus a quality residential garden was created in achieving an ideal residential environment.This study has also proposed a definition of ecological landscape architecture, describing its connotation, characteristics and principle of its construction as well as the relationship between ecological landscape architecture and landscape ecology. An ecological landscape architecture is an ecological system that is suitable for long term human residence, has three interactive functions of human activity in production, living and ecological maintenance; an ecological system that is created to keep every environmental factors dynamically well balanced within a definite area according to the principle of the landscape ecology, such a system in which sustainable development in both human activity and environment can be achieved. The practical study on Zhongtai ecological landscape architecture is to explore the ways how to build or construct an ecological landscape architecture by trying various construction ideas and different patterns in order to meet the demand of balancing the production and environmental protection in an ecological landscape architecture. It analyzed the correlation and interaction between production, living and ecology which are three main functions in an ecological landscape architecture system.The concept of a sustainability landscape architecture is first described in this study, which is developed from the concepts of ecological landscape architecture by following the laws in the science of sustainability. Sustainability landscape architecture is the organic constituents of a sustainability city. A sustainability landscape architecture is an open ecological system which incorporates different types and sizes of gardens in a large-scale urban area through connections by intervened networks of green belts or corridors. This system is more propitious to attain a dynamic equilibrium in a multi-dimensional and complex system including factors of nature, economy and society. The concept of sustainability landscape architecture contains both the culture value "Hormony between human and nature" and the production value "a sustainable ecological system" which are two principals in guiding the construction of a sustainability city.In this study the sustainability landscape architecture theory was investigated and practiced in the planning and construction of "Jiangxi (Huangma) sustainability city". This project contains different ecological landscape architecture, such as flower and tree nurseries, botanical gardens and mulberry and tea farming areas and agriculture tourism gardens. All these gardens are connected through the intervened networks of rivers, green belts to form an integrated large scale green space, which is also in communication with the human residential space. So this area is created to be a sustainability landscape architecture. Next Jiangxi (Huangma) could further be developed into a sustainability city when the constructions of hotels, restaurants, residential communities and roads are finished in this area and all the villages are restored and will be eventually taken as a model to construct sustainability cities by providing experience for other areas in China.Cities are the most important living environment for human in the future and the places where the modern gardens are rooted, so urbanization is a sore route to achieve sustainable development in rural areas. A sustainable city contains many elements covering all aspects of nature, society, economy, culture, and environment. It is a multi-dimensional complex system and within it a sustainability landscape architecture is indispensable."Water Gap Garden" is probably the best example of ecological landscape architecture, which was created for an optimal human living environment in ancient times. In this study, Hangzhou Westlake ( a most representative urban "Water Gap Garden"), Huizhou "Water Gap Garden" and Zhejiang Guodong garden (most representative village "Water Gap Garden") were examined and we found that "Water Gap Garden" in areas around South Yangtze River are the best models that people in ancient times applied consciously or unconsciously the knowledge of ecology into landscape architecture construction. They also showed that Chinese ancient environmental awareness and wisdom had been embodied in their garden construction. 'Water Gap Gardens' were planned for a certain regional environmental system, might be the oldest gardens opened to the public in the world. The idea of "Water Gap Garden" is almost in consist with connotation of the modern ecological landscape architecture. From the viewpoint of an ecological landscape architecture, a "Water Gap Garden" is a typical example in unconsciously applying the ecological theory to garden construction by ancient people in order to be adapted to the natural environment. It functions in sense of production, living and ecology which are the fundamental essences of modern ecological landscape architecture. Therefore, "Water Gap Garden" should be regarded as an example of the harmony of ecological landscape architecture and the residential environment."Water Gap Garden" is an important landscape architecture form which is supplement to the other three forms of Chinese traditional garden: royal garden, private garden and temple garden. So "Water Gap Garden" as a kind of public landscape architecture, can be categorised as the fourth form of Chinese traditional garden.