Reading Sites: A Framework toward Comprehensive Site Analysis Teaching Strategie

This thesis explores the importance of the comprehensive reading of sites during the site analysis phase of the design process. Landscape architects in particular benefit from critically analyzing sites; their understanding of the specific connections between landscape and social, cultural, environmental, and political structures is crucial to the success of their projects. This research also examines different methods used in analyzing sites over the past few decades; the authors of these methods have significant perspectives that influenced designers in their careers up to this point. Addressing the significance, the limitations, and the biases of each method has contributed in establishing the proposed teaching framework. This framework represents an integrative method that combines the experience-based methods of on-site exploration and the academic methods of the evaluation and the documentation of sites. This research also discusses different teaching methods and tools of discovery that will assist instructors and students during the reading of sites. This research also acknowledges the biases of instructors and students as one of the most critical issues students face during the site analysis phase which can affect their judgments about the site.