The synthesis of architecture and landscape : designs for a cemetery

Abstract

Currently, the synthesis of landscape architecture and architecture is tenuous at best. Though considered separate disciplines with separate agendas, the two fields have the possibility through interaction to enrich and enliven the experience of design and form through formal, physical and spatial considerations. The designer has the ability to manipulate the user's experience through sequence, context and form in both disciplines in ways that evoke philosophical, introspective and sensual levels of perception. That which lies beyond the interaction of landscape and the built form is a synthesis that is more than a sum of its parts. This thesis proposes the creation of an environment that is richer than the autonomous solutions of the purely "landscaped" site or built form. A cemetery is the vehicle to explore the poetic, narrative and ritualistic aspects of architecture and landscape architecture.