Ecology, community and delight: a trivalent approach to landscape education

This paper presents the results of an investigation into underlying attitudes and values held by landscape architects. This research had two main components, an analytical study of landscape architectural literature; and a series of in-depth interviews with British landscape practitioners which were then analysed with the aid of NUD.IST software. The paper identifies recurrent themes or discourses, which emerged analysis of literature, and interview transcripts and relates them in a conceptual framework based on three fields of value—the aesthetic, the social and the aesthetic. It postulates that there is a ‘trivalent’ approach to landscape architectural practice which optimises values across all three areas.