By Anastasia Nikologianni [2024]

Acknowledging the importance of climate challenges to our environment, landscape and cities, this review focuses on the exploration of visual methods (e.g., design, drawing, sketches) in relation to a deeper understanding of climate emergency and sustainability on a spatial scale. It provides an overview of existing research and highlights the role design and drawing can play in landscape-led projects, as well as the impact these might have on behavioural change and decision- making. Looking at how design and drawing are perceived in landscape architecture and what their contribution is to the narrative of a project as well as the decisions made, this paper establishes a connection between pictorial forms and landscape.
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Previous research examined low carbon as a gas emission indicator or new technological approaches related to climate change, arguing that there is no ‘internationally agreed’ or ‘universally applicable’ definition of low carbon. Aiming to make a connection between landscape and sustainability, Gossop stated that ‘Good design is the key [to] creating successful places that are sustainable in the broadest sense. There is a growing recognition of what constitutes good design and there are numerous examples from around the world of successful places, that both, function well and are attractive in architectural and landscape terms. But the new dimension is the need for those places to be low carbon as well’. Even though a point was being made at the time about the importance of environmentally friendly or low carbon space, there was no strong indication as to the role design/drawing could play in this. The literature has followed a similar pathway, suggesting that if we are to address environmental challenges, then we need to work at the local and regional level, supporting human and environmental interrelations while accommodating for social change [13]. As excellent as such notions are, they do not give any information on the ways in which landscapes can support more resilient cities.
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