RESEARCH CULTURE

摘要

Kurt Culbertson's eloquent call ("Research Priorities," Landscape Architecture Magazine, November) for a national research agenda in landscape architecture is both timely and brave. Uke its close relatives planning and architecture, landscape architecture is now a research-based profession. New performance-based standards such as the Sustainable Sites Initiative [an interdisciplinary partnership led by ASLA, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and the U.S. Botanic Garden] require design decisions to be transparent and backed by evidence and science. This changes everything for the profession, where previously expressive form must now be directly informed by rigorous case studies and research of both the empirical and critical variety. What is required now for the profession is a new "culture of research." As many offices are not prepared to fully integrate research advances into their practices, they must turn to the recent graduates trained in this tradition. It is time for accredited programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level to also fully embrace this new culture and train their students in the research methods and theories needed to move the profession forward.