Time Effects and Their Impact in the Landscape Architecture

Abstract

The research of this paper focus on the perception of time which can give important design effects. Taking into account elements of psychological research, we could say that in landscape architecture, time perception could be realized mainly through succession perception, duration perception of a walk and orientation in time. The paper take into consideration the fact that some compositional effects, obtained by the judicious usage of basic morphological elements in the landscaping design, have the virtue to create the desire of movement, crossing and seeking interesting details in order admire it. In this way, to the perception of landscape tridimensionality is added the perception of the fourth dimension, namely the time. The time perception in landscape architecture can be decoded and understood watching: the perception of the interval covered in movement, perception of succession, the temporal valuation and controlling by effect dosage and also the orientation in time by creating rhythms and pauses. Very important is also the way in which we perceive time through morphological landscaping elements: terrain, vegetation, water and furniture. The time can be valued and controlled by the dosage of landscape effects. The way in which the landscaping effects determine us to perceive time and its duration is a subtle domain with an important  psycho-emotional impact over the users of landscape arrangements. The effects of the time over the landscape elements (like seasons effects, aging of materials, degradation in time) are another kind of effects, which we will study in another research.