New Issue Published: Landscape Architecture, Volume 2026, Issue 1
Landscape Architecture is pleased to announce the publication of Volume 2026, Issue 3. The new issue is now available online
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- Research article
by
1The University of Sheffield
- Volume 116 (Issue 1)
- Pages: 90
- - 103
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20261161-06
In the case of nature-based vitality, there can be metrics such as quantity of green areas, park availability, or temporary increase in outdoor activities. All of the above approaches have some merit. Yet, they can conflate the temporary impact on visual attention with sustainable changes that will become visible after new routines have been formed. This paper introduces SARSE and applies it to Vancouver data from 2018 to 2023 in order to distinguish between temporary disruption-related reactions and persistent activity patterns as well as environmental and perceptual factors associated with both of them and with meaningful spatial structure. There is an extensive record of annually counted numbers of observations per each image-derived activity category, Moran’s \(I\), variance inflation values, and visitation correlations for Vancouver. The temporal component takes into account pre-disruption 2018-2019 state, 2020 shock effect ratio, persistent 2022-2023 period, terminal memory of 2023 year and volatility. The spatial readiness component encompasses spatial autocorrelation, multicollinearity handling and positive correlation with visitation counts. Urban Elements and Artistic Expression achieved the largest persistently observed expansion from \(B_g=269.5\) up to 4427 observations in 2023 years and attained \(A_g=2.54\) as well. Life and Cultural Activities, Street Landscapes and Life Scenes, Natural Landscapes and Greenery, Urban Built Form and Public Realm and Traffic categories have remained above the pre-disruption level. Flowers and Plants showed the largest 2020 shock ratio (\(S_g=8.50\)) but maintained rather weak 2023 memory (\(M_g=0.18\)). Sentiment Score and Red Maple provided the highest visitation-weighted spatial-readiness score, followed by Number of Parks, Pyramidal European Hornbeam, Tree Height 40-50 and Park Area factors.
- Research article
by
1Department of Landscape Architecture, Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, 119 Meyerson Hall, 210 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA19104-6311, USA
2Department of Real Estate Management, HungKuo Delin University of Technology, No. 1, Lane 380, Qingyun Road, Tucheng District, New Taipei City
- Volume 116 (Issue 1)
- Pages: 74
- - 89
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20261161-05
The analysis of urban soil health should facilitate decision-making concerning park management, de-sealing, urban forestry, stormwater management, carbon sequestration, and restoration of disturbed soil. Therefore, any analysis of urban soil health requires measurements that reflect chemical, physical, biological aspects, sampling depth, and ecological services associated with urban soils. In this regard, we performed the analysis of urban soil health based on a calculation of a Depth–Function Coupling Portfolio of selected 63 out of 217 papers. The dataset used in this work included data about 61 geographical samples, 59 samples characterized by land use and 51 samples described in terms of their sampling depths. Chemical aspects were reported in 76% of the publications, physical – in 60%, biological – in 44%, soil health indexes – in 37%, and ecosystem services – in 33%. Among land use categories, the greatest number of cases refers to open space (32), park (26), and residential land use (23). Among vegetation types, grass has the largest frequency (48), followed by trees (23) and shrubs (15). Moreover, vertical sampling is limited in more than 70% of samples, where sampling was made not deeper than 20 cm. Only two studies considered soil samples obtained deeper than 120 cm. Soil function coverage index equals 0.507, depth awareness index equals 0.457, the score reflecting the disjunction between soil functions and depth equals 0.469, while the portfolio stress equals 0.500. Ecosystem service proxies have the highest contribution into total measurement deficit (26.8%), followed by soil health indexes (25.2%) and biological measurements (22.4%). Raising the proportion of biological and ecological services covered by urban soil research to 0.60 would increase the soil function coverage index to 0.637. Combined with the depth adequacy value of 0.50, this value will increase depth-awareness index to 0.607 and portfolio stress to 0.284.
- Research article
by
1College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
- Volume 116 (Issue 1)
- Pages: 52
- - 73
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20261161-04
The problem of urban green-space mapping in a highly concentrated metropolitan region involves consideration of the reliability of the decision itself rather than just the separation of vegetation from non-vegetation evidence. The Greater Bay Area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao features high-rise neighborhoods, complex impervious surfaces, coastal towns, peri-urban vegetation, and an imbalanced amount of VGI data, indicating that the mere aggregation of accuracy measures will be inadequate for urban planning purposes. In this paper, it was examined whether reliability-weighted conformal graph calibration applied to the Sentinel-2 urban green-space evidence in combination with OpenStreetMap would be capable of discriminating among reliable mapped vegetation, city-level omission, and limitations imposed by structural connectivity. The reliability-weighted conformal graph calibration analysis used such inputs as the OpenStreetMap semantics for vegetation evidence, weight-sensitivity reliability scores, classifier confusion matrix numbers, city-level precision and recall scores, UGS area estimates, landscape metrics, and multi-scale partition analysis. The weighted reliability resulted in 0.8372 of mean accuracy and 0.8267 of mean F1 score, whereas unweighted setting decreased accuracy to 0.818 and F1 to 0.812. The best planning-oriented results of errors were observed for W-SVM with 355 false positives, 0.104 false positive rate, 0.896 specificity, and 0.785 utility. The detectability varied from 97.60 percent in Shenzhen to 67.42 percent in Kaiping, thus clearly showing a distinction between high-confidence cities and fragmentation-sensitive cities with considerable pressure on omission. Finally, the 10 m UGS estimation of 139,427.06 ha appeared to lie between ALCC, ESA WorldCover, and CLCD estimations, indicating substantial disagreements among urban green-space products. The MSPA analysis demonstrated that core and edge classes prevail in the foreground of vegetation evidence, whereas bridge, branch, and loop connectors combined account only for 3.11%.
- Research article
by
1Faculty of Architecture and Urban Studies Capital Design University Canada
2Department of Environmental Planning Pacific Research University Canada
3Department of Environmental Design Coastal Research University United States
- Volume 116 (Issue 1)
- Pages: 35
- - 51
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20261161-03
The heat adaptation strategy of the compact mid-rise districts must reduce pedestrian heat load without affecting the poor air exchange which still persists in such narrow streets and courtyards. In this study, the cooling pathway scores for compact districts are determined based on radiation–ventilation-gated district-level heat adaptation intervention allocation. This case study involves the Volksgartenviertel district, an 16 ha compact district in Cologne, Germany. The scores are assigned based on district characteristics including the land cover, vegetation, 2022 July meteorology, and the air-temperature–physiological equivalent temperature response relationship. The district consists of traffic area, parks, buildings, and inner courtyards covering approximately 25 %, 20 %, 25 %, and 30 % of the district, respectively. Present greening within the district is unbalanced; there are 285 street trees belonging to 18 different species and two green roof areas. There is also one completely covered facade greening and 11 tree–shrub–grass front yards out of 221 front yards surveyed. The intervention set consists of 158 Acer platanoides street trees, 146 facade and roof greening interventions, and 2410 grass grid pavers which correspond to 9640 m2 or 0.964 ha permeable grounds. For the hottest days during 18–20 July 2022, the district maximum air temperature is 40.2 °C, and mean air temperature and wind speed are approximately 28.7 °C and 0.29 m s−1, respectively. The mean air-temperature reduction over 72 h is −0.49 K, which is accompanied by −0.91 K of PET reduction. The maximum reduction of both air temperature and PET locally is −5.28 K and −7.66 K, respectively. While PET reduction over 72 h is 3.13 times of air-temperature reduction, locally maximum PET reduction reaches −26.10 K during the hottest hour.
- Research article
by
1Department of Urban Design and Landscape Planning Greenfield State University United States
- Volume 116 (Issue 1)
- Pages: 18
- - 34
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20261161-02
The closeness of a neighborhood may be measured by the quantity of services present within easy reach by foot, even though services close at hand do not create a thriving public domain. In metropolitan Rome, such differences may be observed in the public realm outside the periphery, wherein services may be found close by, including schools, stations, shops, pharmacies, cafes, and green space, while the ordinary use of the site remains minimal. The current study measures this phenomenon using Civic Hold, a four-variable approach to retaining public space. The metric integrates walking orientation, routine use, dwelling probability, and perceived centrality, and has been used to analyze a representative Roman sample of urban fabric including historical compactness, consolidated twentieth-century development, linear planning form, irregular residential planning, and isolated low density. The principal contrast is drawn between Largo Niccolo Cannella in Spinaceto and Piazza Erasmo Piaggio in Villaggio Breda, both sites containing six categories of services within proximity, while district density ratios remain very close. The Civic Hold for Piazza E. Piaggio is found to be 77.50, while that of Largo N. Cannella is 32.75, despite a density differential of just 2.91%. The ratio of their Civic Hold results is 2.37. It is clear that neighborhood proximity is only socialized through connectivity between services through legible paths, appealing edges, regular use, and localized importance.
- Research article
by
1College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
2Turenscape Urban Planning and Design Co., Ltd., Beijing 100080, China
- Volume 116 (Issue 1)
- Pages: 1
- - 17
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20261161-01
Green-space assessments commonly document aspects like proximity, physical access, maintenance, ecological quality, and recreation provision. However, this list does not exhaust all factors that need consideration when determining whether or not a park can be used by autists reliant on sensory predictability, navigable routes, reliable services and limited social contact. This paper will apply Constraint–Affordance Prioritisation analysis to Bulltofta Park in Malm”o, Sweden to identify factors that foster or hinder neuro-inclusive use of this site. For this purpose, both the documented place-quality record and Peaceful Path actions will be examined in relation to the use channels of sensory regulation, route confidence, bodily access and services, ecological engagement, and co-use predictability. What qualities of Bulltofta Park affect the reliability of neuro-inclusive use and which Peaceful Path actions most strongly help preserve its peaceful atmosphere and ecology? Nature is the most positive domain, scoring +85.7 for balance, with 6.5 supportive points against 0.5 pressure points. In addition, management is positively rated at +50.0. Accessibility is still positive (+16.7) and facilities show some support (+7.7). While the presence of benches, bins, barbecue places, spaciousness, and relatively low visitor density are positive, lack of toilets, lighting, winter restrictions for some narrow paths, off-lead dogs, and school-related crowd formation during certain hours weaken facilities’ overall contribution to neuro-inclusivity. Scores within channels confirm this conclusion, indicating the dominance of ecological engagement (+100.0) and sensory regulation (+53.8), while bodily access and services score poorly (-20.0). Peaceful Path actions improve route confidence (+14.3 to +55.6) and bodily access and services (-20.0 to +6.7). Thus, Bulltofta Park’s contribution to neuro-inclusion relies more on consistent maintenance, clear route description, moderate social engagement, sensory gradients, and availability of services than any special facilities.
- Research article
by
1Department of Landscape Architecture, Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, 119 Meyerson Hall, 210 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA19104-6311, USA
2Associate Professor, Department of Real Estate Management, HungKuo Delin University of Technology, No. 1, Lane 380, Qingyun Road, Tucheng District, New Taipei City
- Volume 115 Issue 4
- Pages: 150
- - 169
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20251154-09
Heat adaptation of compact temperate neighborhoods usually relies on green spaces since additional land to accommodate larger parks is scarce. The heat mitigation capacity of such spaces cannot be estimated just in terms of their surface areas. One-hectare intervention may perform like a shade destination, cooling interface with streets, or both depending on patch division, compactness, grouping, width of streets, and direction of streets. Street-Coupled Thermal Allocation (SCTA) methodology is utilized in order to find out which one-hectare layout suits best each of four neighborhood morphologies when pedestrians’ heat stress is considered the goal of urban planning. Numerical parameter sets incorporate four types of streets and eight types of one-hectare layouts. Four street types, designated as T1 to T4, vary in street area share, height-to-width ratio, and orientation composition. Eight layouts of one hectare, referred to as S1 to S8, differ in patch area, total patch number, shape index, grouping property, and association with wide and narrow streets. Calculation is performed separately in respect of Local Green Refuge Score and Street Cooling Transfer Score with further aggregation of these two scores with coefficients 0.55 and 0.45, respectively. It turned out that grouped and compact layouts (S7, S8) ensure maximum performance with regard to local refuge, and grouped wide streets provide maximum cooling transfer capacity (S1, S3). Combining the two scores yields maximum values in favor of S1 layout within T1, T2, and T4, equaling to 0.719, 0.689, and 0.740, respectively. Layout S8 wins in terms of SCTA score for T3 with score equaling to 0.721 and also proves to be very effective for T4 neighborhood morphotype with SCTA value of 0.730. Layout S3 maintains its good performance throughout and reaches 0.728 in case of T4 type of morphology. The results suggest that one-hectare green space layout optimization is a morphology-related task, whereby grouping and wide streets are more appropriate for the street cooling transfer goal, while compact cross-street placement is better for diagonal morphology.
- Research article
by
1Department of Urban Design and Landscape Planning Greenfield State University United States
- Volume 115 Issue 4
- Pages: 125
- - 149
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20251154-08
Planning of nature-based solution interventions in cities typically starts with typology lists, as opposed to calibration of performance models based on local conditions. Such practice generates practical selection problems in Global South cities where floods, heat stress, water pollution, droughts, biodiversity depletion, erosion, air pollution, and lack of equal access to urban nature are often co-occurring challenges even before the availability of performance evidence on costs, land-use, and performance. Typologies of interventions are selected according to scale-weighted functional leverage, functional range, spatial continuity, and medium coupling criteria for keeping only those intervention families that will be assessed further. Scale-Weighted Functional Leverage (SWFL) is calculated for four types of implementation media: water, land, built structures, and hybrid water–land media. Fourteen resilience functions are kept: biodiversity, heat regulation, water-pollution regulation, pluvial flood regulation, coastal flood regulation, river flood regulation, drought regulation, air-pollution regulation, erosion regulation, river navigation improvement, riverbank erosion regulation, social resilience, coastal flood and erosion regulation, and general flood regulation. The most common medium among 32 interventions is water, accounting for 16 interventions, followed by land, responsible for 12 interventions, built structure for three interventions, and one hybrid water and land intervention. Biodiversity is the most common function represented by 19 interventions, compared to single representation of social resilience, river navigation improvement, and riverbank erosion regulation. Neutral SWFL values result in selection of mangrove restoration, green–blue infrastructure, and urban forest systems as leading solutions, and river management and restoration interventions are also important because they help to preserve rare functions of rivers. Ranking of typologies based on priority weighting puts green–blue infrastructure as number one under heat and air categories, raises rainwater harvesting systems under drought and pluvial challenges, and includes urban gardens as a necessity under social and biodiversity categories. Selection of minimum coverage set demonstrates the need for portfolio of interventions as means of achieving broad resilience coverage.
- Research article
by
1School of English Language and culture, Xi’an Fanyi University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710105, China
- Volume 115 Issue 4
- Pages: 105
- - 124
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20251153-07
Large metropolitan green spaces can be described using the total share of land cover types or an ecosystem-services index, but these metrics do not indicate whether vegetation producing the desired services overlaps with people affected by sealing, emissions, heating, surface water runoff, and poor local green space. This paper considers Moscow based on population-oriented ordinally sufficient analysis of the largest urbanized territory. The available data consists of 118 administrative districts, residential quarters, regular grid cells, more than 12 million residents, 841 landscaped objects of green infrastructure, 202.1 km2 of landscaped green infrastructure, 86 nature reserves covering 149.8 km2, and six physical services. Calculation is performed with thresholds and score distributions of sanitary-zone vegetation, stormwater regulation, cooling capacity, cultural green access, residential green provision, and roadside green space. Each block is assessed for adequate land share and adequate resident share such that ecological sufficiency and resident coverage will not be confused. It is concluded that there is little correlation between metropolitan green abundance and resident sufficiency. Regulating services appear to be the largest deficit, with adequate land share rising from 12.0% of district area to 19.2% of grid area, whereas adequate resident share goes up merely from 11.3% to 11.7%. Cultural access and residential provision are better accounted for by quarter level with 48.4% of adequate area and 38.3% of adequate population. Roadside green space shows greatest sensitivity to the grid-level analysis with 37.2% of adequate area and 34.2% of adequate population. Moscow therefore has plenty of green space infrastructure but lacks resident sufficiency due to insufficient overlap of ecological services and human exposure to urban environment.
- Research article
by
1Landscape Architecture Department, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU)
- Volume 115 Issue 3
- Pages: 86
- - 104
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20251153-06
While urban greening can enhance thermal comfort, public space quality and ecological continuity, the impact of daylight ozone formation hinges on the composition of tree species, local transport system and chemical reactions involving nitrogen oxide. For this analysis, Bologna’s tree population-specific canopy renewal target has been calculated with ten broadleaf species as Pi = fiEi, pollutant-response coefficient and receptor attenuation threshold using their isoprene emission potentials, statistics, ozone and nitrogen oxide response rates and daylight ozone increment for Irnerio, Montagnola, University Gardens and Berti Pichat receptors. Isoprene production is highly concentrated in Bologna’s assemblage with Platanus × acerifolia, contributing 57.90% of normalized isoprene potential, and Sophora japonica making up for additional 21.08%. The two species contribute together 78.98% of normalized isoprene emission potential with first five species providing 99.25%. Ozone has a stronger response rate compared to that of nitrogen oxides (KO3=0.783 versus KNOx=0.257). As such, daylight ozone increment may be adopted as the managed endpoint in canopy management. University Gardens receptor is controlled by the daylight ozone increment of 6.7% while those of Irnerio, Montagnola and Berti Pichat are 2.3%, 1.9% and 0.8%, respectively. Within the constraint of 2% daylight ozone increment, University Gardens needs to have the reduction of 70.1% isoprene production potential while Irnerio only 13.0%. Replacing completely Platanus × acerifolia and Sophora japonica results in the University Gardens’ residual daylight ozone increment of about 1.41%.
Call for Papers
Landscape Architecture invites submissions for Volume 2026, Issue 3, scheduled for publication in September 2026. The journal welcomes high-quality scholarly contributions that advance research, theory, criticism, and applied knowledge in landscape architecture and related fields.