1st Edition
Representing Landscapes: Visualizing Climate Action
This book provides an in-depth overview of graphic and visual communication styles for conveying climate change and climate action within the landscape architectural profession and in academia. The book features visualizations of climate adaptation and resilience, developed by award-winning landscape architects and academics from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, Finland, South Africa, Singapore, and China. Representing Landscapes: Visualizing Climate Action illustrates the imaginative ways in which climate action and climate resilient concepts are visually presented, communicated, and perceived. The book will be especially valuable for students and practitioners in landscape architecture, urban planning, and related fields to understand how to visually capture climate change issues and design solutions, and to deliver this message to the public.
Notes on Contributors
Foreword by Carl A. Smith, FRSA
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction - Representing Climate Action: A Collection of Works
Nadia Amoroso
2. Visualizing Climate Action: A Conversation with SCAPE Studio
Nadia Amoroso, Nans Voron, and Gena Wirth
3. Imaging Change
Chris Reed with Nadia Amoroso
4. Communicating Complexity through Simplicity
Molly Bourne
5. Climate Action: The Works of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Laura Solano
6. Drawing Out Climate Action: The Role of Graphic Representation in Climate-Centered Landscape Architectural Practice
Rebecca Popowsky and Siyu Du
7. Communicating Landscapes of Complexity with Chunks and Comics
Allyson Mendenhall
8. Function, Process, and Change: Designing Flood Infrastructure to Protect Calgary’s Vulnerable Communities
Matt Williams
9. Landscape of Relations
Andreas Kipar and Valeria Pagliaro
10. Urban Forests: Landscape Designs Tailored to Dense Cityscapes
Michel Desvigne
11. Reinventing the Coast through Design
Miriam García
12. Image, Narrative, and Action
Peter Veenstra
13. Realizing Happy Environments: Felixx's Visual Narratives of Change
Janine van den Dool, Michiel van Driessche, and Eduardo Marin Salinas
14. Climate-Adaptive and Nature-Sensitive Approach for Livable Cities
Marit Janse
15. Visualizing Climate Action in Africa – the Works of GREENinc
Stuart Glen
16. Climate Action through Landscape Architecture: A South African Perspective
Stefan du Toit and Carmen van den Einde
17. Modular Approach Creating Low-Maintenance Sponge City: Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok, Thailand
Kongjian Yu and Dong Wang
18. Landscape Frontiers: Designing within the New Geographies of the Climate Crisis
Billy Fleming
19. Landscape from Atmosphere to Below: Representation and the Climate Crisis
Rosalea Monacella and Craig Douglas
20. The Specters of a Changing Climate
Bradley Cantrell, with contributions by Leena Cho, Brian Davis, Matthew Seibert, Xun Liu, and Marantha Dawkins
21. A Self-Critique of Landscape Architecture in Climate Communication
Samantha Solano
22. Surge Barrier Impact Assessment Using Digital Twin Performance Analytics in Galveston Island, Texas
Galen Newman and Zhenhang Cai
23. Restoring for Resilience through Natural Channel Design
Jessica Canfield and Tim Keane
24. Spatial Imaginaries and the Humanization of Green Recovery
Carl A. Smith
25. Climate Stories: The Ongoing and the Unfinished
Roberto J. Rovira
26. Before the After: Representing Climate Actions in the Age of AI
Zihao Zhang and Shurui Zhang
27. Climate Action in Isometrics, Transects, and Atmospheres
Fadi Masoud
28. From Data Points to Dynamic Spatial Experience: Immersive Design Speculations for the Rail Corridor in Singapore
Pia Fricker
29. Visualizing Climate Action: Predictors of the Unpredictable
B. Cannon Ivers
30. Afterword
Nadia Amoroso
Bibliography
Biography
Nadia Amoroso, PhD, OALA, CSLA, is an Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture at the University of Guelph, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development. She holds a PhD from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, and degrees in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design from the University of Toronto. She specializes in visual communication in landscape architecture, digital design, data visualization, and creative mapping. She also runs an illustration studio, under her name, focusing on landscape architectural visual communication. She has published a number of articles and books on topics relating to creative mapping, visual representation, and digital design.
“Climate Change is an existential threat to our Planet and the survival of the Human Species. Although the topic is top of mind, visual expressions solidify the need for more action from a broad audience. It is wonderful to have a book that provides illustrations to convey many ways the discipline and profession of Landscape Architecture addresses nature based design solutions towards reversing the effects of climate change.”
Kona Gray, FASLA, PLA, Principal of EDSA Inc, and 2025-26 President of ASLA
"Representation is an effective method for communicating complex issues, especially the profound challenge of Climate Change. Landscape architecture's role in visually conveying complicated concepts is pivotal for educating and creating action. It serves as a catalyst for the cultural shift required to address the global climate crisis facing everyone."
Damian Holmes, Founder and Editor of World Landscape Architecture
