A New Collaborative Pattern between Landscape Architects and Urban Designers in Environmental Design

Problem statement: Nowadays professions such as architecture, landscape architecture and urban design are playing a unique role in environmental design process. Meanwhile architecture is being separated from two other majors: landscape architecture and urban design by paying so much attention to constructing buildings. Landscape architecture and urban design have parallel subjects and goals and both have the intention to improve the quality of urban open spaces. Approach: Since these two majors have partly the same approaches in confronting the topic of urban open spaces design, this study propounded the desirable method of collaboration between the professionals of these two majors. This research defined the role and position, each of these two professions have in the environmental design process by taking advantage of grounded theory procedure and the usage of content analysis, constant comparison and the questionnaire techniques. Results: Ideas found in this research were laying stress on the fact that by considering the three-level system from relations between the parameters: design/planning, control/co-ordination, management/policy making as the main common roles among the urban design and landscape architecture professionals, one can achieve the pattern of an efficient interaction. Conclusion: In this co-operation, landscape architects by preparing plans and implementing details and urban designers by making design structures and standards will obtain a supplemental role in the environmental design process.