The thin, fragile
and living Earth's surface may be seen as the filling in a giant
sandwich. The bottom layer of bread in the sandwich is the core
of the earth from its molten center to its floating continental
masses. The top layer is the atmosphere from the layer nearest
the ground that supports life to upper reaches of the stratosphere.
The gooey layer of jam in which we live forms the interface of
these two masses.
Geological processes are important to the designer. Geology creates
the land forms we build upon; it controls the drainage and percolation
on a site; it forms the rock and mineral base of the soils and
it controls the short and long-term processes that continually
rework the landscape. Regional geology provides the first clues
to our understanding of design components.
We can appreciate a landscape intuitively. We can enjoy its hills,
its rivers and valleys, its wetlands and flood plains, its rock
outcroppings, its lake and sea shores and its swamps and marshes.
A greater understanding of how the landscape was formed and the
processes that are still shaping it is necessary for its use in
design. The big picture, the continental level, might be a good
place to start. For those in North America, Ron Redfern's, The
Making of a Continent (New York: Times Books, 1983) is an excellent
resource. With text, illustrations and photographs he traces the
evolutionary story of the continent placing our local landscapes
in their greater context.
Getting closer to home we find that physical geographers have
mapped the locations of various physiographic units of land at
a variety of scales. These are wonderful resources for understanding
our place in our region. The example of the eastern United States,
which shows the 'coastal plain' and Appalachian 'piedmont' physiographic
provinces is typical of these maps. The characteristics of the
coastal plain, the piedmont and the fall line zone in between
are quite different and would influence how we design upon them.
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| from: Lobeck, Armin K. 1958. Things Maps Don't Tell Us: An Adventure in Map Interpretation. New York: McMillian |
