Dissertation Subject


My dissertation subject looked into the role of urban lawns in our outdoor spaces, in particular the role of urban lawns in our city and town spaces and their cultural, economic and environmental significance/relationship with other areas of the space. 

The dissertation was based entirely on secondary research and after completing initial background reading my hypothesis/initial thoughts centred around how lawns were bad for the environment. I assumed this because my initial opinion was that they were highly maintained, monoculture based planting areas with limited uses. However research into this topic concluded that actually it was often the management of these spaces that culminated in the poor environmental effects. I looked into the historical role of the lawn and how it was similar/different to grass, how it was used in design throughout renaissance, English landscape style and also how social factors played a role in the lawns development.

I concluded that the most achievable and realistic option was a change in lawn management, a reduction in frequency of mowing, watering, chemical application etc. However the best option would be to phase out sections/small percentages of urban lawns and convert them to naturalistic planting areas, forestry, biomass planting or meadow schemes. This is because the research that I analysed and the papers/experiments I looked through suggested a decline in ecosystem disservices with the conversion of urban lawns.

The full version can be found on the link below:

KH AD6600 Landscape Architecture Dissertation.pdf

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