Vegetation and landscaping teaching: a sensitizing experience

Abstract

This article develops a reflection on a set of experiences carried out alongside drawing and landscape design students of the Architecture and Urbanism course at the Federal Institute of São Paulo. Through these experiences, we attempted to establish a teaching perspective premised on the concepts of Ecological Planning and Green Infrastructure (GI), rejecting approaches to landscape architecture that are mainly concerned with ornamentality. Considering that Plant Blindness is increasingly common, our main goal was to raise students’ sensitivity and awareness towards the biological, spatial and social dimensions of vegetation. Thus, these experiences explored drawing as a tool for the apprehension of the characteristics of each species and for overcoming the all-too-common view that “plants are all the same.” Three thematic axes were proposed, each presenting specific questions regarding the presence of urban vegetation: “The tree and the city” studied the diversity of native trees and palm trees in São Paulo’s urban forestry; “Building a garden” pointed out that practical knowledge on planting is fundamental to landscaping; “Vegetation and biomes” proposed an understanding of plants in their environment and in their relationships with other biotic and abiotic elements, recognizing that the ecological perspective is paramount for landscape design. The main actions involved in these activities were discovering, acknowledging and experiencing the green. This fostered a more sensitive relationship between subject and object, in a form of engagement that led to deeper knowledge about vegetation, regarded as a determining factor in the training of future landscape architects.