For contemporary landscape architecture to succeed in its present day challenge of connecting people to nature, it must resolve the crisis in such a way that landscape design makes the meaning of the situation accessible to the everyday spectator. This project addresses the return of meaning to our landscapes via a theory grounded in hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is a way of thinking based on interpretation and understanding of situations and circumstances. It recognizes the landscape as a text open to interpretation and innovation, and gives strength and validity to subjects, such as the meaning of a situation, which are not completely definable by positivist scientific theory. Interventions on the landscape are a language that anchor human situations and tradition.
Landscape architects are the mediators between culture and nature.
Hermeneutics can act as a bonding mechanism for culture and nature, extrapolating the richness of context, and restoring the elusivity and mystery of landscapes, inaccessible through scientific method.