Landscape as Place Markers

Landscape, campus architecture's admirable companion, can play an influential role in shaping and inflecting a sense of place. At the California Institute of Technology, the Joshua trees pre-date site development and were intelligently integrated into the campus design. In time, their presence became icons and symbols of institutional presence, high quality place markers.

Vulnerable to age, the Institute has devised an interesting crutch system to support the ancient limbs. Functional and amusing, the visual effect once seen is not forgotten.

Equally so are the landscapes at Arizona State University, including the palm trees that remind one of the Institution's regional setting, and the scattering of outdoor sculpture. Some of the pieces, such as the red scissors, are more levitas than gravitas, but no less substantial place markers.

Richard P. Dober