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Go, observe the ‘BUS STOP’!
We often think of architecture in terms of the monumental—the museums, the skyscrapers, the urban parks that make it into magazines. But what if the truest reflection of a city could be found in its most ordinary spaces? What if understanding urban life began not with buildings, but with bus stops? This article retraces a…
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Indian Plantarum: A Guide to India’s Phytogeographic Zones and Plant Species
Indian Plantarum: A Compendium of Phytogeographic Zones and Plant Lists is a pioneering contribution to Indian ecological literature. It offers both depth and utility, making it an essential reference for anyone invested in understanding, preserving, or planning with India’s rich and varied flora. As a foundational volume, it sets the stage for future work in…
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The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour: Influence of Anthropogenic Activities c.1914 to 1947 A.D.
The expansion of Mumbai’s ports between c.1914 to 1947 was driven by technological advancements in shipping, necessitating deeper draughts to accommodate larger vessels. This first phase of port expansion saw the construction of key infrastructures, including the Hughes Dry Dock, Alexandra Dock, and Mazagaon Dock. Among them, the Alexandra Dock stood out for its modernity,…
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The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour: Influence of Anthropogenic Activities c.1873 to 1914 A.D.
The period between 1873 to 1914 A.D. marks a pivotal phase in the anthropogenic transformation of Mumbai Harbour, characterized by the construction of major port infrastructure. Triggered by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Mumbai’s strategic importance along international maritime routes increased significantly. This paper examines the methods and consequences of port construction…
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Corel Painter for Landscape Architecture: Painting the Natural World Digitally
In landscape architecture, visuals aren’t just about accuracy—they’re about atmosphere. Corel Painter bridges the gap between expressive hand rendering and digital flexibility, offering a natural media experience unlike any other. Whether you’re crafting moody site perspectives, textured planting visuals, or evocative design vignettes, this software lets you paint with the soul of traditional techniques—digitally.
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Krita: A Versatile tool for Landscape Architecture
Krita is a powerful, open-source painting tool that gives landscape architects the freedom to design, iterate, and visualize with artistic depth and precision. With advanced brushes, texture painting, and strong layer management, it’s perfect for developing rich, expressive graphics—from site overlays to atmospheric perspectives. While it lacks features like an infinite canvas and advanced text…
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Affinity Designer: A Fusion of Precision and Creativity
Affinity Designer offers landscape architects a powerful blend of precision and creativity, combining vector drafting and painterly expression within one platform. With dual personas, advanced brushes, texture overlays, and flexible artboard management, it supports everything from quick sketches to polished presentation graphics. Despite minor limitations like no infinite canvas or CAD scaling, it remains a…
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The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour: Influence of Anthropogenic Activities c.1668 to 1873 A.D.
Around the mid-18th century, the archipelago of Mumbai—then composed of seven distinct islands—was ceded to the British. Recognizing the region’s strategic maritime importance for communication with Persia, the Malabar Coast, and the Maluku Islands, the British administration initiated a series of infrastructural interventions to consolidate the islands into a single landmass. This article examines the…
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Concepts for Landscape Architecture: Infinite Canvas with Infinite Possibilities
Concepts is a vector-based sketching app ideal for landscape architects, offering an infinite canvas, precision tools, and flexible layers. It supports iterative design, integrates with pro workflows, and balances artistic freedom with technical accuracy—making it a powerful companion for everything from site analysis to conceptual planning and presentation.
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Mastering Quick Concept Sketching in Landscape Architecture with Autodesk Sketchbook
In the fast-paced world of landscape architecture, ideas often come faster than you can draw them—and that’s exactly where Autodesk Sketchbook shines. Lightweight, intuitive, and surprisingly powerful, this digital sketching app turns your tablet into a fast-response sketchpad, letting you capture design concepts the moment inspiration strikes. From zoning diagrams in Copic colors to quick…
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The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour: Influence of Anthropogenic Activities c. 1650-1668 A.D.
The city of Mumbai, now a sprawling coastal metropolis, was once a fragmented archipelago of seven agrarian islands. This paper examines the earliest known instance of coastline alteration between c. 1650 and 1668 A.D., analyzing the natural and anthropogenic factors that catalyzed the development of Mumbai Harbour as a functional maritime hub. It focuses on…
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Painting with Pixels: Why Adobe Fresco is a Game-Changer for Landscape Architects
Can digital tools ever match the spontaneity and soul of hand-drawn sketches? For landscape architects hesitant to make the leap from trace paper to tablet, Adobe Fresco offers a surprising bridge. With lifelike brushes and a clean, intuitive interface, it blends artistic freedom with digital efficiency. Curious how it holds up in practice? Dive into…
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Procreate: A Sketchbook Reimagined for Landscape Architects
Digital design is changing the way landscape architects sketch, iterate, and communicate ideas and Procreate is leading that transformation. It blends the soul of hand-drawing with the precision of digital tools, allowing designers to create everything from textured concept sketches to animated seasonal transitions, all from a single, portable canvas. Curious how it fits into…
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From Paper to Pixel: Digital Sketching Tools for Landscape Architects
Discover the best digital sketching tools for landscape architects, from expressive hand-drawn apps like Procreate and Adobe Fresco to precision-driven platforms like Concepts and Affinity Designer. This guide explores each app’s standout features, helping you choose the right one for sketching, rendering, and communicating your landscape design ideas.
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Digital Sketching: Revolutionizing Representations in Landscape Architecture
The field of landscape architecture demands high-quality graphical representation to convey complex design ideas. Designers often struggle between the artistic expressiveness of hand rendering and the efficiency of digital tools. However, technological advancements have introduced a third option-a hybrid approach that blends the best of both worlds.
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Drawing for Landscape Architects-Construction and Design Manual: A Summary
Drawing for Landscape Architects: Construction and Design Manual is very instructive and serves as a guide for a beginner intending to make great progress in the representation of ideas, concepts, landscape layouts and overall presentations. The examples of rendered layouts are very inspiring and serve as a reference for seasoned landscape architects as well.
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Silent Spring: A Summary
I first read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson during the tenure of Masters in Landscape Architecture at C.E.P.T University. The following excerpt from the book had caught my attention and has remained with me till date inspiring me to think about the consequences of human activities. “There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example-where…
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Parc de la Villette: A prototype defining 21st Century urban landscapes
Landscape design for a space is defined by the user of the space. Until the late 18th Century most often the user of Landscape spaces were royals and aristocrats. However by the early 20th Century cities began experiencing the brunt of rapid urbanization catalysed by industrialization. Rapid urbanization led to disparity in population distribution with…
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River Sensitive Planning: An anecdote from Mughal India
The unpredictable monsoon literally wrecks havoc in the country without being biased to any region, state or climatic zones. In addition to the unpredictable rainfall, the magnitude of hardships encountered by the citizens residing in coastal areas, flood plains and close proximity to rivers multiply due to the river reaching danger mark on account of…
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Mughal Gardens: An Epitome of Hydraulic Engineering
The Mughal Empire came into being during the Medieval era and the ‘Bagh’ developed by them depicts their prowess in hydraulic engineering never before seen or experienced in Gardens. So profound was their hydraulic engineering both at macro-level and micro-level that the Bagh built during the Medieval Era have sustained the test of time to…
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English gardens: A cinemagraph of picturesque landscapes
This article explores the evolution and experiential qualities of the English garden style, which flourished during the 18th–19th centuries, drawing inspiration from landscape paintings and Chinese garden principles. Emphasizing the concept of the picturesque, English gardens were not isolated compositions but interconnected spatial narratives designed to be experienced sequentially, much like a cinemagraph—a moving image…
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Italian Gardens: A celebration of the untamed character of nature
The Renaissance was a period in European history from the 14th to the 17th Century. It began as a cultural movement in Italy and spread throughout the European continent. The scientific progress during the Renaissance period, the curiosity to understand the natural world and derivation of inspiration from nature led to the recreation of the…
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The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour: A Conducive Setting
The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour: A Conducive Setting sheds light on factors responsible for the initiation of Port Activities in the Mumbai Harbour by evaluation of the macro and micro factors. The macro factors include the strategic location of the Mumbai Harbour on global maritime trade routes while the micro factors include the oceanography and…
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The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour: An Introduction
‘The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour’ is written as a series of articles that brings to light the issue of amplified silting in Harbours and the factors catalyzing the process of silting by studying the case of Mumbai Harbour. The Dissolution of Mumbai Harbour: An Introduction is the first article of this series and briefly discusses…
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