What is bottom-up design?

Abstract

There is a substantial body of research that points to energy descent (1,2,3,4,5). In lieu of this, other significantly different forces could drive a number of changes to current thinking in landscape architecture. Examples of these include local food production, community-driven design, and localised wastewater management. While most landscape practice continues to be implemented through top-down process, for example, council driven city projects such as the shared space upgrades to Fort Street in Auckland, in general the theory on this subject suggests bottom-up design as an alternative approach that could address this emerging future in ways more relevant to end users (6). While landscape architects have begun to grapple with these issues, for example, Chris Reed of Stoss and James Corner of Field Operations, there seems to be a ‘gap’ between theory and practice in the discipline. Through a research by design process a number of principles that describe characteristics of bottom up design have been discovered. These are explained in the text and conclusions are drawn with regard to their possible use in landscape practice.