The promise of landscape urbanism, the challenge of suburbia: gardens of cities, houses in garden and a house in a garden

A proposal for a ‟Landscape Urbanism Framework” for suburban neighbourhoods, with the suburban domestic garden as a key spatial concept and structuring element. Urbanisation is affecting the world's climate, water and biodiversity. Around 80% of urban dwellers in the UK live in suburban neighbourhoods, private domestic gardens take up around 40% of the land in these neighbourhoods. As such, suburbs and their gardens, are inherently tied into questions of land use and management as they relate to sustainability; however, both have traditionally been ignored or portrayed negatively by UK policy makers, academics and professionals. The reason is deeply rooted in a dualistic world view in which gardens and suburbs are considered liminal spaces. Landscape Urbanism is one of many new fields challenging this world view and emphasising the importance of finding a way to entwine nature and culture to accommodate urban expansion whilst protecting the natural environment. A review of the historic development of the UK built environment, highlights the importance of gardens in the suburban realm. A review of a growing body of current suburban studies highlights that the garden is key to the ongoing popularity of the suburban form. A review of new research in a range of fields, finds that the garden is central to the challenge of the long held view that suburban neighbourhoods are less sustainable than a compact urban form. A Landscape Urbanism framework, with the suburban garden as a key spatial concept, is used here to structure this new research and suggest a way that the suburbs could be designed to be more sustainable, giving a new meaning and role to the garden within them. A Landscape Urbanism framework in which nature and culture, pattern and process are considered at three nested scales: the garden and house, houses in gardens and gardens of cities.