Building Up; Wearing Down Entropy, Erosion, and Expansion

Abstract

Designers and critics tend to focus on the construction of landscape architecture rather than on the effects of entropy upon it. It is entropy, in fact, that shapes landscapes and creates ruins after the landscape designer has left the scene. The moss that now blankets the surfaces of Saiho-ji in Kyoto—the so-called “moss temple”—invaded the uncovered terrain of this fourteenth-century temple grounds. It was not planned, but accompanied the passage of time and the intrusion of vegetation. In contrast, the French formal garden attempted to dispel the effects of entropy and time to some degree, in a constant battle of aspiration against the effects of growth and decay. Entropy and the forces of nature erode our initial efforts at making—whether they are landscape or architectural—leaving what remains to use in a new way, or for us to consider in a new way. In time, we may come to understand that nature is dynamic, with neither climax nor steady state. Stopping time and entropy is impossible, although it may be temporarily stilled with continued and costly efforts that may not be sustainable. Perhaps an appreciation of entropy will help us create landscapes marked by a dynamic equilibrium that evolves under new pressures and agents—including the agents of entropy.