Aesthetics of Sustainability; The Relation of Aesthetics and Environmental Sustainability

One of the challenges against sustainable development is to attain the patterns for interacting between man-made environment and nature. Sustainability tries to provide a series of concepts and instructions which leads to better interaction between abovementioned factors. Sustainable landscape design is generally understood in relation to three principles: ecological, social and economic sustainability. Rarely do aesthetics factor into sustainability discourse and it is considered as insignificant value. However, it seems that landscape as a cultural phenomenon requires concepts further than merely ecological needs for obtaining sustainability. More ever, aesthetics aspect of a landscape helps to increase knowledge of environmental sustainability by affecting human consciousness and individual emotions. This article is going to evaluate the aesthetic aspects of sustainability and its role in sustainable landscape. In this article four principles of aesthetics in sustainability is introduced which are followed by practical instances.