Principles of Ecological Landscape Design

I'm a grad student in landscape architecture and I have a masters in planning and community design, as well. I also have a well-rounded education in restoring and rehabing many different habitats. In short, I've read A LOT of literature on ecological design as it relates to ecological restoration.This has been a very expensive endeavor and I still didn't learn as much from all those courses as I did from reading this book. I read it cover to cover without skipping around and found it to be written at a really relateable level for people new to ecological design and those of us exposed to extensive theory. It builds concepts nicely and discusses them in the context of case studies, but it feel more like story telling - if stories were based in science. Beck lays concepts out at a nice speed and links them together with discussions of the seminal writings in ecology that everyone working in this field should know and reference in their own work. Beck discusses more very important - must know - theory and application in less than 300 pages than I learned in 7 or 8 various ecology courses over several years. If you are just getting into ecological design this is an excellent read and reference book. If you just finished an interdisciplinary scramble of high level ecology and need a key to fit all those puzzle pieces together - this is your book. I'm very happy with it.

I am not a landscape architecture student, nor a landscape professional. I am a self-taught "dabbler" in native landscaping at my home, and a few community projects. I really like this book for the deep perspective and copious, good, references it contains. It's not really a simple "how to" book as much as a book that gives deep background information helpful for understanding the dynamics of what makes natural plant communities tick. This has made me think alot about how to emulate this process in my own landscaping - informing my designs and the individual plants and plant communities I choose for different areas.

One of my favorite books exploring practical, sustainable, ecological design methods and philosophy for the future. Not for the novice, but certainly bridges the expert and intermediate.

I am reading this cover to cover and while a lot of it is familiar from diffeent courses it is helpfulto have it all under one cover. There are also a number of ideas that I had not considered before.

I highly recommend this book. It is extremely comprehensive and will certainly be beneficial for anyone who reads it. It should be required reading for many university classes.

This book gives a good background in ecology and then points out ways of using the kind of thinking that ecology excels at, and directs the landscape designer in using that mode of analysis.

The media could not be loaded.  TRAVIS BECK DID A GREAT JOB. This is a well documented progression of ecological design and its structure in our landscapes. Key points reinforce the importance of understanding the niche, climate, and ecological conditions to design a naturally sustained landscape.

Would get 5 stars if it had color pictures. I have print and kindle edition, both are in black and white. It's near impossible to pick out plant species from a landscape b&w scenic photo. Captions imply the book was once printed in color.

Good