Both in Europe and North America, landscape architecture has evolved from multiple origins. As an applied vocation, landscape architecture can trace origins to gardening and to production agriculture such as horticulture and forestry. In addition, and on both continents, landscape architecture has been defined partly by the scale of projects it embraces.

Its origins also have been reflected in the institutions of higher education which have propelled landscape architecture into an increasingly global and regulated profession. In some academic institutions, for example, landscape architecture has come to exist in natural resource units while others have been equally successful residing in centers of design. In fact, a goal of the accrediting process in North America is to encourage uniqueness in the origins and methods used to teach landscape architecture.

The result is that landscape architecture exists today as a broad profession and academic discipline covering varied geographical scales and both rural and urban spheres. In this mix, design, planning and research have evolved hand-in-hand, setting-up a structure for generating knowledge by sustaining links between academic and non-academic practice. What remains constant is the tension between the artistic and the scientific dimensions as well as the necessity to find equilibrium between knowledge and action.

CELA and ISOMUL have come to agree that the artistic and scientific foundations of landscape architecture are in need of clarification. The myth of creative leaps no longer suffices to satisfy questions from students, scholars, clients and the public at large. In other words, the intuitive creative processes which lead to unique models and physical solutions must be matched with outcomes grounded in the rules and principles of physical and social science, so that risk is minimized and quality outcomes are optimized. How this duality between art and science affects teaching, research and practice is the focus of the 2010 conference.