A Study On The Theories And Procedures Of Traditional Waterscape Design In Chinese Landscape And Garden

The Chinese traditional landscape and garden goes for the ideal state of "harmony between human and nature" and "looks natural though manmade," expressing the sustainable development concept of harmony between man and nature. During the long-term evolution, a set of planning philosophy and design methods with Chinese characteristics was created and developed. The theory of traditional waterscape in Chinese landscape and garden is one of the important legacies that our forbearers left for us.Waterscape is a comprehensive landscape system that presents the material characteristics or cultural connotations of water. It is a common type and component in landscape architecture. Deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture, the traditional Chinese waterscape has special theory in the conception, layout and scene setting of waterscapes. Over the centuries, the traditional Chinese waterscape has acquired distinctive ethnic characteristics and has made an important contribution to the development of traditional Chinese landscape and garden."Researching on the new must be done by studying traditions; nothing new exists without traditional sources." Today, from the process of urban development and transforming nature rises the phenomenon of ecology damage and resources waste due to the violation of the regular pattern of water and ignoring the science and arts of waterscape. In some cases, the disaster is even brought down on humans. Therefore, in order to provide guidance for waterscape design in the future, we need to study the theory and methods of traditional Chinese waterscape systematically, summarize the experience of dealing with water in traditional Chinese waterscape, and develop a theory of water management by learning from traditions.On the basis of analyzing and summarizing reference literatures and practical cases of landscape architecture, this article combines current research results to conduct a systematic study on the cultural connotations, metaphysical ideas and designing methods of the traditional Chinese waterscape, and then proposes that we inherit and develop traditional Chinese waterscape theory in order to further exploring the future of designing and constructing waterscapes in Chinese landscape and garden. This article displays its value mostly in the following three aspects:1) Using the approach of combining reference literatures and practical cases to discuss the influence of traditional Chinese culture on traditional Chinese waterscape, and to demonstrate the profound relations between them.2) Demonstrating the basic philosophical ideas in traditional Chinese waterscaping and distinguishing the origin, connotation and the operating mechanism of the idea "Harmony of man with nature and changing water into waterscape by man", as well as cross-validating the referenced literatures and practical cases.3) Based on analyses of reference literatures and practical cases, summarizing the contents of Chinese waterscaping methods and elaborating over eight subjects to discuss and summarize in each the methods of Chinese-style waterscaping, and revealing its characteristic of unified diversification.