This research focuses on the integration of traditional landscape knowledge and modern design thinking in contemporary Chinese garden design, demonstrating a shift toward a more context-responsive and culturally informed approach. This study addresses the connection between traditional Chinese garden theory and its application in contemporary, practice-based design by exploring how artistic methods can translate philosophical and ecological principles into meaningful spatial experiences. The study adopts a studio practice–based methodology that integrates self-reflection and studio experimentation approaches to examine the spatial construction of plants in contemporary Chinese gardens. This study explores contemporary artistic design practices through the use of oil painting, aiming to produce landscape expressions that are rooted in cultural context while offering a strong experiential dimension. Selected artistic practices, including those of Jonas Wood, Zhou Jingxin, and Hayley Barker, are examined for how they articulate landscaped garden spaces and convey their aesthetic and spatial qualities. Through this process, the research identifies two central outcomes for design practice. First, contemporary Chinese gardens are shown to be evolving from purely symbolic expressions of tradition into integrated systems where ecological function and aesthetic experience are jointly constructed. Second, the use of painting as a practice-based design method emerges as an effective means for exploring and communicating the spatial relationships between planting, structure, and human experience. These outcomes demonstrate how the principle of the unity of humans and nature can be actively translated into contemporary landscape design, offering practical implications for culturally informed and ecologically responsive design practice within a broader sustainability context.
Zhao et al. (Tue,) studied this question.