Landscape design guidelines for container terminals

Abstract

The evolved landscape setting of a container terminal can be perceived as an extensive warehouse from which the roof has been removed. Such a landscape setting is the product of the consumer age in which we live and is influenced by the human "want" for efficiency and maximum economic returns. The combination of these wants have produced a functional landscape.

It is the demand for efficient handling of containers, combined with the safe berth age of the container ship, which today dominates the design approach of the engineers and architects. The functional approach has created the opportunity for the landscape architect to influence and educate the design team in developing an industrial landscape which maintains its high level of functionalism, but at the same time reflects human scale and the visual relationship with adjacent land uses.

There is no standard landscape solution for evolving or developing a container terminal. The sources of design inspiration from along the coastal edge are numerous and it is from these that the landscape architects have the opportunity to develop a landscape pattern which addresses the problems of scale, whilst successfully integrating visually, the terminal into it's broader landscape setting.