Delve into new books on nature, design, and the climate that inform and inspire. Explore THE DIRT’s 10 best books of 2024:

30 Trees: And Why Landscape Architects Love Them
Birkhäuser

30 landscape architects around the world offer personal stories and histories about their favorite tree in this book edited by Ron Henderson, FASLA, a professor of landscape architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The designers explain what the trees evoke and how they were used in a project. Henderson also provides botanical descriptions. Contributors include Shannon Nichol, FASLA, Laurie Olin, FASLA, Mario Schjetnan, FASLA, Gary Hilderbrand, FASLA, Elizabeth Mossop, FASLA, and many others.

The African Ancestors Garden: History and Memory at the International African American Museum
The Monacelli Press, 2024

Landscape designer and artist Walter Hood explains how his firm’s powerful landscape at the International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, South Carolina came to be in this beautifully illustrated book. The museum is located at Gadsden’s Wharf, where nearly half of all enslaved Africans arrived in North America. With its African ethnobotanical gardens and infinity pool, the landscape shows “how different worlds can be held in the same space,” Hood says. It unearths and honors the past while providing a space for new dialogue and even celebration.

Brooklyn Bridge Park: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
The Monacelli Press, 2024

In plain language, Michael Van Valkenburgh, FASLA, tells the story of how six abandoned shipping piers on the Brooklyn waterfront became a dynamic 85-acre park, the largest addition to NYC’s public space in a generation. Brooklyn Bridge Park was designed to be inclusive — it’s home to barbeques, sports fields, and playgrounds. But it’s also a model of ecological planting and climate resilience. This generous coffee table book offers 250 immersive images and includes a forward by landscape designer Julie Bargmann. It’s the next best thing to going to Brooklyn.

Design by Fire: Resistance, Co-Creation, and Retreat in the Pyrocene
Routledge, 2024

“Feral wildlands and the wildland-urban interface are places where design can make a profound impact,” write Emily Schlickman, ASLA, and Brett Milligan, ASLA, in this timely book that offers 27 strategies for designing with fire. The co-authors focus on five fire-prone zones around the world that share a Mediterranean climate, including western North America, the Mediterranean basin, the Cape of South Africa, central Chile, and parts of Australia. Many scientists no longer view wildfires in these zones as isolated events but rather as connected in a larger system.

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
Harper, 2024

“It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival,” writes Zoë Schlanger, an evironmental and science reporter for The Atlantic. She weaves together the latest plant science, explaining how plants communicate, sense, learn, and adapt.

Field Sketching for Environmental Designers
Routledge

“To learn to really ‘see’ what you draw is to go beyond merely copying what you observe; the ultimate goal is to find the soul and meaning of the landscape,” writes Chip Sullivan, FASLA, professor of landscape architecture at University of California at Berkeley, in this charming how-to guide. A welcome companion for both beginning and advanced drawers, this book’s wealth of inspiration and practical tips will improve the ability of any sketcher. Take it with you on your next walk.

Noguchi’s Gardens: Landscape as Sculpture
ORO Editions, 2024

Japanese modern artist Isamu Noguchi is famous for his akari light sculptures and public art. But he also crafted landscapes like sculpture, with “space as their primary vehicle,” writes Marc Trieb, Hon. ASLA, a prolific author, landscape historian, and professor emeritus at University of California Berkeley. This book covers Noguchi’s unrealized and built parks, gardens, and playgrounds around the world, offering some rare photographs.

Silt Sand Slurry: Dredging, Sediment, and the World We Are Making
Applied Research + Design, 2024

“We are manipulating sediments at a tectonic scale,” write the members of the Dredge Research Collaborative — Rob Holmes, ASLA, Brett Milligan, ASLA, and Gena Wirth, FASLA — who have co-authored a compelling call to action to “design with sediment– intelligently, democratically, and equitably.” Sediment is often ignored but is vitally important because it shapes the “current and future conditions of life.” Other key members of the collaborative — Sean Burkholder, Brian Davis, ASLA, and Justine Holzman — contributed essays.

Speculative Futures: Design Approaches to Navigate Change, Foster Resilience, and Co-Create the Cities We Need
North Atlantic Books, 2024

Artist and urbanist Johanna Hoffman, who studied landscape architecture at University of California at Berkeley, calls for partnering with communities to visualize “new and potential worlds.” This world-making can help us “move us beyond what currently exists into what could one day be.” She is inspired by the creative fields of “art, film, fiction, and industrial design” and how they use “speculation to provoke, imagine, and dream into what lies ahead.” The book outlines novel engagement approaches that enable communities to dream big and make vision reality.

What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures
One Books, 2024

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, the keynote speaker for the ASLA 2022 Conference on Landscape Architecture, has written a follow-up to her bestseller: All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. Her new book guides readers through “solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice.” She brings together visionaries, such as landscape architect Kate Off, FASLA; climate leader Bill McKibben; and MoMA curator Paola Antonelli in a conversation about what a healthier, more equitable future could look like.

Buying these books through THE DIRT or ASLA’s online bookstore benefits ASLA educational programs.