The phenomenon of urban sprawl has caused radical changes in the spatial structure of cities and rural areas all around the world. Syria is among the developing countries that have experienced this phenomenon. Some of the resulted processes of urban sprawl like urbanization and counter-urbanization have had a clear impact on the land use and lifestyle in both cities and the countryside of different regions in Syria. This research focuses on the coastal region and the spatial changes that affected the nature of social life, such as the rapid growth of the population, the expansion of cities, and the new developments, which in turn have led to considerable changes in the relationship and scale of the house, garden, and landscape. The research studies the development of the rural housing model in the coastal region and its relation to the surrounding landscape. It tracks three phases of the housing unit’s development and conducts a comparative study on four villages using a questionnaire to evaluate the performance of those units. The results of this research show significant change in the relationship between rural and urban areas resulting from the new residential developments, as well as the relationship of land use and the historic plot structure and that of the garden and the house into the overall character of the landscape.

Throughout the history of landscape design, we have witnessed many examples where natural features were used as symbolic elements of manmade landscapes and gardens. This influence of landscape geology had its impact on contemporary landscape architecture, resulting in diverse and innovative applications, which are the main topic of our discussion.The article is intended to demonstrate the trend of drawing inspiration from natural landscape features in contemporary landscape architecture in a new and complex way, focusing particularly on the influence of geology, geomorphology and tectonics.A study was conducted on twelve available, published contemporary landscape projects from the last two decades analysing the imitation of nature in the designs, with photo documentation and description. The aim is to identify how ‘native geology’ can influence today’s landscape architecture, which formations are inspirative, where and how they are integrated to the contemporary artistic design.Furthermore, in order to develop a complex understanding on how these references applied to the sites enhance the experience of the space. The selected projects are compared according to pairs of contrasting qualities that are related to measurable characteristics of a space. This will finally lead to identifying some common trends of today’s landscape architecture in applying this geology-inspired design approach.

Utilizing cultural heritage in the process of urban regeneration of cities is becoming key principle that can guarantee creating sustainable spaces. Its role is accentuated even more nowadays with globalization processes exposing most parts of the world to similar influences. This research discusses the concept of urban regeneration as a comprehensive development approach and highlights the potential role of tangible, intangible and natural components of cultural heritage as leading actors in this approach. By studying the case of Bab Touma square, a historical urban square in Damascus, the research aims to set forth the importance of communicating those cultural elements as a mean to strengthening spatial identity and spatial attachment towards a space. The research adopts an analytical method and tracks the urban development phases of the square in order to define how they contributed to the change of the square's image and identity, considering such urban spaces in the city with so many symbolic, cultural and historical values as generative points that could play a vital role in activating the process of urban regeneration of the city.

The second half of the 19th century was extremely rich in establishing new public parks all over Europe. The urban renewal of Paris, Vienna, Barcelona, the new Gardenesque style of J. Paxton, H. Repton, W. Nesfield, Ch. Barry, C. Loudon, the functional approach of A. Alphand and F.L. Olmsted, and the the eclectic forms of the two great German designers P. J. Lenné and G. Meyer1 all influenced the ways cities looked at their unbuilt suburbs as new potentials for future urban development. There was a successful design competition in 1892 for a new public park, ‘Südpark’ of Breslau, Kingdom of Prussia (now Poland / Wrocław). The contest was unique in the sense that a part of the competitors’ documents were published on the columns of Möller’s Deutsches Gärtner Zeitung. The park was realised around 1900, and rich historical sources are still available (plans, maps, postcards) on its later phases, too. The park exists today, so one can follow the 120 years of historical development very clearly. This paper has two goals, the first one is educational – to explain complex sequence of interactive activity for garden-history classes with landscape architecture students (part I). The second goal is analytic: to get deeper understanding of the style and taste (composition, function, form, fabric, planting, details) of the turn of the century park design and the typical planning solutions of the time.