Current landscape change is perceived as dramatic and some changes proved to
be rather destructive. Landscape research intends to describe and understand the
system. Often the resulting knowledge arrives on the practical level with a considerable
time shift, i.e. when major landscape functions have already been altered
by large projects. In this article I pose the question if current changes in science
and technology may lead to new directions in landscape research and eventually
foster a wide application in both rural and urban systems. The latter are – as
shown in our literature review – a still neglected entity in landscape research. The
discipline still favours rural systems. In practical landscape development technical
measures to mitigate drawbacks are more popular than careful planning. In the
scientific literature the idea of introducing "design" as an element of landscape research
has recently emerged. In this case landscape research would become an experimental
discipline and it would have to play a key role in large landscape development
projects. Relevant examples are as yet missing.