Island, in its nature, is isolated, untouchable and unperceivable. It locates far from the mainland physically or psychologically, which evokes the feeling of sublime. Involuntarily fascinated by the infatuated character of island, architects, landscape architects and urbanists are always finding, writing, or seeking the opportunity to build their perfect islands. But these islanders -- if we can call them this way -- rarely discuss the theoretical and aesthetic value of sublime hidden behind their works.

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By entitling the book IS.LAND.SCAPE, a jargon word combined with Island and Landscape, we open the discussion of how many ways the title could have: it can be understood as Island+scape, which reveals the main content of this book that island is a unique type of landscape. “Keyword+scape” is a boring yet effective way to link anything in the world with landscape and has been utilized by innumerous authors to conceive their ideas and theme topics. We don’t avoid using this banal methodology since the relationship between island and landscape does exist and the two terms are worth to be put together in conversation; It also can be comprehended as Is+landscape, transforms into an open question rather than a conclusion that encourages readers to redefine what is landscape through the process of reading this book. By overlapping the IS and LAND twice, this newly created word can itself become a complete question: Is Island Landscape? which is the ultimate issue we would like to explore through the whole book.

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The book is “horizontally” divided into four chapters, and materials are “vertically” organized into three categories: Text Essays, Graphic Essays, and Projects. Text and Graphic Essays are used to discuss each chapter’s topic in theoretical way, while at the end of every chapter appear the Projects as the media to project the theorectical discussion into physical sites.