A passion project comes to life

Sometimes landscape architects have once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

Four years ago, Diane Menzies was asked by a Chinese colleague, Professor Liu Xiaoming, to help him with a dictionary project, checking English words or terms in the now 1740 page English-Chinese Dictionary of Landscape Architecture. The Dictionary was published by China Architecture and Building Press earlier this year.

Front Cover of the English-Chinese Dictionary of Landscape Architecture. Photo credit: Di Menzies.

It has a vast range of terms and names including plant names, engineering and urban design and planning terms, world heritage sites and municipal and provincial names. “How could I say ‘no’ to a friend?” Diane commented. She also said that if you have clients in China or want to provide proposals in both languages, this could be useful to you.

Diane’s role was as director of copy editing according to the translation of the introduction to the dictionary, and the work was undertaken by Professor Liu and his father over several years.

The 1740 page dictionary. Photo credit: Di Menzies.

Copies of the dictionary are available exclusively in China and via Jingdong(京东), a Chinese e-commerce website. The book, if ordered, can be shipped to most countries.

See below for a copy of the webpage (in Chinese) which shows the search results at Jingdong. The book sells for approximately $23 US dollars, shipping is additional.