Abstract
In the last 20 years landscape has underwent a change more than it had in the past in terms of meaning and activity. Landscape flourished with new meanings and contents thus widened the area of landscape architects. One common and essential point of the current design and planning approaches is that they interpret landscape as an important key in order to understand complex layers of many settlements from rural to urban areas. All of these changes and new openings are influential over contemporary urban concept and 21st century design issues and approaches. Landscape activities are spreading in many places over the world as conceptual and also as basic designing and planning tools. Landscape began to be a main solution and starting point more than an additional or supporting element for different design conditions. Moreover, many design problems in different geographies or settlements can be solved by landscape. In this study, new contexts and expansions that have an effect on 21th century’s design matters and approaches are clarified in order to how landscape has been changing and recovering our environment and become one of the main instruments for environmental design and planning.