10 minute read
A landscape project with a railway running through it
Balsall Common Viaduct artist’s impression. © HS2
HS2 Head of Landscape, Christoph Brintrup, offers insights into the essential role of landscape architecture in delivering one of Europe’s largest landscape design projects.
The High Speed 2 (HS2) project represents a monumental undertaking in the realm of transportation infrastructure in the UK. Despite the ongoing national discussion surrounding HS2, one aspect that is not often celebrated is the pivotal role that landscape architects perform in shaping its environmental, social, and sustainability objectives. A project of this scale inevitably involves massive landscape change, and the balance of competing outcomes means that solutions are not easy to establish.
This article highlights how the work of the landscape architecture profession is helping, and leading, on the delivery of its ambition.
The HS2 project is more than just a high-speed rail network; it is a transformative infrastructure megaproject that will reshape the way people travel through, interact with, and perceive landscapes. The 140-mile route between London and the West Midlands spans dense urban areas and open rural agricultural landscapes, representing an extraordinary opportunity for landscape architects. HS2 is one of the largest landscape design projects in Europe, and how these thousands of hectares of habitats are managed through this period of change is thoroughly dependent on the skills and expertise of the landscape architect.
Around 300 landscape architects have worked on the project to date, either as part of the HS2 central client team, as consultants within HS2’s supply chain, in local authorities or other stakeholder organisations. They have been tasked with sensitively integrating this vast project into the natural and built environment in a way that reduces and mitigates the railway’s impact on its surrounding environment and communities, while simultaneously delivering regenerative landscapes and cityscapes.
The role of the landscape architect
HS2 Ltd’s Landscape Design Team has played a central client role in defining the route map, specification and strategic goals of the project within the landscape corridor that is currently under construction between London and the West Midlands. The team acts as the project’s technical landscape design authority, and the assurer and guardian of design quality related to landscape architecture, from the initial optioneering and concept design stages, through to the operational end state. It continues to be a key force behind the design framework, not only providing direction and strategic guidance for the supply chain’s design development, but defining key processes and requirements that enable the delivery of integrated, multifunctional landscapes.
These activities relate to a myriad of challenges that often go beyond the assurance of design outputs. They include matters around consenting, stakeholder engagement, contract management, contract interfaces, procurement, programme planning, data management, legal considerations and end-state planning. It is precisely this framework that provides time and clarity for landscape consultants to coordinate and interface with other professions in multidisciplinary environments, showcasing their expertise in integrating natural and man-made elements, creating places that are not only visually appealing, but also environmentally sustainable and socially beneficial.
The multidisciplinary teams that form part of the numerous HS2 supply chain contracts are at the very core of delivering the landscape design narrative. They follow the ambition that has been defined by the client organisation in the HS2 Landscape Design Approach, which is closely linked to the overarching HS2 Design Vision, and serve as manifestos for the project. These documents look to deliver strategic integration, advocating for an infrastructure that is not merely functional but contextual, connected to the environmental and cultural fabric of the landscapes and communities through which it passes.
Public space, health and wellbeing
As well as environmental considerations, the landscape architects’ role is about fostering community cohesion and improving social outcomes. Witness the integration of vibrant public realms such as at Old Oak Common Station, walking trails around Water Orton Viaduct, and enhanced community gardens that have been implemented around Euston, which will aim to provide accessible and inclusive spaces that improve the quality of life for residents and encourage physical activity.
By actively engaging communities during the design process, such as the recent consultation taking place around the design of Balsall Common Viaduct, the landscape architecture team has played a key part in ensuring that the project reflects the needs and aspirations of those it serves. This approach strives to create a sense of ownership among local residents.
Our scope also extends across the public realm, where HS2 plays an important role in shaping a strong emphasis on community spaces which are of critical importance to urban and rural communities alike. This vision encompasses more than just aesthetics; it is about crafting spaces that welcome, unite, and inspire, that support biodiversity and offer respite, encourage play, contemplation, and celebration. These are objectives that landscape architects are aiming for when orchestrating the various project requirements and creating places. This work is crucial and shows that the profession contributes to a broader ambition of social sustainability, especially around HS2’s stations.
Our landscape architects also work closely with other experts in the active travel, health and construction sectors, with the aim to establish a ‘slow-speed’ network that lies alongside the high-speed rail corridor. These connections, created in part through the retention of construction haul roads and maintenance tracks, will connect communities, encourage active lifestyles, and positively contribute to more sustainable travel.
From species selection to seed provenance, decisions that take account of a changing climate, and help the landscape sequester carbon, are critical.
Climate, biodiversity and resources
One of the cornerstones of HS2’s Landscape Design Approach is its response to climate change. The planting of around 7 million trees and shrubs, and the creation of habitats, will play a pivotal role in mitigating environmental impact, and translating sustainability policies into tangible outcomes. From species selection to seed provenance, decisions that take account of a changing climate, and help the landscape sequester carbon, are critical. Equally, by the integration of green and blue infrastructure (such as sustainable drainage systems, green roofs and the naturalisation of rivers) landscape helps the project to reduce urban heat islands, manage flood risk, and enhance urban air quality.
HS2 is moving an unprecedented amount of construction supplies, with many millions of cubic metres of excavated materials to be relocated, and the work that the landscape team are doing in material management has been extensive. This has required us to balance cut and fill volumes, and carefully reintegrate this material locally, thus avoiding unnecessary lorry movements and reducing carbon cost and impact on local communities. Such interventions highlight the role landscape architects can play in embedding sustainability into infrastructure construction.
The preservation and enhancement of biodiversity are central to HS2’s mission, and landscape architects, working closely with ecologists, are aiming to create and connect habitats, ensuring wildlife thrives alongside infrastructure expansion. These ecological networks form green arteries that breathe life across the landscape, allowing species to migrate, forage and reproduce in coexistence with infrastructure interventions.
The landscape-led approach leaves room for others beyond HS2’s red line to one day build on. Joining up projects through collaborative working and carefully targeted funding will achieve a wider-reaching green corridor that has the potential to deliver greater social and environmental benefits than a series of smaller linear initiatives could do. Such an approach represents an ambitious effort and will contribute to some of the key targets and actions set out in the government’s 25-Year Environmental Plan.
The close relationship between water management and landscape design is another aspect of the extensive remit of our landscape architects. Their work requires whole-systems design thinking and recognising water’s vital role as a precious resource. By understanding the wider catchment area including habitat and community context, the multidisciplinary design team is able to merge functionality with a natural systems-led approach that minimises resource use, slows water flows, mitigates flooding, promotes enjoyment of watercourses for recreational use and bolsters resilience. Ultimately, this results in regenerative and multifunctional outcomes, including enhanced biodiversity and habitats, and community benefits, such as the realignment of the River Cole to the east of Birmingham.
The preservation and enhancement of biodiversity are central to HS2’s mission.
Heritage and culture
A deep appreciation for history and heritage guides the hand of landscape architects as they weave HS2 through Britain’s rich mosaic of storied landscapes. Conserving, enhancing or restoring the setting of historical sites, such as the landscape around Grade I Listed Edgcote House and the adjacent battlefield site in Northamptonshire, ensures that the project doesn’t erase the past but rather highlights and celebrates it. Through sensitive interventions, designers aim to tell the stories of the land the train will move through, turning the rail project into a journey through history.
Finally, the legacy envisaged and driven by the profession includes the seamless integration of arts and culture in the landscape, celebrating the natural world and human creativity, and fostering a sense of belonging and pride. Land art projects in rural areas and art installations in civic centres require a close collaboration between the artist and landscape architect. One example where this has been put into practice is the Maple Cross JMI School’s play area, which was created through professional collaboration and crafted from soil excavated from the Chilterns Tunnel. Initiated by a student’s request, the project engaged a landscape designer to collaborate with pupils, integrating their ideas and local history. Featuring rolling hills, fruit trees, balancing logs and woven willow saplings, the project demonstrates the multidisciplinary team’s ability to combine educational opportunities, community engagement and the sustainable reuse of materials.
With its blend of innovative engineering, high-speed connectivity and wide-reaching green infrastructure, HS2 is redefining what is possible when landscape architects lead the way in applying a landscape-led approach and nature-based solutions to what is often considered as simply an engineering project. Behind the landscape and public realm design of HS2 stands the application of almost every part of a Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute’s (CMLI) professional remit. The approach and design imagines a balanced coexistence between human advancement and environmental stewardship. As HS2 progresses, the ongoing innovation and dedication of its landscape architects will ensure that the green corridors it creates, the biodiversity it enhances, and the human experiences and health it enriches, will be leveraged to their full potential. HS2 is paving the way for a more sustainable and ecologically integrated approach to major infrastructure, and landscape architects are well and truly in the driving seat.
Christoph Brintrup is Head of Landscape at HS2.
