10 minute read
Rich and fertile: Reconnecting soil, community and landscape
From optimising land use to enhancing community wellbeing, guest editor Noel Farrer argues that soil is fundamental to any site, and the foundation upon landscape-led thinking should be based.
The accelerated rate of change, driven by technology and access to information, has had an impact upon everything, and landscape is no exception. Almost everything I originally studied, beyond the fundamentals of design, is now out of date and much of it is irrelevant. The key for today’s practitioners is adaptability and continuous learning.
My knowledge and understanding of soils are a case in point. Most of us know that soils are a source of nutrients for growing plants and crops.
We know that healthy soil is important, and with a bit of added manure, it will improve our roses. But on a construction site it too often becomes unwanted muck to be removed so that building work can commence.
Even built environment professionals have a horrifying level of ignorance around soil. Every teaspoon of soil contains around one billion bacteria; every cubic metre of healthy soil captures between 12kg and 35kg of carbon. Yet in the construction sector we destroy it and throw it into landfill at a rate of almost 30 million tonnes each year.
Recently, soil has come to the fore of both our profession and public consciousness. The exhibition at Somerset House in London, Soil: the world at our feet was a mustsee for landscape professionals. “The theme of this startling, enthralling and highly original exhibition is the stuff of life itself –our common ground, our source of food, our overlooked inheritance,” said the Observer.
Carolin Göhler, the Landscape Institute (LI) president, is currently exploring what ‘landscape-led’ means and how it is used and often abused. There is a simple logic that all construction projects change the landscape; the systems of nature and the disruption caused need to be understood and embraced in the planning and design of whatever is being proposed. Central to development is the disruption and, given present construction practices, often destruction of soils.
Current masterplanning best practice includes the landscape characteristics of topography, water catchment through rivers and streams, aspect, climate, field patterns, urban grain, the impacts of movement corridors, and flora and fauna. Notably absent, and yet perhaps the most important, is soil.
When considering soil as a factor in determining what goes where, it becomes patently clear that this process is not new. Rich or fertile soil has always been deemed to be of high value and where it exists you would never build. Indeed, homes were originally built on poor or rocky land, leading to the shaping of settlements on hillsides, often neighbouring rich alluvial plains. Settling on rocky hilltops was sometimes done for defensive reasons but it was mainly to preserve every patch of rich ground for growing the food necessary for long term habitation.
As a practice, Farrer-Huxley quickly realised the importance of studying existing land use by attempting to be landscape-led in our approach to masterplanning. We recognised the knowledge of local farmers who manage the land and, through them, understood that the value of productive landscapes and their impacts on people needed greater analysis. We have become aware that this is seldom carried out, and that planning policy demands little, if any, scrutiny of land use prior to development.
A simple mapping of soil quality and productivity, highlighting those with good natural drainage (acquired through farmers’ knowledge) leads to a very different shaping of a masterplan. The nature of soil reflects a broad spectrum of landscape considerations, with many overlapping the spectrum of constraints already recognised in masterplanning. Aspect, gradient, underlying geology, precipitation, and weather patterns all contribute to the unique characteristics of every soil on every piece of land. The nature and role of soil is the basic building block for the consideration of any site and is the foundation upon which much landscape-led thinking is based.
A simple mapping of soil quality and productivity, highlighting those with good natural drainage.
Our work has found that soil mapping through engagement with farmers has created new place characteristics that are both healthier and more dynamic. The resulting masterplans accommodate multiple and diverse uses and, perhaps most importantly, lead to the development of places that are truly distinctive. The mapping of soil as a basis for landscape-led masterplanning does not limit opportunities; in fact, it is a methodology that shapes the healthiest and most responsible approach. It is suitable for urban extensions, housing and mixed communities, as well as infrastructure and commercial sites.
The LI Award-winning masterplan developed for Bailrigg Garden Village (see case study on page 41), for which a multidisciplinary team including Farrer-Huxley worked with the soils department at Lancaster University, triggered our awareness and understanding of soil. This led to a deeper understanding of which habitats would thrive in each location and consequently the infrastructure and housing being laid out to best support a thriving and productive place. There were of course constraints: the high-voltage cables were to remain where they were; existing settlements were worked around; and both railways and canals severed the site’s natural systems. Ultimately, however, we felt the plan that emerged was a truly landscape-led proposition, as it started with the question; what future functions best align with the natural attributes of the site? The subsequent process identified and guided the locations of the required new homes and urban centres within the plan. These new places, shaped by the characteristics of the landscape, became more individual and distinct. This awareness of the importance of the preservation of soil has driven my practice to a better understanding of landscape-led design. We are aware that a new residential project does not start with the needs of the housing but with the soil. Only through understanding the capacity for landscape improvement can we best accommodate the outcomes required. A new development, if it is a proposal that is considerate of soil, will deliver not only distinctive housing but also a diverse range of land uses, associated employment, and healthier future communities. This more environmentally sensitive approach does not necessarily increase costs and can certainly speed up the planning process as it is one that will garner greater support from neighbouring communities, whether human or other!
The relationship between people and soil is the topic of considerable research around environmental generational amnesia (EGA). Currently, society lacks the understanding of the soil, land management, and environment that is required to sustain agricultural practices. The creation of suburbia over recent generations, as dedicated places in which to live, connected by cars, has caused us to forget about nature as our relationship with land has fallen away. EGA has come to be recognised as a result of our understanding that working with soil and growing plants is a therapeutic activity that aids mental health. Many of life’s anxieties that derive from our modern suburban life and resulting EGA can be addressed by greater proximity with natural systems. Landscape-led masterplans that deliver integrated places, where working the soil and production of food sit alongside other elements of placemaking, are a fundamental requirement of future healthy life.
Our need and craving for soil and cultivation is evident in many places. When a skip garden and natural swimming pond occupied meanwhile spaces during construction of the emerging King ’s Cross development, these spaces were overwhelmingly popular, with people flocking to them. The final plan, with these meanwhile spaces removed, is now sanitised and has lost the magic that was clearly addressing societal EGA.
During our work at Bailrigg Garden Village, early consultation revealed the crisis faced by farmers and precipitated by EGA that now jeopardises future land management, especially near residential areas. Insights into EGA highlight the crucial need to restore people’s connection with the soil if we’re to create healthy future communities and economically viable new places.
Understanding soil and landscape is a step towards an awareness of the intrinsic connection between us and nature. This alone will improve the health of individuals and inform the health of the future places in which we exist and will hopefully also help to create.
Soils Task Force
Farrer Huxley, working with JTP and others, including Lancaster City Council and Lancaster University, set up the Soils Task Force5 to better promote how we can practically support the preservation of soils in construction. It also recognises that soil is fundamental to the landscape, and the landscape of every place must determine the changes we make. The work at Bailrigg and the Soils Task Force has attracted others who are working to promote best practice regarding soil, not least the work of Birgit Höntzsch in Cornwall (see pp28–32). Lancaster Council, in a partnership with Cornwall Council, have supported the work of the Soils Task Force5 and invested time through their enlightened planning teams to explore the necessary changes that need to be made to the planning system. Through this approach, in future there should be better recognition of the importance of soils in the planning process.
soilstaskforce.com
Soil and landscape-led design: key takeaways for practitioners
Considerable work is required across the construction sector to promote the importance and value of soil. As well as planners and engineers, we in the landscape profession must recognise our role in preserving soil, not only for carbon capture but in recognition of its fundamental role in the life cycles of all living things. Perhaps even more importantly, we must recognise that we cannot replace living soil easily or rapidly.
Key takeaways for practitioners undertaking early site appraisals prior to design and masterplanning:
– Make a more in-depth analysis of the existing site that includes the quality and distinctions in the soils and underlying geology
– Understand present land use and the associated constraints by speaking with the current farmers and land managers
– Generate an outline plan which best benefits landscape outcomes, aspect, food growing, appropriate natural habitats including wood and forest, and water movement
– Consider where the movement corridors and built environment can co-exist alongside the identified landscape outcomes
– Consider the future stewardship and management of the landscape to ensure the infrastructure supports future land-based outcomes
– Review your own and your practice’s standard approaches to soil at every stage of design and delivery
– Promote the value of soil and ‘landscape-led’ design to clients.
– Adopt and promote best practice to design teams and fellow professionals in planning and engineering
Noel Farrer FLI PPLI is Past President of the Landscape Institute, Director of Farrer Huxley Landscape Architects and a member of the Soils in Planning and Construction Task Force
