Landscape Journal - Spring 2014

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The Journal of the Landscape Institute

Access for all Promoting liveable cities Rethinking botanic gardens Refreshing Leicester Square Understanding wild seeding

Spring 2014

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Contents Spring 2014 Publisher Darkhorse Design Ltd 42 Hamilton Square, Birkenhead Wirral, Merseyside. CH41 5BP T 0151 649 9669 www.darkhorsedesign.co.uk Editor Ruth Slavid landscape@darkhorsedesign.co.uk

Regulars

Features

Managing director, Darkhorse Tim Coleman tim@darkhorsedesign.co.uk

Editorial

Design director Dave Hall Production director Clare Moseley

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Senior artworker Mike Carney Editorial advisory panel Tim Waterman, honorary editor Edwin Knighton CMLI Jo Watkins PPLI Jenifer White CMLI John Stuart Murray FLI Ian Thompson CMLI Jill White CMLI Eleanor Trenfield Amanda McDermott Landscape Institute president Sue Illman PLI LI director of policy and communications Paul Lincoln Membership enquiries Charles Darwin House 12 Roger Street London WC1N 2JU T 020 7685 2651 Twitter @talklandscape www.landscapeinstitute.org

Subscribe to Landscape Keep up to date with the latest thinking and the most interesting schemes in the UK and overseas.

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Bigger picture 6

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Should London’s South Bank have a garden bridge?

News analysis 13 ‘Liveable cities’ is a theme that

the Landscape Institute will use to promote itself. But what exactly does it mean?

Technical 1 47 Wild flower seeding

Technical 2 52 Understanding geosynthetics

Landscape is the official journal of the Landscape Institute, ISSN: 1742–2914

58 ‘The Conversation’ – Looking ahead

The views expressed in this journal are those of the contributors and advertisers and not necessarily those of the Landscape Institute, Darkhorse or the Editorial Advisory Panel. While every effort has been made to check the accuracy and validity of the information given in this publication, neither the Institute nor the Publisher accept any responsibility for the subsequent use of this information, for any errors or omissions that it may contain, or for any misunderstandings arising from it.

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and worrying about environmental impact, but is it just greenwash?

Debate

56 Promoting young talent

Landscape is printed on FSC paper obtained from a sustainable and well managed source, using environmentally friendly vegetable oil based ink.

20 Airports are busy planting gardens

Celebrating bleak Essex

Join the Landscape Institute and enjoy the benefits of an organisation devoted to the promotion of landscape architecture. Benefits include Landscape, our quarterly journal, and a fortnightly email news service with the latest Institute, professional and industry news, as well as the best jobs in the profession. Full details are on our website: www.landscapeinstitute.org

©February 2014 Landscape Institute. Landscape is published four times a year by Darkhorse Design.

Cover Photo ©: — S Wilson Image ©: 1 — Gensler Photo ©: 2 — Burns + Nice

People come first

Can airports go green?

Practice 1 Practice 2

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Ridge and furrow 26 A piece of land art at Amsterdam’s

Schiphol airport is also a means of ameliorating aircraft noise.

Plants and people 30 Botanic gardens are changing to

satisfy new needs and desires.

Circling the square 35 The award-winning scheme for

the transformation of London’s Leicester Square.

Culture 62 Artist of the floating world

A Word 66 Theatre 2

Access all areas 41 A three stage project is bringing the

pleasures and benefits of National Parks to a wider community.

Landscape Spring 2014

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Editorial

by Ruth Slavid Editor

People come first

1 — Ruth Slavid.

Even the gloriously empty photograph by Jason Orton of the Essex coast, which is our ‘Bigger Picture’ in this issue, is from a publication that takes Essex as the exemplar of a new kind of landscape that we are creating as we move away from preconceived ideas of busy cities and pristine countryside to a more amorphous and compromised conception. The Thames estuary is the proposed site for the ‘Boris Island’ airport, and we look at the design of airports as they struggle to treat people as people and not just as ‘units’ who buy tickets and goods.

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T Photo ©: Agnese Sanvito

h ink of a national park and you probably think first of the views, either in terms of photographs, published or amateur, or of what you saw the last time you visited one.

It is surprising therefore to see the photographs accompanying Jill White’s article on the MOSAIC project because these are photographs of national parks in which the people dominate. Surely this is inappropriate for a landscape journal, which should concentrate on the structure, conservation and treatment of the landscape, rather than on the people in it?

Not at all, and particularly not in the case of White’s article, where the people are not the normal white middle aged and middle

class who predominate in the national parks.

She is writing about a successful initiative to broaden that appeal. And it touches on something that we should all remember, and that is a motif running through this issue – that primarily landscape is for people. This is at the heart of the European Landscape Convention, but too easily forgotten.

George Bull’s article about liveable cities examines experiences from around the world that underlie the Landscape Institute’s decision to make this one of its main messages. Rather than talking about what landscape professionals do, it talks about the environments in which people can aspire to live – environments that landscape professionals are best placed to create.

Botanic gardens, which one might think are all about the plants, are being rethought in terms of the ways that they can appeal to and engage the public. In some ways, they can be seen as the plant equivalent of museum collections, and we all know that museums are having to be rethought in the digital age and with new ways of learning – so why not botanic gardens as well?

The people involved with landscape are not only the consumers, the users, the customers or whatever you care to call them. There are the landscape professionals too – yes that means you.

And in this issue Tim Waterman throws down the gauntlet and argues that professionals should think harder about how they present themselves. Landscape – it’s all about people.

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Bigger picture

by Ruth Slavid

Celebrating bleak Essex

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h is chilly view was taken by photographer Jason Orton in March last year at Horsey Island in Essex, and is the last image in a book that he produced with writer Ken Worpole, called The New English Landscape.

In his text, Worpole looks at ‘the changing geography of landscape aesthetics since the Second World War, noting the shift away from the arcadian interior to the contested eastern shoreline’ so it is fitting to end with a focus that is almost entirely on the sea.

Horsey Island appears in one of Arthur Ransome’s books, Secret Water, but Orton’s photo is a world away from Ransome’s children’s idylls. His approach is more in sympathy with Essex artist Edward Bawden, referenced by Worpole, who dreaded the way that spring cloaked in green the muscular landscape that he celebrated.

Worpole believes that the changing landscape of Essex provides a microcosm of our attitudes to landscape across the UK and the ways we should think of it. Orton, who finds beauty in what many would ignore, is an ideal companion for his essays.

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Photo ©: 1 — Jason Orton

In fact, though, beyond the wave-sculpted sand and the tussocks of vegetation, one can see a sliver of land, almost as if Orton is taking his photo from out at sea, staring back to the shore. Of course he isn’t; it is his position on the island, part of Essex’s fractured coastline, that allows him to look across water at land.

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Debate

Should London’s South Bank have a Garden Bridge?

1 — Ove Arup’s Kingsgate Bridge in Durham sets a high standard for elegance.

Is the proposed Garden Bridge

by Thomas Heatherwick and Joanna Lumley, working with Arup and Dan Pearson, a good idea? And is it in the right place?

Tom Jonson Associate landscape architect, URS Infrastructure and Environment UK.

h ere are so many elements to consider in terms of the proposed Garden Bridge, including its function, location and indeed whether it meets the requirements of the local community, but in the short space available I am going to consider purely its visual effect. This visual appreciation should not be based on whether I personally like the bridge or not, but on whether it conforms to established aesthetic urban design criteria.

Despite the Garden Bridge’s strategic location in the heart of the city, it is encouraging to see that public support for the concept is high. This includes figures such as George Osborne who has confirmed that the Treasury may contribute £30 million towards the project. This support is however supprising when one considers that even as early as the late 1800s city planners such as Camillo Sitte (1843–1903) found that the inhabitants of Europe had lost the thread of artistic tradition in city planning.

He was concerned that the populations of European towns and cities struggled to find a way of life that had sufficient vigour to promote large scale projects of artistic integrity.

Attributes such as those identified by Jack L Nasar in The Evaluative Image of the City (1998) that could be applied to the bridge’s aesthetic include naturalness, upkeep, openness and defined space, historic significance and order. At first glance the bridge appears to satisfy a number of these criteria, but it is difficult to be sure until the scheme has been developed further.

Even though public opinion towards public art has changed and other European cities have gained an appetite for large-scale artistic intervention, Seville’s Metropol Parasol being one of the most recent examples, UK cities and in particular London don’t seem to have acquired the same enthusiasm. Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture at the

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Profile photo ©: Horus Communications Photo ©: 1 — Arup

Because people travelling along the existing Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges will also see the new bridge, the kinaesthetic experience should also be considered. Those existing bridges are particularly important because they afford panoramic views of the city across the Thames, and the new Garden Bridge will have special significance within these views.

Olympic Park is a notable exception, although it has been heavily criticised.

Whilst the Garden Bridge project will finally provide an opportunity for the capital to embrace this tradition on the grandest of scales, the project does have its critics, and as a result needs to address concerns such as location, exclusivity, and also issues such as meeting regeneration objectives.

If the scheme does go ahead, it will undoubtedly become an extremely popular attraction and provide London with its equivalent of the New York High Line. I just hope however that the bridge meets its aesthetic expectations and is as elegant as the Kingsgate Bridge in Durham, a pedestrian footbridge designed by Ove Arup in 1963.

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Debate cont.

A planted bridge over fast-moving water seems to me an anomaly.

Alex Rook Community planner and landscape architect.

D

o we need another pedestrian bridge in central London?

I think so; but what type of bridge is the key question.

The Millennium bridge was the first new pedestrian crossing of the Thames in a century, attracting up to 100 000 people on its first day of opening, and has remained enormously popular. Connecting the very different Tate Modern and St Paul’s, the bridge acts almost as a tightrope, in tension between the two.

Between Embankment and the South Bank, the Jubilee bridges have created a magical viewpoint of the city from the middle of the river, where previously one scurried across the functional, narrow, dark, and often puddled, walkway clipped to the southern side of the railway.

I have long thought that a similar connection between the Temple and the South Bank would provide a stimulating link – and tension – between the vibrant culture of the South Bank and the staid seat of the

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law in the Temple and Inns of Court.

However, a green bridge, a planted bridge, seems quite wrong for a number of reasons.

The green bridge over Mile End Road linking two parts of the linear park seemed like a logical concept; in reality it is less successful. The depth of soil required to support any substantial planting produces a cumbersome big-bellied bridge. It has been replanted several times as large trees have failed to flourish. How much more difficult to succeed within the microclimate of the tidal Thames.

There is something disconcerting about trees on any kind of structure above ground, whether that is a roof or a bridge. Trees are such rooted things, giving us a sense of being grounded, of scale, and of both the passing of time and longevity, that they seem precarious perched above ground, uncomfortably out of their depth. The successes of the High Line in New York, and before that the Promenade Plantée in Paris, are different somehow, the structure more intimately woven into the fabric of the city, unearthed and rediscovered as a place for people.

A planted bridge over fast moving water seems to me an anomaly. A bridge is not a park. It may be a place to dwell and dawdle, but it is fundamentally a means of connecting two places. It is outward facing, a place from which to admire the view; balancing

connection with a look out; it is a place of transience, a prospect not a refuge, especially over water. It should therefore be the most efficient and elegant of structures; it does not need the distraction of swaying plants.

I remember, probably over a decade ago now, that when MacCormac Jamieson Pritchard (now MJP Architects) was looking at improvements to Victoria Embankment, it came up with the idea of linking Temple with South Bank by means of a cable car. Googling it today, I was delighted to see that the idea has been revived1 by David Prichard and Neil Deely (now as partners in Metropolitan Workshop) with Adams Kara Taylor as engineer. It would not need to be as high as the Docklands cable car, fun as that is, and would be a lightweight structure that would not block the view in the way a planted bridge would do. It would also be a delightful complement to the London Eye and an attraction in its own right.

Even Wordsworth might approve, and the sense of calm and spaciousness that his famous poem ‘Upon Westminster Bridge’ conjures up, be preserved: ‘This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie, Open unto the fields, and to the sky;’...

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www.building.co.uk/former-mjp-directors-designcable-car-across-the-thames/3053779.article

Image ©: 2 — Arup

2 — The planted bridge will occupy a prominent position on the Thames.

We are a nation of folly builders, and our most popular structures embody a stylish escapism.

3 — The bridge will link the under-used Temple station (seen here) with the South Bank.

Christopher Woodward Director, Garden Museum.

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ight bridge, wrong place. Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge could be the happiest gift to London since Tate Modern. It will be a bird’s flight of greenery, suspended above the chug and swell of the Thames as the High Line is suspended above the honk and screech of Midtown New York.

Image ©: 3 — Heatherwick Studio

But the bridge should be the centrepiece of a new urban quarter, showing how a fusion of design, horticulture and engineering can be at the heart of place-making. A Garden Bridge dropped into the South Bank will reduce green infrastructure to a treat for tourists and a photo op for a Mayor who likes a one-liner.

The greatest strength of the idea is its inevitability: the project is as much zeitgeist as design. Last year the Landscape Institute held a competition for green infrastructure in London inspired by New York’s High Line.

The dominant themes in over 150 entries were vegetation, water – and, above all, The Thames – and how places connect.

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Its second strength is its irrationality. We are a nation of folly builders, and our most popular structures embody a stylish escapism, whether it is Bodiam Castle or the Lloyd’s Building.

When I cycle over Piers Gough’s garden bridge in East London – that yellow canoe slung over the Mile End Road – it’s a jolt of joy: I want to give the architect a hug.

Fantasies of garden bridges date back to the 18th-century Picturesque: the poetry arises from the contrast between the propulsion of movement implicit in an arch, and the dawdling distraction of loose vegetation.

Thirdly, it will be a garden. This is my first grumble. In the promotional video, Heatherwick and Lumley pursue politicians and funders down the corridors of power, a model of the garden in their arms. But there is not a glimpse – or a whisper – of a landscape designer, yet it is Dan Pearson’s genius of spatial and planting design which will make or break the concept. The omission is not personal: Pearson is a star, as we know from standing-room-only talks at the Museum.

But it’s sad that the advocates of a garden bridge continue a hierarchy which places at the bottom the greatest art of all: making a landscape over time.

So, where? Two miles west is Nine Elms.

The muddy waste between Vauxhall Cross and Battersea Power Station is the biggest development site in London. It’s where the Thames becomes its true self again: muddy, glittering, and vast, able to shrug off the

city with a roll of its shoulders. It is also the nation’s battleground for green infrastructure.

Wandsworth Council has inked in a linear park as a centrepiece, and the developers’ brochures sell the rising apartment blocks as ‘London’s High Line Quarter’. Will it happen?

Will planners and public make Nine Elms flower, once the estate agents have drawn the blinds? If green loses to grey in Nine Elms, we lose everywhere. But a garden bridge could be a natural component of this vision.

Alternatively, a step east, Lambeth faces the marooned Venetian splendour of Tate Britain.

Inspired by the LI’s High Line competition, the Vauxhall Business Improvement District held a competition for the public realm beside the river, won by J + L Gibbons with a design which is visionary but technical, playful and persistent. It is the only masterplan in central London to put landscape design first, and here a new crossing would filter green infrastructure into the daily lives of a neighbourhood.

Green infrastructure is at risk of becoming a box of developers’ tricks which distract us from the deeper battle being fought for the nature of our cities. Very quickly, green walls have become the fig-leaves of a planning system in self-doubt. A garden bridge is a timeless idea. If at last it will happen – and hurrah! – it must express the true depth of green infrastructure.

Landscape Spring 2014

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News analysis

By George Bull

Promoting the liveable city The Landscape Institute is making ‘liveable cities’ one of its main campaigning platforms, because the topic encapsulates so much of what landscape professionals can offer to the public. But what exactly are they, and who is doing them well?

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he concept of ‘liveable cities’ is not new. There is a growing body of research that is experimenting with new methodologies for analysing cities in terms of their liveability, and pioneering people-focused urban planning and design projects. This research is providing a new way to frame discussions about what a 21st Century city should be and informing not just practice and education, but also policy making. The idea of liveable cities should mark a new remit for the built environment – a people-focused remit centred around improving quality of life.

Liveable cities are not the preserve of one discipline, but require a multidisciplinary approach to city building that is driven by a fundamental concern for life at the human scale. By 2030, two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to live in cities.

More than ever before, it is the liveable cities that will be globally competitive.

Where does the idea come from?

The concept of liveable cities has been made popular by annual lists or rankings of the ‘world’s most liveable cities’. The most well-known of these are produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Forbes and Monocle. In addition, some of the ideas around liveable cities have been adopted by organisations as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility. These include Philips’ Livable Cities Award, Siemens’ Sustainable Communities Awards and IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenges.

meaningful, that we are of value to others, and that there is much to be discovered and celebrated in the human and physical world around us. These are important aspects of quality of life and are profoundly influenced by the built environment – is by a city’s livability.’1

Each applies its own criteria. Rankings such as EIU and Forbes base their assessment largely on crime rates, health statistics, sanitation standards, expenditure on city services, unemployment, income growth and cost of living. Monocle has in the past defined its highest ranking cities as: ‘Places that are benchmarks for urban renaissance and rigorous reinvention in everything from environmental policy to transport’.

For the IMCL, a city’s liveability is clearly brought into focus when considering the needs of the most vulnerable members of society: children, elders, and those who are economically or socially marginalised. This sentiment chimes with the Healthy Cities movement, which originated in Toronto, Canada in 1984 and led to the World Health Organisation’s Healthy Cities Symposium two years later. Professor Yvonne Ridin, who led UCL’s Lancet Commission on Healthy Cities2 has said that, while cities have the potential to be healthier places for their citizens, this requires active planning, as ‘economic growth cannot be assumed to lift all urban citizens into a zone of better health’.

The same might be said for liveability.

This final definition perhaps gets closer to what the International Making Cities Livable Council (IMCL) intended when it reportedly coined the term ‘liveable cities’ in the 1980s. For the IMCL, liveable cities should do more than just provide good living standards. They should provide good quality of life. It says: ‘Once fundamental health and safety is achieved, standard of living issues are not directly correlated with happiness, with a sense that life is

But ‘liveability’ as a term remains difficult to define. Researchers at Community Research Connections at Royal Roads University closely examined the city of Vancouver, which regularly ranks in the top ten of the world’s most liveable cities. For some, they said, liveability is intrinsically tied to physical amenities such as parks and green space.

For others it is tied to cultural offerings, career opportunities, economic dynamism, or some degree of reasonable safety within /...

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News analysis cont.

A liveable city is a lens through which any 21st-century review of a city’s built environment should be undertaken, because it starts with the needs of the people who live in it.

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Defining liveable cities What all of these various approaches have in common is that they see the city as a set of interconnected relationships that can be planned, designed and managed, so as to deliver outcomes that enhance quality of life.

The fact that the characteristics of liveability can vary from city to city means that liveability should be regarded as policy of participation and inclusive planning, rather than any preset physical infrastructure goals. A liveable city, then, is a destination that we should always strive to arrive at. It is a lens through which any 21st-century review of a city’s built environment should be undertaken, because it starts with the needs of the people who live in it.

Case studies: Liveable city initiatives A wide variety of research bodies, local and national governments are already investing in programmes aimed at either establishing a methodology for the liveable city concept or improving liveability through peoplefocused urban development projects.

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Liveable Cities, UK www.liveablecities.org.uk This project is a collaboration between UCL, Birmingham University, Southampton University, Lancaster University and EPSRC. It is a five-year programme of research to ‘create a holistic, integrated, truly multidisciplinary city analysis methodology, which uniquely integrates wellbeing indicators, is founded on an evidence base of trials of radical interventions in cities, and delivers the realistic and radical engineering solutions necessary to achieve our visions’.

Liveable Cities is supported by about 35 academic researchers and some 90 multidisciplinary expert panellists from academia, public, private and not-for-profit organisations. It is exploring eight research themes: city analysis framework; resources; wellbeing; ecosystem services; energy; economic viability; policy and governance; and future visions. The authors hope to create a framework that they will then use to develop realistic solutions for achieving the UK’s carbon reduction targets and test them in three cities – Birmingham, Lancaster and Southampton.

The Liveable Cities Programme, Australia www.nationbuildingprogram.gov.au/ funding/liveablecities In Our Cities, Australia’s Department of Infrastructure and Transport defines liveable cities as: ‘Cities that offer a high quality of life, and support the health and wellbeing

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of the people who live and work in them.

Liveable cities are socially inclusive, affordable, accessible, healthy and safe. They also feature attractive built and natural environments. Liveable cities provide choice and opportunity for people to live their lives, and raise their families, to their fullest potential.’ 4 The Liveable Cities Programme is part of the Australian government’s National Urban Policy, which targets more effective planning and design, and efficient use of new and existing infrastructure, in 18 of the country’s capital and major regional cities. The AU$20m programme from 2011–13 has been developed to meet the challenges of supporting quality of life in these cities. It is supporting the development of demonstration projects that drive strategic urban development which contributes to improving productivity, sustainability and liveability in its cities.

Approximately 21 projects are currently

Photo ©: 1 — Mihai - Bogdan Lazae Photo ©: 2 — Philip Minnis

which to raise a family. Perhaps most interesting of all, where liveability is linked to sustainability and infrastructure issues, it is normally as an alternative development model to the expansion of sprawling suburbs with low densities of both population and services, and where infrastructure provision is costly to ecological, economic, and social capital.3

1 — Birmingham is one of three cities for which Liveable Cities hopes to develop solutions.

2 — Canberra is home to one of the 21 projects to create liveable cities across Australia.

3 — The small, densely populated city state of Singapore has developed detailed strategies to make the most of the space it has.

under way across the country and the aim is that these will provide lessons in achieving good planning outcomes that can then be applied in other cities.

Photo ©: 3 — Joyfull

Monash Water for Liveability www.waterforliveability.org.au Australia’s Monash University is undertaking research to provide the evidence needed to formulate a policy blueprint for Water Sensitive Australian Cities. It hopes that Monash Water for Liveability Centre will play a pivotal role in transforming Australian cities to become resilient to current and future challenges.

The Centre sees water-sensitive urban design as not only a means to facilitate liveable cities, but also as necessary for adapting urban environments to climate change and population growth.

Singapore’s Ten Point Plan for the Liveable City www.clc.gov.sg Singapore is the world’s third densest city.

In 2008, the Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC) was set up based on a strategic blueprint developed by Singapore’s Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development.

The CLC’s goal is to share knowledge on liveable and sustainable cities and, early last year, it distilled the success of Singapore’s ‘people first’ approach in 10 Points for Livable High Density Cities: Lessons from Singapore 5.

These ten points are intended to trigger ideas with city planners, developers and dwellers about what they want from their city.

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Plan for long-term growth and renewal A combination of long-term planning, responsive land policies, development control and good design has enabled Singapore to have dense developments that do not feel overly crowded, and are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. ● Embrace diversity, foster inclusiveness Density and diversity work in Singapore because there has always been a focus on creating a sense of inclusiveness through encouraging greater interaction.

Draw nature closer to people Nearly half of Singapore is now under green cover, which is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also improves the air quality and mitigates heat from the tropical sun.

Develop affordable, mixed-use neighbourhoods The ease of living in a compact neighbourhood that is relatively selfcontained can add to the pleasure of city living. With density, it becomes more cost effective to provide common amenities.

Neighbourhoods in Singapore’s new towns have a mix of public and private developments that are served with a full range of facilities that are easy to access and generally affordable.

Make public spaces work harder Singapore has sought to maximize the potential of dormant spaces by unlocking

them for commercial and leisure activities.

The idea is to make all space, including infrastructural spaces, serve multiple uses and users. ● Prioritise green transport and building options Singapore has adopted a resource-conscious growth strategy that relies on planning, design and the use of low-energy environmental systems for its buildings. It has also developed an efficient public transport system and well-connected walkways to give city dwellers transport alternatives to driving. ● Relieve density with variety and add green boundaries Singapore intersperses high-rise with low-rise buildings, creating a skyline with more character and reducing the sense of being in a crowded space. ● Activate spaces for greater safety As Singapore became denser, designs of high-rise public housing estates were modified to improve the ‘visual access’ to spaces, so the community can collectively be the ‘eyes on the street’, helping to keep neighbourhoods safe.

Promote innovative and non-conventional solutions To ensure it had sufficient water, Singapore developed reclaimed water under the brand name NEWater to drinking and industrial standards. /... ● Landscape Spring 2014

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News analysis cont.

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San Francisco’s Liveable City www.livablecity.org Liveable City is a 40-year plan to shift travel in San Francisco away from cars to walking, cycling and public transport. This shift will also support complementary land use, so that public spaces are revitalised and well-maintained, walkability is integrated into neighbourhood plans, street and corridor projects, and there is more affordable housing stock in accessible locations.

The Liveable City group works with other pedestrian advocacy groups, including Walk San Francisco and Senior Action Network, to advocate better planning, design, traffic management, education, and enforcement to improve pedestrian safety and promote walking in San Francisco. It also aims to create a bold cycling plan for the city that will facilitate an increase in the number of trips made by bicycle from 3–5 per cent to 10 per cent by 2015.

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While principally about using transport reform to make San Francisco more liveable, the programme’s goals share sustainable development objectives, for example, by lessening the impact of transportation on the environment and by promoting compact and mixed-use development that minimises the distance and cost of transport. It also supports the integration of more green infrastructure as the city’s transportation system is redesigned.

Bogotá’s Urban Happiness movement ‘A city can be friendly to people or it can be friendly to cars, but it can’t be both,’ says Bogota’s former mayor Enrique Peñalosa.

Peñalosa’s Urban Happiness movement promoted a city model that gave priority to children and public spaces over the car.

He set up a separate team outside of his administration to design, implement and manage a new transport infrastructure that would ultimately change the city.

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Two particular transport initiatives have had significant effects on the city’s liveability.

Bogotá’s CicloRuta is one of the most extensive cycle path networks in the world. It covers over 211 miles (340 km) and connects citizens to major BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) routes, parks, and community centres. The design took into consideration the topography of the city – the manmade and natural features, such as essential facilities, hills, waterways, and parklands – to create the best possible flow and function. The system has reduced car dependence and associated emissions, but also fundamentally changed behaviour in the city. By 2007, 4 per cent of the population were travelling by bike, compared to 2 per cent in 2000. 6 Complementing this is the Bogotá Transmilenio system. This Bus Rapid Transit system averages 1,600 passengers per day per bus, reducing travel time by 32 per cent, eliminating the need for 2,109 public-service vehicles, reducing gas emissions by 40 per cent and, by making zones around the main roads safer, decreasing accident rates by 90 per cent.

Curitiba’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System Cited by Jan Gehl as an exemplar of people-focused design, the BRT system in Curitiba, Brazil, has seen a modal shift from car travel to bus travel. It is estimated that the introduction of the BRT has resulted in 27 million fewer car trips per year, with 28 per cent of BRT riders having previously

Photo ©: 4 — Kropic1 Photo ©: 5 — Gary Yim

Forge ‘3P’ (people, public, private) partnerships The city government and all stakeholders need to work together to ensure they are not taking actions that would reduce the quality of life for others. The Urban Redevelopment Authority launched the Singapore River ONE partnership to get the various stakeholders to feel a stronger ownership of Singapore River, so that social and economic activity in the precinct would be developed in a coordinated and sustainable manner.

4 — San Francisco has a 40-year plan to shift travel from cars to walking.

5 — Melbourne has aggressively revitalised its central business district by making it more pedestrian friendly.

6 — Curitiba in Brazil has one of the most heavily used but low-cost transit systems in the world.

Photo ©: 6 — Richard M Buck

been car users. Compared to eight other Brazilian cities of the same size, Curitiba uses 30 per cent less fuel per capita and has one of the lowest rates of ambient air pollution in the country. About 1.3 million passengers use the BRT every day, which is 50 times more than 20 years ago, and Curitibanos spend well below the national average on travel. It is one of the most heavily used but low-cost transit systems in the world.7 What’s the secret to its success? The buses run frequently (some as often as every 90 seconds), stations are convenient and well-designed, and it offers many of the benefits of a subway system but is above ground and visible.

But its effect on the liveability of the city as a whole is thanks to a masterplan that integrates transportation with land-use planning. Commercial growth is encouraged along the transport arteries radiating from the city centre, reducing the traditional importance of a single downtown area and thereby reducing peak congestion. Land within two blocks of the transit arteries is zoned for high-density development to generate more transit ridership per square foot and, beyond two blocks, density tapers in proportion to distance from the transitways. Limited parking is available in the downtown area and most employers also offer transport subsidies.

Melbourne 2030 In 2012, Melbourne was ranked the world’s most liveable city by the EIU for the second

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year running and the second best place to call home in Monocle’s 2013 annual survey.

Over the past decade, the city has aggressively revitalised its central business district by making it much more pedestrian friendly.

It boasts the highest ratio of street furniture per person in the world and now has more than 600 outdoor cafés (up from fewer than 50 in 1990), and the number of pedestrians in the city on weekday evenings has doubled.8

heart of a liveable and prosperous city. Five broad themes emerged from AECOM’s work: •C onnectedness of the economy, society and the environment •T ransformational change to a high-value, high-wealth economy • I nvestment in transport to make it easier to move around Auckland • Inspiring confidence through credibility •T he need to work together (public and private interests).

Many of these improvements have come about as a result of recommendations by Jan Gehl, whose Public Spaces and Public Life survey in 1993 (updated in 2004) recommended creating opportunities for outdoor dining. Keen for Melbourne to remain one of the world’s most liveable cities, the State Government’s Department of Infrastructure is developing Melbourne 2030 – a plan focused on how land use and transport can best support economic, social and environmental needs of the city during the next 20 to 30 years.

Critical success factors for liveable cities Community Research Connections has found that there are frequent parallels between the liveability agenda and sustainable development.

For example, reduced use of car transport, an increase in green space, and opportunities for social capital and participatory planning regimes, are all improvements for sustainable development. The study concluded that both concepts are crucial to the resilience, stability and future communities. It set out five crucial factors for successfully identifying and implementing liveability as an integral part of sustainable development:

Auckland 2040 With Auckland’s population set to grow from 1.5m to an estimated 2.4m by 2040, AECOM’s Interdisciplinary Global Cities Institute team was asked to determine what factors would enable Auckland to become the world’s most liveable city by 2040. This informed the Auckland Plan, which the council adopted in March 2012. The conclusion was that ‘connection’ is at the

•T he value of liveability as an overall theme, among others, in the development of a community’s sustainability plan •T he overarching role of public engagement in the articulation of what is meant by liveability – an acceptance that liveability may differ significantly from community to community /...

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News analysis cont.

The main lesson from the Olympics, we believe, is that the best results for local communities, developers, and cities as a whole are achieved when a concerted, cross-professional effort is made to create a liveable environment, with long-term legacy uppermost in everyone’s mind.

From the Landscape Institute’s response to the Farrell Review.

• A recognition that liveability extends to economic dynamism and career opportunities as well as recreational, aesthetic, cross-generational and cultural activities • The ability to embed liveability concerns into the culture of the municipality rather than politically motivated short-term initiatives • The recognition that the provision of a diverse residential community with a full complement of services, means that a system approach to both the city region and the individual neighbourhood is required.

This will ensure that individual neighbourhoods do not become ‘liveability ghettos’, but have a real and vibrant place within the whole city region context.

George Bull is a former editor of Landscape.

Notes w ww.livablecities.org/blog/value-rankingsand- meaning-livability 2 www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable-cities/projects 3 w ww.crcresearch.org/case-studies/casestudies-sustainable- infrastructure/land-useplanning/what-makes-a-city-liveable 4 w ww.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/ mcu/files/NUPBP_Ch6_Liveable.pdf 5 www.clc.gov.sg/documents/books/10 PrinciplesforLiveableHighDensityCities LessonsfromSingapore.pdf 6 w ww.c40cities.org/c40cities/bogot%C3%A1/ city_casestudiesbogot%C3%A1%E2%80%99scicloruta-is-one-of-the-most-comprehensivecycling-systems-in-the-world 7 www.urbanhabitat.org/node/344 8 www.assemblepaperscomau/2013/06/13citi es-for-people-jan-gehl/?goback=.gde_97473_ member_249724420 1

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Liveable cities and the Farrell Review A commitment to liveable cities was at the heart of the Landscape Institute’s response to the Farrell Commission on Architecture and the Built Environment (due to be published at the time of going to press).

The opening section of the response included the following comments.

‘The success of the Olympic Park as it approaches the first anniversary of its opening is a timely example of why any review of architecture and the built environment needs to go beyond an analysis of the design of buildings.

The creation of this new part of East London has demonstrated the success of landscape architecture, master planning, landscape engineering, urban design and horticulture. The legacy and the massively increased value created by the site is testament to the power of a well-designed landscape in which the management of water, ecology and architecture have combined to create a superb new part of the city.

‘The main lesson from the Olympics, we believe, is that the best results for local communities, developers, and cities as a whole are achieved when a concerted, cross-professional effort is made to create a liveable environment, with long-term

legacy uppermost in everyone’s mind.

We urge the Farrell review to consider the designed environment as a whole, with a focus on creating liveable cities.

This is the way forward for all of the built environment professions, and unless we all think in these terms, none of us can deliver what society needs.

‘Since the review conducted by Lord Rogers’ Urban Task Force fifteen years ago, there has been a significant increase in the understanding of the pressures faced by cities and of our relationship with the natural and ecological forces that influence the structure and working of our built environment. These include rapidly expanding urban populations, scarce resources, environmental and economic challenges, the evolution of SMART cities, sustaining biodiversity, green infrastructure, the rise of the biophilic cities movement and the development of water sensitive urban design...

‘The Landscape Institute believes that this Review will set the terms of future debate about our designed environments for some time, both within government and beyond. For this reason, we want to ensure that it clearly sets out the main strategic challenges, so that it stimulates a productive and forwardlooking debate.’

For us the headline societal issue is ‘liveable cities’, and the underlying challenge for the built environment professions is to integrate into our respective professional practice a much better understanding of how landscape and natural systems interact with built form.

From the Landscape Institute’s response to the Farrell Review.

7 — Auckland, New Zealand, has aspirations to be the world’s most liveable city by 2040.

Sources International Making Cities Livable Council (IMCL) www.livablecities.org Community Research Connections www.crcresearch.org Healthy Cities www.ucl.ac.uk/healthy-cities Liveable Cities UK www.liveablecities.org.uk Centre for Liveable Cities (Singapore) www.clc.gov.sg The Liveable Cities Program (Australia) www.nationbuildingprogram.gov.au/ funding/liveablecities Liveable City (San Francisco) www.livablecity.org Philips Livable Cities Award www.meaningfulinnovation.philips.com/ Livable-Cities

Photo ©: 7 — Sam DCruz

Siemens’ Sustainable Communities Awards www.usa.siemens.com/en/about_us/ IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge www.smartercitieschallenge.org

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Can airports go green?

By Ruth Slavid

Plants are becoming of increasing importance in airport design as they try to become greener in every sense.

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Feature: Airports

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here is an uneasy mismatch between the ideas of environmentalism and of airports, since we all know now that flight is one of the greatest contributors to the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Some will feel then that making airports greener is simply a matter of window dressing, especially when that ‘greening’ is carried out in the most literal sense of adding vegetation.

On the other hand, while individuals may choose not to fly, and be applauded for it, or at least to reduce their air travel, countries are not likely to wean themselves off flying in the near future. It is too central to economic models. The discussion that is still raging about the best way to expand London’s airport capacity is an indication that governments are unlikely to shrug their shoulders and say ‘let the capacity go elsewhere’. No nation at present is willing to shrink its airport capacity or even to halt growth.

Photo ©: 1 — West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture Photo ©: 2 — Changi Airport Group

So, love them or hate them, airports are here to stay, and we will be seeing more of them. It makes sense therefore to look at their effect on their surroundings. They are major pieces of infrastructure, and ones that can have particular impact in terms of noise, pollution and the effect on biodiversity. Ameliorating this, and making them as good neighbours as possible is clearly desirable.

At the same time, increasing thought is going into the experience that airports offer passengers. This is partly because, with the growth in air travel, in many parts of the world there are competing airports and a good environment will attract return business (although most operators admit that ticket price is still the determining factor). As part of this, airports are increasingly aiming to offer a distinctive experience, to make themselves ‘of the place’.

So, for example, the recently built Winnipeg Airport in Canada is not only long and low to echo the flat prairies of the area, but has also been designed to offer views of those prairies and big skies. At the revamped Terminal 2 at San Francisco airport there has been a deliberate effort to provide a more relaxing environment for passengers passing through security, because this is seen as more effective. If only the miscreants are twitchy, they are easier to pick out.

Elements at San Francisco are modelled on a garden and a park, and even London’s Heathrow has a very weird departure gate pretending to be a park, a reconstruction apparently of the gate that was built for Olympic athletes. But at Singapore’s Changi airport, there is nothing metaphorical about this parklike approach. Appropriately for a city state that aims to see itself as a ‘city in a garden’, vegetation is everywhere at the airport. /...

1 — At Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, West 8 has used birch trees widely, partly for their beauty and partly because their flexible branches are not attractive to large birds.

2 — The orchid garden at Changi Airport, Singapore, is one of several indoor gardens.

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Feature: Airports

with hoes on the planting inside the loop of the baggage arrivals belt.

Singapore’s concern with planting extends beyond the terminal to its surroundings, with bougainvillea trees planted around it, and colour coding embedded in the landscape to distinguish each terminal. Asked about problems with birds with this planting, as well as the rooftop cactus garden, the spokesperson said, ‘We avoid planting fruit trees and trees that allow birds to roost’.

This is not a new policy, but dates back to when the airport was at its previous location, Paya Lebar, from 1955 to 1981 and, like so much else in Singapore, was driven from the top, by then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. It has developed enormously since then, and the visitor is struck immediately by the amount of growing material within the terminals, echoing the lushness beyond. In addition to green walls and extensive planting, there are ‘feature’ areas, a collection of five gardens within the airport.

Terminal 1 has the cactus garden, Terminal 2 has the new ‘Enchanted Garden’, an orchid garden and a sunflower garden, and Terminal 3 has the butterfly garden, which the airport claims is the only one in an airport. All these gardens are in departure lounges except for the cactus garden, which is on the terminal roof, and the sunflower garden, which is also outside. And more gardens are planned. The planned ‘Project Jewel’, a mixed-use hub that will include aviation and leisure facilities, will have a huge garden at its heart, with a waterfall. The airport also intends to include extensive greenery in its new Terminal 4.

This sounds relatively simple, but in fact dealing with birds is a major problem for airports as bird strike can be both costly and dangerous to life. For this reason, the surroundings of many airports are deliberately sterile, with biodiversity actively discouraged, in contrast to most other environments.

This is an irony that is not lost on Steve Osmek, the resident biologist at Seattle’s Sea-Tac airport, a role that the airport pioneered in the 1970s and that is still rare in US airports. ‘When I took the job,’ Osmek said, ‘it brought me back to when I was at school. I took everything that I learnt at school, and tried to do the opposite. We learnt that landscape diversity and plant diversity lead to habitat diversity. Here we are trying to do the opposite of that.’

One of Osmek’s responsibilities is catching the European starlings that used to flock in large numbers at the airport. Typically with decoy light traps, the airport catches 2–3,000 a year. These go to the ornithology collection at the University of Washington, saving the establishment the cost of buying birds.

Khaja Nazimuddeen Abdul Hameed, senior manager, horticulture, at Changi Airport Group, said, ‘Greenery actually helps passengers to relax. The effective use of greenery also creates positive surprises for our passengers, playing a key role in leaving them with a memorable Changi Experience long after they step out of Changi Airport.’

Maintaining this level of planting is demanding, with a daily schedule of watering and feeding, and regular prevention of disease and replacement of plants. Last time I flew into Singapore, there were two men working

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Photo ©: 3, 4 — Changi Airport Group

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3 — The butterfly garden at Changi Airport is believed to be the first in the world at an airport.

4 — The ‘enchanted garden’ at Changi Airport.

5 — As part of its expansion for the third runway, Sea-Tac airport in Seattle relocated part of Miller’s Creek and created an environment unfriendly to water fowl.

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But that is the crudest element of Osmek’s work. Most of it is concerned with creating an environment that is not congenial to the kind of wildlife he wants to keep away. In the immediate area around the runways, there is a mix of hard surfaces and grasses. You need some soft areas, Osmek explains, for aircraft accidentally going off the runway, as it will slow them more rapidly.

So the blacktop is interspersed with grasses, which are grown in low-nutrient soil so that they stay low. And the seeds contain a fungus that is repellent to wildfowl.

With development burgeoning around the airport, there is a desire to make the area attractive, not just around the terminal buildings but also at other facilities. The airport has produced a list of approved plants, which are not attractive to birds. It is impressively long.

But beyond the immediate area of the runways there is a far more varied landscape. The airport is set among wetlands, and since the construction of the third runway in 2008, the airport has carried out considerable restoration in this area. ‘A wetland provides multiple features and birds are only one,’ Osmek said. ‘We are a great example of having done this very well.’ The secret to not attracting waterfowl is, he said, to plant very dense shrub around ponds, making it physically impossible for the birds to land. This does not deter songbirds, which the airport says are harmless. The strategy has been very successful, with bird strike numbers falling.

The only hiccough was in 2011 when a very wet summer led to an explosion in the vole population, attracting birds of prey.

His other scepticism is about the use of animals for grazing. Chicago’s O’Hare airport, for example, has attracted considerable publicity for its use of goats to keep down vegetation. Sea-Tac tried this one year but found it was too successful – the goats, not surprisingly, ate everything, good plants and bad.

There are no green roofs at the airport. Osmek is sceptical about them, conceding that perhaps some of the most basic sedum roofs may be OK but worried that other, more diverse roofs, could act as an attractant.

Landscape architect West 8 has also thought seriously about birds in its work at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

It has been working there since 1992, alongside the rapid development of the airport. It has infilled all available spaces with birch trees, which create what the practice describes as a ‘green haze’ in the summer.

The trees’ branches are slender and flexible enough to discourage large birds from landing. The practice is /...

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Feature: Airports

6 — Gensler’s proposal for an airport in the Thames, now dropped.

7 — Gensler also envisaged the way that Heathrow could develop as a garden city once the airport was removed.

adding 25,000 trees each year. Initially these are underplanted with clover and then grass is allowed to take over, either kept short as lawns or allowed to grow taller into flowery meadows.

Another way to avoid bird strike is to put the airport in a place to which they will not be attracted. This was one of the arguments for the proposed London Britannia Airport in the Thames Estuary designed by Gensler. Although this was not selected as an option in the Davies report on airport expansion published in December, it raised some interesting issues. Paul Fineberg of Gensler, which designed the airport, said, ‘Birds do not feed in the deeper water where we would position the airport.’ Gensler’s design were very much at conceptual stage and the arguments for the airport were manifold, to do with transport links and development opportunities.

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options at Heathrow (two options) and Gatwick, Davies has also asked for more work to be done on a proposal for a new hub on the Isle of Grain, which would lead to the replacement of Heathrow.

Mary Margaret Jones of Hargreaves Associates recently spoke at a symposium at Harvard about the practice’s work of turning the former military airfield at Crissy Field near San Francisco into a national park, and the practice has made proposals for similar projects in Berlin, Germany, Orange County, San Francisco, and New York’s Jamaica Bay. Closer to home Planit is working with 5Plus Architects on a landscape-driven masterplan for Manchester Airport City, a new city quarter near the airport.

Airport design is certainly not all about the planes.

Images ©: 6, 7 — Gensler

One of the arguments that Gensler made was that its proposal would allow for the redevelopment of Heathrow, an area that was, says Fineberg, a ‘bucolic village’ until the government requisitioned the land and turned it into an airport during World War Two. Gensler has a proposal to turn the airport back into ‘a piece of city’. ‘You take away the runways and put lakes there,’ Fineberg said. ‘Heathrow can become again a part of London. It will be a new city.’ This regeneration is still a possibility since, in addition to the three main

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Feature: Schiphol

Ridge and furrow It may look at first sight like just another land art project, but a project near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport has reducing aircraft noise as its primary purpose.

By George Bull 1

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t is difficult to imagine that any park landscape could owe its existence to the annoying lowfrequency drone emitted by aircraft during take off. So it’s with some confidence that Buitenschot Land Art Park at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam can claim to be a world first. Officially opened in October 2013 and set on 36 hectares of land south of Schiphol’s longest runway, Buitenschot is a bold experiment in how we choose to address problems associated with airport infrastructure. Here, meticulous but simple landforms create a landscape that not only serves a specific function but is also an intriguing public space.

Photo ©: 1 — Marleen Bos Photo ©: 2 — H + N + S

Photo ©: 1 — Marleen Bos Photo ©: 2 — H + N + S

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is Europe’s fourth busiest airport. The outlying site of runway 18R-36L, or the Polderbaan as it’s more commonly known, was originally intended to reduce the overall noise disturbance by redirecting air traffic over areas with a lower population density. Instead, it created another problem: groundlevel noise. This led to years of complaints from residents in surrounding urban areas such as Hoofddorp, unable to block out this low-level din produced every time an aircraft left the runway. This type of noise is also exacerbated by the Haarlemmermeer landscape upon which the Polderbaan is built. Flanked on one side by the Geniedijk, part of the Stelling of Amsterdam dike system, it was once the bed of a huge lake; flat and featureless, there has been nothing to disrupt the path of the sound waves – until now.

At first glance then, Buitenschot stands out from the flat expanse of the Haarlemmermeer polder like some sort of alien sculpture. But its geometric structure of long parallel ridges and deep furrows is rooted in the area’s agricultural heritage. Having reached an agreement with Hoofddorp Noord residents’ association that it would reduce ground-level noise by 10 decibels, Schiphol Group set about trying to solve the problem.

After a 2008 competition failed to produce a viable solution, the answer presented itself with the changing of the seasons. It was autumn and the land between the runway and the surrounding settlements, which is nearly all arable, had been ploughed. And there was less noise.

1 — The sculpted forms help to reduce the dissemination of aircraft noise.

2 — A paved bike path runs through the Land Art Park.

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The realisation that the silence had something to do with the ridges and furrows created by ploughing provided the impetus for Schiphol Group, Stichting Mainport en Groen (a foundation that invests in green and recreational facilities around Schiphol airport) and the city of Haarlemmermeer to investigate further.

They commissioned TNO (the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research) to carry out a technical study of how effective a ploughed field could really be at reducing ground-level noise, and asked H+N+S Landscape Architects to think about a land-use strategy that might recreate the same conditions.

H+N+S is no stranger to real design challenges – its 1985 spatial strategy Plan Ooievaar is regarded alongside the Casco-concept as a milestone in involving landscape architects in the design of water and land at the regional scale. Determined to come up with an idea that had a precise relationship with the landscape, H+N+S director Lodewijk van Nieuwenhuijze says the practice first engaged an agricultural specialist to see if small, durable dunes could be created by cropping a perennial vegetable such as asparagus. When this approach was shelved owing to problems with the amount of kerosene the crops would be exposed to, he worked with TNO on developing a series of huge ridge structures that would not simply emulate but would actually enhance the noise-reducing quality of a parcel of ploughed land.

Confronted by these solid structures, ground-level noise crumbles in the spaces between the furrows.

Each ridge has sharp edges and measures 3m from the lowest to the highest point. The ridges are 11m apart. /...

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Feature: Schiphol

‘We tested a 1:1 model in the landscape and it worked even better than in TNO’s technical model,’ explains Van Nieuwenhuijze. ‘The idea was that the ridges would then be laid out on several different land parcels between the runway and the surrounding urban area to achieve the 10 decibel reduction.’

With a working landscape strategy in place, an initial area of 36 hectares was agreed for the project – enough to deliver a reduction of two to three decibels out of the overall target – but it wouldn’t fully take shape until the arrival of land artist Paul de Kort. ‘We are always trying to invent new ways for landscape architects to work,’ says Van Nieuwenhuijze of the collaboration with de Kort, whose plan to create a symbiosis between the purely functional horizontal ridges and a pleasant environment would become Buitenschot Land Art Park.

3 3 — Artist Paul de Kort based the details of the design on Chaldni patterns.

4 — Drawing showing how the pattern of ridges and furrows helps to disperse sound.

5 — An art park is a great place for art events. The sound reflector can be seen in the background.

The pattern that the ridges assume on the ground is also part of de Kort’s design. Inspired by Haarlemmermeer’s watery past and the angle at which the Geniedijk cuts through this strict grid of reclaimed land, he envisioned the ridges as waves turning towards a beach before fading out. To create this effect, a second layer of ridges is rotated at 18° with respect to those ridges running parallel to the structure of the polder. The result is an exciting, meandering landscape – and because this second layer is perpendicular to the direction of the noise, it helps further combat it. De Kort also pushed for some alterations that simply enhanced the aesthetic: he was determined, for example, that the ridges run to a pointed end in order to make the landscape more fluent, despite being more expensive to create and adding little to the ridges’ noise-reducing qualities.

De Kort’s influence has been to make the story of the landscape legible – to humanise it for the residents of

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wind

Emergence of low-frequency sound waves

Hoofddorp

wind

Dispersion

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Hoofddorp

Image ©: 3 — H + N + S Image ©: 4 — TNO

De Kort’s vision for Buitenschot comes from 17thcentury Chladni patterns, which involve strewing sand or salt across a metal plate and then brushing a fiddlestick along it to sound a keynote. ‘The vibrations cause the sand on the plate to jump up and fall back down in beautiful geometrical shapes, so that sounds became visible,’ he explains. ‘The ridges have a mutual distance that is almost equal to the wavelength of ground-level noise. So you could consider these ridges, with just a bit of poetical inspiration, as materialised ground sounds.’

Hoofddorp and Vijfhuizen. The shift in the angle of the ridges, and their height, lends Buitenschot a maze-like quality, which makes people slightly disorientated. ‘The surrounding landscape of the Haarlemmermeer is so overwhelmingly large and wide, and there is always a strong wind, it seemed right to me to create spaces of a certain intimacy and seclusion within these surroundings,’ he says. Sheltered glades and smaller and larger ‘rooms’ within the landscape structure invite people to play sports, games, or simply relax. A paved bike path connects the Geniedijk to the outlying country road, while a system of mown paths provides an informal network in and around the ridges, whose soil walls are sown with slow-growing red fescue.

‘Chaldnipond’ is one of two artworks de Kort designed for the site. Halfway across this diamond-shaped pond is a bridge with a mechanism underneath it with which you can create waves in the water. ‘The reflections of these waves against the straight riverbanks brings the design of the entire land art park into mind,’ he explains. The other artwork comprises the ‘Listening Ears’, inspired by parabolic devices once used on the English coast to listen out for incoming enemy aircraft. These two 3.5-metre steel dishes invite people to stand inside them whereupon they amplify sound coming from far away.

Photo ©: 5 — H + N + S

Buitenschot represents an investment of some 3 million Euro from Schiphol Group and Stichting Mainport en Groen, and despite praise for the project’s unique approach, it has not escaped criticism. There has been consistent opposition from some of the local farming community, for example, for whom the project has meant refashioning land used for crops. The park’s success is therefore crucial to the organisations’ long-term aspirations to extend the scheme over 60 hectares in order to reach the agreed noise reduction target of 10 decibels.

For Van Nieuwenhuijze, the project also has scope beyond the Netherlands. ‘We are trying to convince Schiphol to put this project on an international platform.

In the US and even in the UK, for example, there are a lot of airports in urbanised areas and this is a way of reducing noise while putting quality back into the neighbourhood. I hope we can make this idea work in more places.’

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George Bull is a former editor of Landscape.

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Plants and people

By Jimi McKay

Botanic gardens are changing for the better, recognising that the people who visit them are as important as the plants.

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an McHarg said of his seminal work Design with Nature that it was ‘an ecological manual for the good steward who aspires to art’1. Nowhere is this aspiration more appropriate than in botanic gardens: in their maintenance, within their network of conservation and education programmes and also when the time comes to rethink how these invaluable spaces are redesigned for the coming centuries.

So what do we mean by the term ‘botanic garden’? It might seem obvious, but just as any old painting can´t pass as a masterpiece, neither can any diverse cluster of plants be considered a botanic garden. Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) defines a botanic garden as follows: ‘Botanic gardens are institutions holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display and education2.’ BGCI outlines other key criteria for botanic gardens, many of which 30

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stress their scientific nature and their involvement with similar institutions, and of course, the public.

It may be necessary to represent not only the flora of given regions, but also the people of the area where the garden is situated.

When the potato was introduced to Europe, it is said to have been planted first in the botanical garden of Padua 3 (1545), before becoming one of the staples of many European nations. From these small and relatively humble medicinal plant collections arose such propagation platforms, and much later the attraction of the plants themselves emerged.

There is a sensual pleasure in being in a botanic garden quite different from that conveyed by photographs or descriptions. You can not only see plants but stand among them, and experience their scents and the sound of their leaves in the breeze.

Feature: Botanic Gardens

1 — Architect Cullinan Studio designed the John Hope Gateway, part of the sustainability strategy at Edinburgh’s botanic garden.

2 — Engagement of the public is a priority in Edinburgh.

3 — Grant Associates designed Gardens by the Bay in Singapore to engage people with plants.

stated: ‘I think it’s our social responsibility to do that...

I think we’re paid by the public and therefore should be open to all the public 6 ’.

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A wander round a local botanic garden can take you on a trip from the Himalayas to the Philippines without leaving the city.

Photo ©: 1 — Paul Raftery Photo ©: 3 — Craig Sheppard

Following the tender for the new master-plan of the Sydney Botanic Garden and Domain being recently awarded to Grant Associates, working alongside Cox Richardson Architects, we take a look at how botanic gardens are changing.

Parks and squares tend to be built into the urban fabric, so a certain amount of traffic through them is guaranteed. Botanic gardens are set apart, though; they are their own world in most cases. People have to choose to enter, and this is where social inclusion becomes an issue. Research undertaken by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG), University of Leicester, following a commission by BGCI, centres on the social roles of botanic gardens and, among many other factors, contrasts the approaches of traditional botanic gardens with those of newer, less conventional institutions such as The Eden Project. It prompts the question: who are botanic gardens for anyway? According to the study, botanic gardens want to ‘broaden their audiences, and to undermine the perception that they are just for a particular elite of white, middle-class, older people4’. The Eden Project was cited in this context, as its design ideology contrasts starkly with the typical idea of botanic gardens as being ‘very formal spaces... places in which active exploration by children is largely discouraged, even frowned upon’ 5.

Encouraging play doesn´t imply compromising scientific integrity, as visitors should always be expected to bring a different mentality to a botanic garden than they do to a park. With regard to opening themselves up, David Rae (Curator, RBGE)

When considering the challenges traditional gardens face, and those of the teams responsible for reshaping them, it could appear that new projects have it easier.

Is it more straightforward to start from zero with a clear programme and incorporate changing visitor needs from the outset? Leigh Morris 7 of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh was very positive about The Eden Project, stating that it ‘is a good example of a new garden with a real focus on social inclusion...

It is exemplary in the sense that it is entirely selffunded, receiving no assistance, but it can be regarded as more of a visitor destination, rather than a scientific institution’. Botanic garden or not, the public engagement capacity of The Eden Project is widely acknowledged and it could perhaps serve as a useful transition model for older gardens seeking to generate more of their own revenue.

A yet more ambitious new botanic garden is under construction in the Sultanate of Oman. According to the official site of the Oman Botanic Garden (OBG) ‘when complete it will be the largest botanic garden in the Arabian Peninsula 8 ’. In addition to his work at RBGE, Leigh Morris worked as a consultant on the development of the master-plan for OBG for around five years. Given that pressures such as climate change are particularly grave in arid nations, I was curious to know if it will be a precedent for new botanic gardens, given for example its intended LEED Platinum status.

‘Yes, OBG has a great vision and ambition to be the model for sustainability within the Arabian region.

For example, they have constructed a solar P.V. farm to promote the use of renewable energy. Given the low cost of fossil fuel in Oman this is often not considered an issue in the country, but LEED certification is expensive, so that has to be factored in’. /...

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Feature: Botanic Gardens

working allotment beds for students, as well as on-site consumption of produce in both of the garden´s cafés.

It wouldn´t be hard to start feeling that ´sustainability´ and its associated terms are becoming yet more buzz-words. I asked Morris what the Royal Botanic Gardens are doing to contribute to the well-being of the environment. ‘Well, we have sustainability groups, recycling bins, recycled paper, and so on. We also have used green roofs and wind turbines in our new visitor centre and we are aiming to lead the way more, and to be bolder. We are planning to knock down our research backup glasshouses/ experimental building (located behind the palm house and other collection glasshouses at RBGE) and replace them with a much more sustainable building’. At a time when so much lip-service is paid to environmental issues, RBGE is investing in long-term solutions.

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Oman has already revisited elements of its masterplan after six years, and plans to update regularly. Morris says: ‘My vision for botanic gardens is that they have 50–100 year visions and then write 5 –10 year strategies (regularly reviewed and updated) to deliver the longer term needs’. With some types of space, designers could be forgiven for having a shorter-term view, especially with the pressure to construct in most urban centres. However, in light of the longevity of many of our traditional botanic gardens, thinking in fractions of a century is closer to the mark for both old and new projects.

When discussing the direction gardens must move in, Morris couldn´t have been clearer: ‘The main change currently within the botanic garden community, is the transition from botanic gardens being predominantly spaces full of grass and labelled trees, to being more dynamic and socially inclusive spaces. Botanic gardens were traditionally about storing collections, keeping records, and keeping people away from the plants.

Education and closer interactions with plants is really the key way that botanic gardens need to evolve’. And work is in full flow at RBGE, with the demonstration garden catering for social-inclusion projects and 32

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Moving on to the Sydney Botanic Garden and Domain masterplan tender, I spoke to Keith French, director at Grant Associates, about its work on both the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore and the Sydney project. On the surface the two gardens might appear to have little in common in terms of programmatic or spatial requirements, given that Sydney has almost two hundred years of established history and Gardens by the Bay is brand-new. All the same, I asked whether the Singapore project had assisted in the masterplan tender for Sydney. Contrasting the two projects, French said that ‘Gardens by the Bay was more about a grand vision, where the Sydney botanic garden is more about careful surgical interventions into a historic landscape’. He outlined what it could be argued is the central challenge of all successful botanic garden design: ‘A key question for both projects is: how do you connect people with plants? And I think it´s about bringing the wonder, strangeness and magnificence of plants and nature into our city spaces’. This wonder and strangeness so inherent to plants depends on placement, and the overall structure into which collections are set will fundamentally determine to what extent visitors truly feel the plant-human harmony we should be striving for.

But it´s not only about how people see plants.

Fundamental in any master-planning consideration should be connectivity; the idea people have of a garden is critical in guaranteeing its long-term survival.

French commented on the progressive fragmentation of the Sydney site, explaining that it was ‘due to the erosion of the edges of the Gardens and Domain, the severance of the site by infrastructure and the nibbling

4 — Historic plan of Sydney’s botanic garden, showing its prime position on the waterfront.

5 — Sydney’s botanic garden occupies a prime position in the city.

6 — The site of Oman’s botanic garden.

away at the edges’. So the first issue is a perhaps more practical one of major separations between parts of the site, though. French added that ‘Improving legibility is a key consideration, how people navigate around the garden and how you read the landscape’.

It´s not enough just to create links; visitors have to feel that these sites are connected. French added a final point about the Sydney project as a whole: ‘Some areas of the gardens lack design consideration, and these have to be taken into account as well. The site needs an overall framework so that it can progressively develop over the next 25 years and continue to be one of the world’s great botanical gardens’. Quarter century thinking.

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That brings us to what is arguably the most important species in any botanic garden: not the giants swaying in the afternoon breeze, but the weary visitors resting in the shade beneath them. If the work of botanic gardens is to mean anything, it is their visitors who must spread the word, increasing awareness about biodiversity, habitat loss and climate change.

Photo ©: 5 — Simone Cottrell Photo ©: 6 — Annette Patzelt

Jimi McKay is a landscape architect who is currently based in Barcelona, Spain.

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Notes 1 McHarg, I. L. Design with Nature. John Wiley & Sons Inc. New York, USA. 1992 2 BGCI, August 2013: www.bgci.org/resources/1528/ 3 T he earliest academic botanic garden still in its original location: www.ortobotanico.unipd.it/en/index.html 4, 5, 6 Dodd, J. and Jones, C. Redefining the role of botanic gardens – towards a new social purpose. BGCI, Richmond, England. 2010.

7 Leigh Morris, Associate Director of Horticulture (Learning), Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). President, Institute of Horticulture (IoH).

8 OBG, August 2013: www.oman-botanic-garden.org/index.php/en/

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Circling the square Last year Burns + Nice won the LI’s president’s award for Leicester Square City Quarter. As well as being a great achievement, this satisfied the client’s requirement that this should be an awardwinning project.

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Photo ©: 1 — Burns + Nice

1 — Oak and bronze benches surround the fountains and restored statue.

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h ere can be few residents of London or visitors to the city who have not been to Leicester Square at some time. It has never been a destination in its own right but its central position, surrounded by cinemas and restaurants, and its position on key routes, make it hard to miss.

For too long though it was a place that people wanted to avoid – a scruffy square with an unenviable level of crime, a garden that nobody remembered as such and an environment that, despite its central position, was somehow disconnected from its surroundings.

These were the issues that Burns + Nice had to address when it won the landscape-led competition for what was dubbed the ‘Leicester Square City Quarter’, an attempt not only to improve the square itself but also to re-integrate it with its surroundings.

If this on its own looked daunting, there was plenty more to make it clear that this was a project where the aesthetic requirements would have to be integrated with stringent technical and programmatic demands.

After years in which there had been much talk about improving Leicester Square and little coherent action, there were suddenly urgent deadlines, with the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics looming. Construction of the £12 million project started in November 2011 and was complete – had to be complete – in May 2012. And, given the importance of the square, it was not a clear run. The public had to be accommodated in some way at all times, and several film premieres, with the attendant huge crowds, took place during the construction period.

The area certainly has to work hard. There are 50 premieres a year (London’s major cinemas surround Landscape Spring 2014

/...

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Feature: Leicester Square

the square) and other large events. Every morning there are 250 servicing deliveries to the surrounding developments. Underground lines and key services run beneath the square. A rather ugly looking although financially successful ticket booth, for example, is built around and disguises a large ventilation outlet.

Despite the fact that the previous scheme, completed in 1991, was ‘traditional’ in nature, it – and in particular the unthinking accretions that happened afterwards – almost completely obscured the nature of the square.

To have a publicly accessible planted square in the centre of one of the most densely built sections of London is a great asset. And a listed statue – in this case of William Shakespeare, who is scarcely unknown – is not to be sniffed at. Yet somehow the garden, with the statue at its centre, just didn’t feel like one. It provided routes across the square, but most visitors chose to circumvent it, following the perimeter of the municipal railings and leaving the square to street drinking and other anti-social behaviour – except, of course, during major events.

Burns + Nice has come up with a solution which effectively turns the square inside out, giving it a sociable perimeter and at the same time helping the railings to partially disappear. The result is a square that people walk through and where they socialise in a non-threatening way. The effects can be seen in hard numbers. Since the work was finished, average footfall has gone up 5 per cent, and on the jubilee bank holiday it went up 91 per cent.

Equally impressive, and vital for Heart of London, which is the local BID (Business Improvement District), food and beverage sales have risen by 48 per cent. Since completion of the work, three hotels have opened, two restaurants, a casino and a number of retailers.

Planning applications are up by 25 per cent.

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This is reflected in the clutch of awards that the project has received. Most prestigious for Burns + Nice was, of course, winning the president’s award in the 2013 Landscape Institute Awards. And just the previous day, the project had picked up the public-space prize in the International Downtown Association Awards, held in New York. There were others as well, meaning that

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2 — The railings, with their curved elements and reflective finish, have been designed to be as nonforbidding as possible.

3 — Planting, in subdued colours, fills the space between the ribbon seating and the railings.

4 — Plan showing the revitalised square and how it fits in its surroundings.

5 — Section through the square, showing the relationship between the ribbon bench, the railings, and the planting both inside and outside the railings.

Photo ©: 2 — James Newton

The only figure that has fallen is for reported crime, which is down by 42 per cent. For once, talk of landscape as a piece of social engineering is more than just talk.

It has been measured, and the results are impressive.

Burns + Nice had fulfilled not only the functional requirements of the brief but also the stipulation that this should be an award-winning project.

What was the secret? How has the space been so utterly transformed? Much of what the practice has done is fairly textbook – to use a simple palette of high-quality materials, to have a consistent coherent design and to remove extraneous elements. But it has also transformed the dynamics of the space. This is most evident in the white ‘ribbon’ seating that runs around the perimeter of the gardens. Crucially, this is outside the railings, separated from them by low level planting. This has several effects. It blurs the edges of the enclosure, making it seem far less of a barrier (there was never any question of dispensing with the railings altogether as the London Squares Act requires that the gardens can be closed off), and it provides animation in a way that is not threatening.

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‘People who are sitting are not threatening,’ said Marie Burns of Burns + Nice, explaining that the bench has deliberately been made wide enough that groups can sit with one member sideways on, to carry on a conversation.

There are always people on this bench, and their presence adds colour and animation to the square, making it clear that this is a place to pause and not just to hurry through.

Photo ©: 3 — Burns + Nice Images ©: 4, 5 — Burns + Nice

Made of white granite, this ‘ribbon’ is beautifully detailed, with an ever-changing section that makes it comfortable to sit on and allows it to accommodate the quite significant changes in level across the square.

The planting behind it echoes the lines, as do the railings themselves.

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These railings both rise and fall in level and have ‘vertical’ elements that are not truly vertical, distorted both from side to side and moving forward and back out of the vertical plane. They allow ever-changing glimpses through into the interior of the park and reflect the colours of the planting. They are perhaps the most controversial element of the scheme, introducing a touch of bling that is not to all tastes.

But if they seem like a slightly self-conscious artwork, this at least prevents them from feeling forbidding, an effect that is enhanced by the fact that the gates tuck away to be inconspicuous when open. The result is that walking diagonally across the garden is a natural response, without a real sense of going ‘inside’. /...

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Feature: Leicester Square

Burns + Nice was able to enlarge this space because of the planting that it added outside the railings, keeping the total planted area the same. This central area can be covered over for events, both one-off occasions and longer events such as the Christmas funfair, when almost all the grass around the mature trees is also covered with hard-standing. The heavy traffic over a prolonged period is unlikely to leave the grass looking its best in the spring, but it is hard to envisage an alternative.

The trapeze within which the ribbon bench sits (like so many ‘squares’ Leicester Square is not square at all) is defined by dark granite, with lighter granite beyond.

Other variations in the paving help to define individual zones within the larger area. Bespoke lighting columns provide LED lighting that is pleasant, efficient and a striking contrast to the arc lights that the police used to turn on at night to identify miscreants. ‘The project is simple in materials but rich in concept,’ said Burns.

It was a stipulation of the client that all the elements should be bespoke, giving the area a ‘special’ feeling by not repeating elements seen elsewhere.

The paths narrow towards the statue at the centre of the garden, surrounded by a small amount of planting and beyond that one of those fountains that is a flush array of jets which can move up and down. The central space has been widened, with curved bespoke timber and bronze benches looking into it – a far more parklike aesthetic than the granite of the ribbon.

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6 — The paths have become a natural way to cross the square.

7 — Different paving patterns differentiate different areas.

8 — The seating ribbon has transformed people’s relationship to the area, leading to increased footfall and improved business.

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Photo ©: 6 — James Newton Photo ©: 7 — Burns + Nice Photo ©: 8 — James Newton

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Despite the simplicity, the elegant ideas could have been ruined in the execution. ‘It is not enough to have a great idea and a good set of drawings,’ said Burns.

‘We were very much involved in control of the onsite works. If you don’t control it, you don’t get the scheme

that everybody signed up to. We had a team on the site all the time.’ This is despite the fact that the practice only employs about a dozen people, and had several other projects under way at the same time, including one in Jersey. ‘We are small but very efficient,’ Burns said. The client set out to have a landscape-led project, which is encouraging in itself. The design and execution are superb, and the results are measurable, and impressive. That all this has been achieved by a smallish practice, without huge resources to draw on, should be an inspiration to many landscape professionals.

CREDITS Lead designer/ landscape architect: Burns + Nice Client: Westminster City Council Engineering and highway design: WestOne Infrastructure Services Principal contractor: SIAC Construction

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Access all areas

By Jill White

A project that has been running for ten years is having considerable success in encouraging a wider range of people to use national parks.

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Photo ©: 1 — S Wilson

1 —Near Amberley in the South Downs National Park.

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r ound 10% of the UK population is from black and minority ethnic (BME) group backgrounds, yet only approximately 1% of visitors to National Parks are from these groups1. The Campaign for National Parks (CNP) set up the Mosaic project some 10 years ago to try to improve this situation and to help the National Park Authorities (NPAs) and the Youth Hostel Association (YHA) increase the diversity of their visitors and governance structures. Mosaic has now completed its third phase (from 2009–12) with associated work still ongoing.

The project initially focussed on increasing BME involvement with NPAs by creating better links with communities in and around the boundaries of the participating parks. I worked for Mosaic during its second phase, which ran from 2005–2008.

Barriers to access Some people from BME and other traditionally harderto-reach groups, such as disabled and young people, may well be unaware of the existence of National Parks and what activities might be available there. They are more often found in the lower income groups who will not have the disposable income needed for the usually expensive transport to get to a National Park. People from BME groups may have concerns that their cultural needs will not be met, for example with separate facilities for men and women and with facilities for prayer. They may also be worried about going to remote and unfamiliar areas or feel vulnerable to attack or racial abuse. For example, I heard disturbing stories of threats of physical attack from far-right groups in Yorkshire. This will be something which does not even cross the minds of most National Park visitors, as they set off for a pleasant day’s hiking. /...

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Feature: National Parks

Cultural crossover Linking people with landscapes creates sometimes surprising links and affinities. On one visit I accompanied a group of BME older people on a visit to the Yorkshire Dales where a hill farmer took the group around his sheep farm, sharing his enthusiastic knowledge of the huge range of dry stone walling techniques and styles.

Some of the visitors had themselves been mountain farmers before coming to the UK and were intrigued to see similarities with some of the landscape character and the problems faced by its farmers. It produced a remarkable cultural crossover and was a fascinating exercise in sharing global landscapes.

2 — Getting to grips with nature at South Downs National Park.

3 — Two visitors at Seven Sisters in the South Downs National Park.

4 — A visitor on Dartmoor.

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Since it began, Mosaic has introduced at least 28,000 people from BME groups to the National Parks, including at least 9,000 who have been taken on visits to a National Park for the first time2. In addition to community groups, champions have come from health projects, such as ‘Walking for Health’ linked to hospitals and GP surgeries and other initiatives.

The most recent phase of Mosaic focuses exclusively on involving young people, using the same model to recruit young champions. Patrick Villiers-Stuart, a project officer from Northumberland National Park said, ‘The Mosaic Project continues to enable people alienated from the countryside to establish connections with wild places... The model seems to flex to meet the demands of the partner National Park Authority, and the opportunities and difficulties particular to each national park.’

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Interestingly, people of BME background in this country are frequently associated with urban and not rural areas, often denying their experience. Refugee and migrant groups have become involved with Mosaic in its later phases and the NPAs have been playing an important role in helping displaced settlers find a new place to feel ‘at home’ – a new landscape to feel a part of and to enjoy. This has often made a significant contribution to mental health and well being.

The business case So what else do the NPAs and YHA get in return for their funding and support? There can be a significant economic return in terms of volunteer time inputs, which the organisations may use to obtain match funding and other external finance, especially when adding the NPA’s own staffing ‘in kind’ time. This has been estimated to be worth an estimated £50,000 per partner per year3. /...

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Photo ©: 2, 3 — S Wilson Photo ©: 4 — CNP

Mosaic was set up to manage these issues and to build long term and sustainable links between BME communities and the NPAs/YHA. Its project officers established links with community groups in areas in and around the parks, especially in neighbouring urban areas. They identified individuals interested in arranging group trips to National Parks, helping to organise and fund the visits. These ‘community champions’ were then provided with training by Mosaic and taken to their local National Park in small groups, to assess what was available and how they might organise group visits for their communities.

Mosaic linked champions with NPA staff and with the YHA (a major Mosaic funding partner), organising dedicated accommodation in its hostels with ongoing residential support.

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Feature: National Parks

Organisational change has also resulted from involvement with Mosaic. For instance, the YHA has improved its governance structure by co-opting a champion as a trustee to its board. The Peak District NPA has invited champions’ representatives to its planning and consultation meetings on its management plan.

Champions at North York Moors NPA have a regular slot at members’ meetings to represent their audience.

2005–2008 Who? NPAs of North York Moors/Peak District/ Yorkshire Dales/Brecon Beacons together with CNP and YHA How? Funded by Heritage Lottery Fund; Nationwide Building Society; NPAs & YHA

Catherine Kemp, who undertakes outreach work in the Yorkshire Dales National Park told me, ‘The lasting impact for us is that there are many more people from BME backgrounds visible in the National Park...

For the authority the Mosaic experience has led to a better understanding of equalities and the needs of different groups... I think the high profile the project created meant that it reached many more people from BME backgrounds than we actually worked with and it sent out a very clear message that National Parks are a place for everyone.’

5 — Community champions at Llyn Idwal, Snowdonia.

National Park staff and Trustees are now much more aware of the barriers facing BME groups in their interface with the parks The Mosaic model will be developed to further improve access and involvement of disabled people with the National Parks. There will also be a greater focus on health initiatives linking people with the landscape, an area in which the Landscape Institute is also currently actively engaged.

Jill White is a landscape architect practising in the southwest.

She is a member of the editorial advisory panel of Landscape.

2009–2012 Who? NPAs of Broads/Dartmoor/Exmoor/Lake District/ New Forest/North York Moors/ Northumberland/ Peak District/Yorkshire Dales together with CNP and YHA How? Funded by Natural England through Access to Nature programme (part of Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces Programme) with other funding from Nationwide Building Society; NPAs & YHA

Current phase

How? Funded by the National Lottery People and Places fund and NPAs/YHA and CNP

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Notes: 1 Mosaic Final Evaluation: Executive Summary, 2012 (p.1) – undertaken by The Gilfillan Partnership for CNP 2 ibid (p.3) 3 Value of Ethnic Minority Engagement to Partner Organisations, 2012 (p.1) – CNP

Photo ©: 5 — Sian Roberts

Who? From Jan 2012 – NPAs in Wales of Pembroke/ Brecon Beacons/Snowdonia From March 2013 – NPAs of New Forest/ Exmoor/Lake District/Northumberland/ Yorkshire Dales

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Technical 1

By Matilda Scharsach

Wild flower seeding The use of wild flower seed is increasingly popular, but it is important to get it right so that it survives but does not threaten biodiversity.

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Photo ©: 1 — Matilda Scharsach

these times of budget squeezes and n paucity of grant opportunities, there is a quiet revolution in planting. Many plant specifiers are turning to wild flower seeding as an alternative to costly traditional ground cover such as annual bedding or shrubs. Good intentions of improving biodiversity are also part of the equation. This has resulted in the development of the wonderful planting styles championed by, amongst others, Nigel Dunnett in Sheffield with new techniques for green roofs, rain gardens, prairie planting and pictorial meadows.

But alarm bells are ringing among specialists in the conservation of wild plants. Britain’s wild flowers are already struggling against continuing and significant changes brought about by habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change and pollution. Wild flower seed can bring lost colour back to places where it cannot hope to return of its own accord but, in the wrong places, it can be counterproductive, bringing yet another pressure to bear on wild flower populations that need sympathetic and supportive management to survive. Of a total of 1,346 wild plant species in Britain, 45 are classed as Critically Endangered, 101 species as

1 — Wild flowers returned naturally to this rural garden, with the help of sympathetic management and one application of some locally collected Yellow Rattle seed.

Endangered, and 307 species are listed as Vulnerable. In other words, there is conservation concern that a third of our plants are edging towards extinction.

In response to this, Plantlife has produced seeding principles to help to address issues facing our native plants.

Seeding in the wrong places It would be surprising to find anyone releasing flocks of declining birds or threatened mammals into the countryside without rigorous checks and controls. Yet there is often widespread and unchecked

acceptance of wild flower seed mixes, often including plants of non-native origin.

Our native plants are both resilient and opportunistic; give them a chance and they will move naturally around the landscape, appearing spontaneously when least expected, or springing up from the seedbank like buried treasure. For example, after reconfiguration of a road junction at Duxford, Cambridgeshire in 2004, a verge was reinstated but intentionally without seeding. The site naturally came up with a great floral display including rough and common poppy and common fumitory. /...

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Technical 1 cont.

Legislation is at last bringing some protection here. For example the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011 has made it illegal to plant non-native species in wild areas, which means that only native wild flowers may be used in planting schemes in all areas classified as the ‘wild’.

Definitions of the wild and other clarifications can be found in the Scottish Government’s Code of Practice. In England and Wales there is not as yet any equivalent legislation.

Plantlife seeding principles Think good management first Experience tells us that the most sustainable and cost-effective way to revitalise our countryside and naturalistic open spaces is to manage them correctly, so safeguarding the distinctiveness of local flora. Some commercial wild flower material only carries small proportions of the genetic diversity in native plant populations.

With no requirement to meet high quality standards, irresponsible suppliers are producing and selling low-quality wild flower seed.

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2

Green hay method Cumbria Wildlife Trust through its ‘Meadow Life’ project has used the green hay method to increase the native plant diversity of Carsa Brow, a community parkland site around seven miles from the donor site, an SSSI hay meadow (Piper Hole) which is Cumbria’s Plantlife Coronation Meadow. Carsa Brow was a grassland with suitably low nutrient levels that had limited existing botanical interest and was judged a suitable candidate to be diversified by the addition of green hay.

Carsa Brow was power harrowed in preparation to receive the green hay dressing to create suitable open ground for seeding. The hay was cut at Piper Hole on July 27th 2013 and immediately transported to Carsa Brow to prevent it over-heating or shedding seed. It was then spread by a volunteer work party. There are plans for further work at the site to grow and plant wildflower plugs from seed collected this summer from nearby verges, involving children from the local school.

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Photo ©: 2, 3 — Cumbria Wildlife Trust

In many inner urban areas the seed bank has been suppressed for so long that there is insufficient latent seed for natural regeneration to be successful, but in the countryside, suburban areas and remnant rural areas within towns, allowing the dormant seed bank to do its thing is a good solution.

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A checklist of effective habitat management actions

Photo ©: 4 — Matilda Scharsach Photo ©: 5 — F Guest and G Laverack

• At design stage, assess existing wildlife value and restoration potential of your site as an integral part of project planning.

Simple changes to land management can lead to wild flowers appearing. Natural regeneration and spread takes longer but results are far more sustainable and cost-effective.

• Help seeds move around the landscape by linking sites as part of restoring ecological networks.

• Ensure your contract incorporates the longest possible aftercare period, in order to specify appropriate maintenance techniques.

Where not to sow • Avoid sowing wild flower mixes in the wider countryside or adjacent to existing natural or semi-natural habitats or Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) where there is a good chance regeneration can take place naturally.

• Always avoid introducing seeds or plants to existing species-rich habitats or those of high conservation value, except in extreme circumstances as part of a rare plant rescue project.

Sow smart!

• At urban sites with no realistic hope of natural colonisation we recommend either: (a) sowing basic mixes of approximately

five colourful, universal species of local provenance, such as oxeye daisy and yellow rattle. Choose mixtures according to geology and region. Don’t attempt to replicate complete national vegetation types – less is more. Over time, additional species will appear, allowing more natural development of species-rich vegetation; (b) using the green hay method (or wild harvested seed for woodlands) from local sites which lie on similar soils/geology.

• For help selecting species in England and Wales contact the National Wildflower Centre. In Scotland contact Scotia Seeds.

• In specifications or bills of quantities, stipulate that seed sources and mixes must be as local as possible and be approved by the landscape architect. Consider using named suppliers.

• Check the labelling of seed delivered to site. Ask for proof from contractors that seeds fit the specification.

• For fertile sites and those containing aggressive grass species such as perennial rye grass (Lolium perenne), consider broadcasting approximately 1g/per m2 of yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor), which is hemi-parasitic on grasses, thereby reducing grass vigour and creating space for wild flowers to arrive more readily.

Check with the contractor or supplier that seed is of local provenance. Six subspecies of yellow rattle occur across Britain, reflecting differing geologies and habitats, so it would be tragic if we upset this balance /...

Native and non-native The verge at this road junction adjacent to a rural area of Scotland (above) has been recently sown with a mixture of native and non-native plants, which is in contravention of legislation. If seeding is chosen as a solution, then the photo at Broxden roundabout in Perth (below), demonstrates that use of non-native species is unnecessary. Native species alone give a glorious display. Even in this case, natural regeneration would have been possible from the seed bank and a better solution for local biodiversity, but nevertheless the native species used here have raised public awareness and appreciation of native plants.

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Technical 1 cont.

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through introduction of non-native stock from the continent.

• Provide the right ecological conditions for long-term survival of vegetation being created. Thin, nutrient-poor soils typically re-establish as species-rich vegetation more satisfactorily than do nutrient-rich soils. Management, such as grazing or mowing, is likely to be necessary to ensure that plant communities retain their species-rich characteristic.

• Avoid non-native plants where possible – a small percentage are aggressively invasive, whilst others can compromise the scientific interest of natural vegetation types. See our invasive non-native plant pages on our website for more information.

• Limit use of annual cornfield mixes unless you are certain that the annual management required for this will continue. If not, use perennial mixes. Though providing a hit of colour and pollen, annual seed mixes are the equivalent of a fizzy energy drink, rather than a balanced diet for long-term habitat health.

• If schools and community groups wish to use seed bombs, encourage them to make their own using locally collected seeds, or seeds acquired from local, reputable suppliers. Only throw them in urban areas or gardens. Seed bombs should not be used in the wild.

• If possible, document and monitor carefully any attempts to restore habitats keeping note of any species sown, enabling you and others to distinguish between new native

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colonists and sown introductions. Share findings with Plantlife; often such initiatives are poorly documented and can remain unmonitored.

Plantlife and BREEAM BREEAM offers a useful framework for a plant conservation focus on planting design in urban and rural areas. In SUDS schemes or rain gardens, when the areas in question are near to water courses, in rural areas and where sites are adjacent to valuable habitats, Plantlife suggests that native locally sourced plants should be specified to maintain the local distinctiveness of native plant communities.

In terms of roof gardens, and if the development is in an urban area, Plantlife acknowledges that some non-native species, including some sedums and alongside native species, are easier to establish and more durable in the potentially harsh environment of a roof garden. Consider including some native plants however to support a wide range of pollinators.

Matilda Scharsach works for Plantlife Scotland, the Scottish branch of the international wild plant conservation charity based in Salisbury.

Recommended reading Plantlife Seeding Principles www.plantlife.org.uk These can be found by following the ‘Keeping the Wild in Wild Flower’ links on the Scotland pages under ‘campaigns’.

Plantlife Road Verge Campaign Flowers on the Edge www.plantlife.org.uk This can be found by clicking on Road Verge Campaign in ‘campaigns’ on the main Plantlife homepage.

Scottish Government Non-native Species Code of Practice www.scotland.gov.uk/ Publications/2012/08/7367/5 seeds, or seeds acquired from local, reputable suppliers. Only throw them in urban areas or gardens. Seed bombs should not be used in the wild.

• If possible, document and monitor carefully any attempts to restore habitats keeping note of any species sown, enabling you and others to distinguish between new native colonists and sown introductions. Share findings with Plantlife; often such initiatives are poorly documented and can remain unmonitored.

Photo ©: 6 — Susan MacLagan Photo ©: 7 — Suzanne Bairnier, Buglife

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6, 7, — Perth in Bloom has successful introduced both perennial and annual native wild flowers, using seed and plugs, to an inner urban residential area using native seeds.

easy as 1 2 D

Tubex degradable shelters designed to degrade after 3 or 5-7 years.

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Plant

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Establish

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Treeshelter degrades

T: +44 (0) 1621 874201 E: plantcare@tubex.com www.tubex.com

Advancing growth

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business

Technical 2

By Paul Wheeler

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Geosynthetics can provide a cost-effective solution to many of the workaday problems landscape architects encounter; and with a little investigation can significantly unlock the designer’s imagination.

Common landscape applications include weed suppression, root protection and control, separation layers below paths, drainage and perhaps living roofs. Mostly these involve standard geotextiles, geomembranes and geocells.

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But there are mixed views on their benefits, and a number of landscape professionals who are cautious about their use, primarily because they are aware of projects where they have not worked.

eosynthetics is the generic term for a range of products used primarily in civil engineering that have become widespread and increasingly sophisticated over the last 40 years. Their main functions are separation, filtration, drainage, containment and reinforcement. Common engineering applications include highways, railways, coastal protection, landfill, retaining structures and foundations and underground utility construction. They are also commonly used in landscape applications.

Landscape professionals will be familiar with geotextiles, but these are, in fact, just one class of geosynthetic. Wikipedia lists eight, namely: geotextiles, geomembranes, geocells, geonets, geogrids, geosynthetic clay liners, geofoams and geocomposites.

You won’t come across all of these products in landscape applications; but a better understanding of geotextiles and other geosynthetic materials could greatly enhance the toolkit of possibilities for the landscape professional.

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Tim O’Hare, founder of soil and landscape science consultancy Tim O’Hare Associates, believes that geosynthetics are too often specified incorrectly. For example, he cites the use of a geotextile as a separation layer between a topsoil growing medium and a granular material below, when the desired result is to stop fines in the topsoil being washed into the coarser-grained material below. But what tends to happen, he says, is that within a very short period of time, in some cases within just a few months, the fines block the geotextile, which in effect becomes an impermeable barrier. This leads to poor-draining saturated soil and poor plant growth.

While O’Hare argues that it is better to use a traditional coarse grit blinding layer, the correct specification geotextile fabric could do the job equally well.

In a similar vein, US horticulturist Dr Linda Chalker-Scott at Washington State University recently published a technical note titled ‘The Myth of Landscape Fabric’ which challenges the perception that lightweight landscape fabric-grade geotextiles offer permanent weed control. ‘Like the perpetual dieter searching for a permanent weight loss pill, so we as landscape professionals seek permanent weed control solutions,’ she says.

‘Unfortunately there is no such fix, weed control fabrics will decompose and can hinder plant health.’

Nevertheless weed-control fabrics remain popular with contractors because they cut down on maintenance in the short term.

Long term it is a different story, because the fabrics make subsequent maintenance, such as aeration, more difficult.

When selecting a geosynthetic, think about the basic purpose and ensure that the product and its performance characteristics are appropriate for the soils/materials you are working with and the conditions in which it is being used. If you are unsure, speak directly with the manufacturer.

Correctly specified, geosynthetics can provide a cost-effective solution to many workaday problems that landscape professionals encounter; and with a little investigation can significantly unlock the designer’s imagination. /...

Photo ©: 1, 3, 4, 5 — TERRAM, Polymer Group Inc.

Understanding geosynthetics

Technical 2 Typical applications

Erosion control (image 4) Geotextiles can help to temporarily stabilise swales and river banks to allow vegetation to become established. A geocell blanket can improve resistance to erosive forces such as rainwater run-off on steep or unstable slopes.

Weed suppression (image 2) Lightweight geotextiles are frequently used for suppressing weeds. The principle is that they allow the passage of water, oxygen and nutrients while blocking weeds. The geotextile is installed on the top surface of the soil and covered with a layer of bark chippings, stone chippings, pebbles or gravel.

Separation and drainage Geotextiles are frequently used to separate material and prevent mixing in a wide range of applications such as footpaths, hardstandings, SuDS, land drains and living roofs. Correctly specified they will allow the flow of water and oxygen through the soil, without any clogging.

Protecting roots (image 3) Various geosynthetic products can be used to spread loads to protect tree roots from damage by, for instance, vehicles. Geocell is often used, as it creates a honeycomblike cellular confinement system in which the interconnected cells are filled with a granular fill and loads are spread laterally rather than vertically. This limits mechanical damage and also minimises compaction of the surrounding soil, preventing the roots from being starved of moisture and oxygen.

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Protecting structures from roots (image 5) There are instances when the protection is needed the other way round, ie when tree roots need to be isolated or directed away from paths, walls, shallow foundations, pipes, grass and so on. An HDPE wrapping or barrier will effectively inhibit root development and penetration, but will create a water barrier too. Heavy-grade geotextiles can be used where land drains need to be protected from roots. This won’t give total protection and care is needed to select the correct geotextile for the surrounding soil, otherwise fines from the soil could block the fabric, rendering it impermeable and the drain redundant.

Protecting grassed surfaces (image 1) Thin plastic meshes can provide reinforcement on grass areas prone to wear. The porous mesh is supplied on a roll and laid directly on the grass, which grows through creating a natural appearance. A more sophisticated solution is offered by Terram’s Advanced Turf, which incorporates high-strength plastic mesh elements within the root zone to produce a very strong, yet free-draining reinforced grassed surface. It has been used in the grassed ‘event areas’ outside London’s City Hall (see opposite) and can also be used on sculpted slopes and other areas where grass needs to be invisibly reinforced.

Steep slopes (image 4) Engineered reinforced-soil slopes, usually formed with horizontal layers of geogrid, can provide an alternative to hardengineered retaining structures. These will include some form of surface protection to resist water and wind erosion, at least until vegetation is established.

Porous paths and hardstanding Interlocking grid pavers made from recycled plastics can be infilled with a granular material to form a free-draining pavement.

They are available at different grades making them suitable for footpaths and cycle tracks right up to coach and HGV car parking areas.

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Technical 2 cont.

CASE STUDY

The art of the possible

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Containment

Drainage

Geogrid Geonet Geomembrane Geosynthetic clay liner Geofoam

Geocomposite

Photo ©: 6 — Over and Above Photography

Geotextile

Geocells Paul Wheeler is director of Base Cities. He studied geotechnical engineering to masters level and is a former editor of Ground Engineering.

Filtration

Main functions for different types of geosynthetic

Reinforcement

The Dutch manufacturer TenCate offers a product called GeoDetect, which it describes as “the first sensor-enabled geotextile on the market to provide soil reinforcement, structural health monitoring and an early warning system into one package.” In essence it structurally strengthens and physically monitors the landscapes it is buried within. It comprises a geotextile embedded with fibre optics, which could potentially relay information from a wide source of sensors, although to date monitoring has been restricted to strain (ie movement) and temperature.

Although applications at present are very much within engineering, it potentially opens up huge possibilities for the creatively minded.

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Separation

And of course geosynthetics can be used in ways the manufacturers never intended.

In Philadelphia the Not Garden/Not Again project uses ‘customised geotextiles’ for experimental greening techniques on abandoned housing plots. Philadelphia has over 60,000 abandoned properties and over the last decade, the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative has provided a land management programme to provide relatively low-cost ways to limit blight.

Developed by local practice PEG office of landscape + architecture, the more than 3,000 ‘Not Garden’ prototypes used laser-cutter fabrication to precut customized geometric patterns out of geotextile, which was laid on site and seeded. This produced diverse configurations with very low-investment, effort, installation expertise, or need of long term care.

Charles Jencks’ human landform sculpture, Northumberlandia, incorporates geogrid reinforced soil slopes, gabion retaining walls, erosion control blankets and other geosynthetics in what is claimed to be the world’s largest human form sculpted into the landscape. The 30m-high and 400m-long reclining female form is made from coal mining spoil and comprises the centrepiece of a new park near Cramlington. The chin, nose, and eyebrows, in particular, make extensive use of geosynthetics and associated products.

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Practice 1

By Ruth Slavid

A competition in Scotland was the first in a planned series aimed at removing the barriers to success for the newly qualified.

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small competition with large potential that was held in Scotland recently has caused excitement not only because of the excellent results that it has produced but also because it addresses one of the perennial blocks to the success of ambitious young practices – the need for large amounts of professional indemnity insurance.

and administration costs. But it could well be the start of something bigger.

The inspiration for this came from Norway.

That country, which some might consider to have an excess of geography, started commissioning young designers to come up with lookouts for its newly designated tourist routes about 20 years ago. Such was the success that it has grown into a major programme with several people employed in its administration. The lookouts have become larger and internationally known, with several winning prizes. It has made the names of a number of designers.

The project, a pilot Scottish Scenic Routes competition, set out to garner designs from new designers, who may not even have their own practices. It was open to architects and landscape architects with less than five years’ work experience, with the client – in this case the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park – taking responsibility for administration and, if necessary, delivery.

In this way, young designers were able to come up with ideas and stay as involved as they wished to be through the process.

The initial three projects, carried through from design to completion in a very short time scale, are modest. The total funding allocated to this pilot project was just £500,000 to cover all fees, construction

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1 — Inveruglas by Sean Edwards, Daniel Bar and Stephane Toussaint.

2 — Lubneig Beag by Ruairidh Campbell Moir.

3 — Falls of Falloch by John Kennedy.

Scotland, which also has wonderful roads running through wild places, was an obvious place in which to imitate this success. The driving force was Peter Wilson, who runs the Wood Studio at Napier University. He organised an exhibition of the Norwegian work and started agitating for a programme.

Eventually the Government bit, and launched with the pilot project, with a second competition following shortly afterwards.

Angus Corby at Transport Scotland administered the competition. There were 91 entrants. Shortlisted teams then went through a process rather like a crit with an

Image ©: 1 — Sean Edwards, Daniel Bar and Stephane Toussaint

Promoting young talent

Practice 1

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expert panel to help them make them more workable, before the final decision was made.

Ironically, since Corby is the only landscape architect employed at Transport Scotland, the three winning teams were all made up of architects.

Image ©: 2 — Ruairidh Campbell Moir Image ©: 3 — John Kennedy

‘I think the vast majority of entrants were architects,’ Corby said. ‘There are more architects than landscape architects in Scotland, but we do need to see more entries from landscape architects.’ This is however only the start of a process, and Corby is excited and delighted with the progress so far. ‘That quality and intricacy of landscape design is not something we always get involved with,’ he said.

Transport Scotland worked with Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park because it had already identified sites, but future schemes will be distributed around the country. By providing what Corby called ‘support behind the scenes’, the National Park has managed to overcome the barrier of PI insurance as well as getting in at the start of a process that could take off in a similar way to the Norwegian model.

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In which case, Scotland will be onto a winner – it will nurture a new generation of professionals, have some great interventions in the landscape, and have worked out a way of removing, or at least lowering, one of the main barriers at the start of professionals’ careers.

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Practice 2

By Kate Bailey and Ian Houlston

‘The Conversation’ — Looking ahead ‘The Conversation’ was initiated to find out how members felt the profession should position itself for the future. Here are the results.

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hen initiating ‘The Conversation’ between Landscape Institute members, the Policy Committee welcomed ‘ambitious and radical ideas for the long term future of the profession’. It prompted many varied, interesting and thoughtful responses from individuals, practices and Branches, providing invaluable insight into the thoughts and aspirations of the membership. A summary of themes and key words that have been generated by the conversation to-date is available on the LI website members section.

This initial review of contributions focuses on the key themes of identity, roles and influence. Amongst the very many positive and constructive views expressed by members, there are concerns that the landscape profession is undervalued, giving rise to a strong desire that landscape professionals should be seen as part of the solution to a range of social, environmental and economic drivers.

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A major focus for moving forwards should be the apparent lack of understanding by the general public of what we do There was quite a lot of looking back to what was remembered as a glorious past, ranging from city parks in the 1840s, to the garden cities of the 1900s, the new towns of the 1960s and the garden festivals of the 1980s. Unlike the situation observed today, landscape professionals were employed at senior grades in public authorities and Government departments, and held influential positions in major organisations, as well as establishing high profile companies of their own.

One contributor found it amazing that landscape now has such a low profile in the planning process and that there are so few protests about the degraded landscapes

around places where people live, work, go to school and visit. Another commented poetically that today, people seem to be surrounded by a grey umbrella that prevents them from seeing the colourful sky. But on a more optimistic note, one contributor suggested that our profession’s awareness of natural systems could make us more successful in recruiting a new ‘Spring Watch’ generation to landscape architecture courses.

Just like planners and architects — they are enmeshed in high level politics — we should get ourselves onto the political radar!

Maybe because other professions working in the development industry have more members and are more publicly visible than our own, there is a perception that they are regarded more highly by clients, other professionals and the general public. There

certainly seems to be a lack of confidence amongst the membership and a feeling that as a group landscape professionals are not as assertive as architects, planners and urban designers.

However, the Landscape Institute’s Royal Charter means that Government organisations are required to consult us on matters relating to landscape. Indeed the Landscape Institute’s policy officers have said that they would be delighted to hear from members who are willing to contribute to consultation responses on behalf of the Institute and wider membership. If the Landscape Institute can exert more influence at all levels of policy making on behalf of the membership, then the skills and knowledge of landscape professionals will be valued more highly by potential clients, Government officials, policy makers and other professions.

We need to make MPs look good for a photo opportunity! Then they will support our way of thinking and working as a profession.

Partnerships with leading organisations such as Ecobuild, and other professional institutes such as RIBA, RTPI and influential bodies such as TCPA, and appearances by the President at a multitude of public and professional events, ensure that landscape issues are debated in public forums. Contributors suggested that the Landscape Institute should take every opportunity to identify enlightened politicians, and lobby effectively to ensure that a wider appreciation of landscape values is placed high on the political agenda at both local and national levels.

And at a local level, several members suggest that the profession should identify ways to engage the public, and especially young people, and involve itself more with environmental education, the voluntary sectors, politics and economics. As a profession that is concerned not just with landscape, but also with people, and their health and wellbeing, landscape professionals are ideally placed to mediate between natural and human systems.

Members should be encouraged to help everyone to value the landscape, to recognise its importance in their daily lives, and perhaps to become involved in landscape related activities by joining or working with neighbourhood and community groups.

Landscape professionals are trained to be practical, technical and creative and most of all to adopt an impartial professional approach to problem-solving, decisionmaking and policy formulation. There was a feeling that, if landscape is the starting point for all forms of development and change, and the context within which all other issues sit, then we as a profession are best placed to understand the relationships between people and places, and between communities and landowners and their aspirations. /...

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Practice 2

Greater emphasis needs to be placed on self promotion and marketing of the profession... landscape architects need to develop business acumen in order to promote our own skills set.

Some regretted that landscape professionals are approached at a late stage of project development, often merely to add planting to pre-designated areas, or to discharge planning conditions. Others observed that they are more frequently being engaged from the start, to inform or even to lead development or infrastructure projects.

Several members reported there is a growing understanding that a collaborative, as opposed to a competitive, way of working is being encountered and this is regarded as a positive step forward.

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There were several suggestions that landscape professionals must learn to sell themselves better, and seek out opportunities to justify a place in major development and construction teams. In order to achieve this, employers could encourage and mentor staff to develop tactful but effective leadership skills.

We should be proactive and just speak up whether or not we’re invited to the table.

Landscape professionals generally seem to need more confidence to challenge the ideas and approaches of other professionals, and to promote their own skills, in order to help the team and the client achieve appropriate and well-rounded solutions. There was a suggestion that the profession should be ‘ambushing’ the conferences of other organisations, for example, as speakers at development industry or housebuilders’

conferences, to demonstrate what landscape professionals can achieve and how good landscape can add value. Actively creating ‘pop-up’ landscape design events in urban spaces was offered as a way of encouraging people to take part in shaping the places in which they live.

Some responses urged the membership to remember that the Landscape Institute has been granted a Royal Charter that states that ‘the objects and purposes for which the Institute is hereby constituted are to protect, conserve and enhance the natural and built environment for the benefit of the public...’ No other professionals have been given the right to call themselves Landscape Architects and, whatever some may say to the contrary, no other professional body can claim to encompass ‘all aspects of the science, planning, design, implementation and management of landscapes and their environment in urban and rural areas’.

Let people know who we are, what we do, and what value we can add to projects.

Having read all the many contributions to The Conversation, it is evident that the over-riding challenge for our profession in the coming years is to raise awareness and understanding of landscape and the landscape profession. As members of the Landscape Institute, we know that we are expert in many fields related to landscape, but unless others become more aware of our expertise and the skills and services we offer, there is a danger that we are merely talking to ourselves.

president, Sue Illman. Some of the themes and topics raised by The Conversation responses could become subjects for future articles in this journal, or for lectures, debates or presentations for Landscape Institute training events, briefings or CPD workshops. Some may be developed into more general publications, particularly when they challenge ill-informed views, or provide case studies to promote the achievements of landscape professionals to a wider audience.

So what’s next for The Conversation?

The Conversation has shown that there is clear support for the idea of an on-going dialogue between members. The Landscape Institute Board of Trustees, Council, both the current and incoming presidents and the Policy and Communications Committee are in ‘listening’ mode. We have successfully demonstrated that providing a structured forum for debate and discussion is a successful way of engaging members in a conversation about the future of the profession.

The Conversation will continue to run throughout 2014, and members of the Policy and Communications Committee welcome your contributions at any time, via the dedicated email address: futurevision@ landscapeinstitute.org or via Talking Landscapes at www.talkinglandscape.org/.

Keep talking!

Many positive ways were suggested for landscape professionals to raise awareness of landscape and to promote our profession.

Many have already been taken up by Landscape Institute staff and members of committees, and particularly by the

Kate Bailey and Ian Houlston are members of the Policy and Communications Committee and were the instigators of The Conversation.

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Culture

By Ruth Slavid

Artist of the floating world Artist Stephen Turner is spending a year living in a wooden egg on the Beaulieu River in a way that epitomises being ‘close to nature’.

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h ere is a wooden egg on the Beaulieu River estuary in Hampshire, and there is a man living in it. He is not just any man. He is an artist called Stephen Turner and he intends to live in the egg for a year, making artworks relating to his occupancy and, he hopes, turning them into an exhibition at the end.

the outside, with the intention of removing one a month to document the weathering.

Far from being a pristine architectural object, the egg is a working and living tool of a very curious artist.

And it is what Turner is doing in the egg that is really fascinating. He has a strong environmental conviction and he chose this site because it is in an area of salt marsh, a fast disappearing environment. What he is doing during the year is documenting and reacting to that environment, whether by photography and film, drawing (sometimes with inks he makes himself), launching

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clear plastic eggs with found objects like skulls in them and seeing where they end up, or making jam. He is endlessly curious and knowledgeable, and has allowed himself the time to think and immerse himself in his immediate environment in a way that few of us have time to do. Even fewer would be willing to live the way he does, with minimal comforts. He posts a regular blog (disrupted somewhat in the winter by the lack of solar-generated electricity) and is monitored by webcams, but discourages visitors who could damage his fragile surroundings, which are only accessible through private land.

But actually the photos were deceptive. The finish was much more rough and ready than it seemed, the egg rapidly sprang a leak, and Turner has made his own mark on it. Some of this has been to improve his Spartan living quarters, building a bed platform to replace the hammock which, while elegant, played havoc with his back, and making a desk. But he also stuck strips of tin foil on

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Photos ©: 1, 2 — Stephen Turner

The egg itself caught the public imagination when it was, literally, launched in the summer.

Designed by PAD Studio for this project initiated by local arts organisation SPUD (it was intended to be one of several such projects but was the only one to come off) the Exbury egg was remarkably photogenic when new. As a result there was interest from organisations including the BBC and Vogue, the latter presumably envisaging fashion shoots.

Culture

1 — Stephen Turner in the ‘beadle’s’ costume designed by art students at Southampton Solent University.

2 — The egg is moored on an area of salt marsh at the edge of the Beaulieu River estuary.

3 — Turner lives, works and sleeps inside the egg.

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Photo ©: 3 — Press Association, all other photos © Stephen Turner

Turner has styled himself the Beaulieu Beagle, and keeps warm in his tiny parish in a flowing cloak made for him by local art students. As he puts it, ‘In an age of hubris and self promotion, I want to provide a voice for mute nature, to be amanuensis to the tides, the terns and the turnstones.’ A selection of his images and the accompanying posts are shown on these pages.

7 AUGUST 2013 1. Penning a Line There are around seventy Canada Geese summering on the marsh and surrounding fields, and today I found a large goose feather on the foreshore which I made into a pen by shaping the hollow end with a sharp knife.

Goose feathers were the scribe’s’weapon of choice until the advent of steel nibs in the nineteenth century. Whilst penning these brief notes on a mac book pro, this writer still likes the feel of scratching over the surface of real paper and using an ink made in the traditional way from the surrounding Oaks. Whilst enjoying the best of the new, I would hate to forget, or lose, what endures in the traditional.

13 OCTOBER 2013 3. Ochre Springs Oily looking ferrous reds stain the greyer mud of the marsh edges at different locations within the immediate Parish bounds. University of Southampton research concludes these are ‘ochre springs’ of ferrous hydroxide colloids emerging from alluvial sediment and the clays, marls and gravel of the later Eocene period 33 million years ago. This brush with the geological strata will continue to colour my thoughts.

11 AUGUST 2013 2. Caterpillar Tracks Many caterpillars of the small tortoiseshell butterfly were feasting on a nettle and leaving tracks of their own black droppings of processed green leaf.

19 OCTOBER 2013 4. Gall Harvest A small oak opposite the egg has a rich crop of galls to harvest. I will use them to make a dye for my clothing and to create an ink for drawing as the first step toward understanding the cultural and environmental importance of the tree in this particular riverscape. Oaks can have many different species of gall growing /...

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Culture

on a single tree. These were made by the species of parasitic wasp andricus kollari and resemble marbles in size and shape.

9 NOVEMBER 2013 6. A Trip to the Outer Bank No.1 Tamarisk I visited the outer bank on Thursday and was impressed by the Tamarisk trees. Their tiny leaves are folded close to the stem as can be seen in my microscope photograph. I will look forward to enjoying a much wider perspective in springtime when their tiny pink flowers will be framed and enhanced by the colour and light of the dawn sky. They were probably

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planted to enhance the stability of the Outer Bank when the enclosed waters inside its sluice gates (removed) were used for concentrating sea salt for collection along toothed channels that can still be observed.

It’s possible these trees or their forebears have been here since the late eighteenth century.

They love being close to the sea and enjoy these salty soils.

Photos ©: — Stephen Turner

2 NOVEMBER 2013 5. Exbury Egg Conserves No3: Sloe Gin Intense rain showers drove me indoors to make a limited edition of sloe gin. The blackthorn berries were picked eight days ago on October 24th and were kept refrigerated nearby until I came back from leave. The freezing is roughly the equivalent of all my solar energy generated in the same period… so I hope the gin will be good. Unlike the blackberry, it does not seem to have been a good year for the sloe and the trees (never abundant), were by today completely bare.

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A word...

By Tim Waterman

When a client procures the services of an architect, they are also paying for a performance

‘Theatre’

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The idea of the theatrum mundi is a very old one, certainly predating William Shakespeare’s verse from As You Like It: ‘All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players; / They have their exits and their entrances, / And one man in his time plays many parts ...’ In Shakespeare’s time the roles that people played on the stage of life would be clearly delineated, with public dress, speech, and mannerisms reinforcing class and other hierarchies such as those of the trades. Each individual would be acting out a role on the public stage. Though this is less true in an age where we value individualism and self-expression and in which we like to pretend that we are still not bound by hierarchies of wealth and class, there is still great value in thinking about our public roles and how we play them.

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Possibly because of the vast range of our profession, landscape architects aren’t nearly as good at ‘owning a room’. There are few landscape architects cast in the ‘starchitect’ mould. Notable exceptions might be the formidable Martha Schwartz or the colourful Ken Smith, but of course it is of note that they are exceptions. If we grumble about being asked too rarely to lead projects, or that we receive too little media attention, then in many ways we have ourselves to blame for not mastering the performance of design and putting ourselves in the public eye.

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Building architects are often great actors with a clear understanding that they inhabit a role. Think, for example, of Le Corbusier’s great stage presence as evidenced by films of his lectures. Or perhaps Philip Johnson’s chameleon-like adaptations of both his public role and his style throughout his career. For more contemporary examples, we might point to Richard Rogers’ pink and acid-green ensembles, or to the great swirl of hair, cloth, and haughtiness that is Zaha Hadid. When a client procures the services of an architect, they are also paying for a performance, and the better an architect delivers a showstopping presence, the better they are paid, and the better their services are seen to be. Though to be sure the majority is not composed of celebrities, many architects carry off their roles with a certain élan.

We needn’t appropriate either the arrogant egos that are building architecture’s stereotype or try to be starchitects. Then again, those of us who are capable should work towards creating an image in both dress and action that creates the theatre of power and of the lightly exotic that gives spice to the performance of our professional lives.

Tim Waterman is a landscape architectural writer, speaker and critic, who lectures at the Writtle School of Design and is a studio tutor at UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. His books on landscape architecture have been translated into seven languages. He is the honorary editor of Landscape.

Photo ©: Agnese Sanvito

A landscape architect who found the profession after tiring of working as a building architect recently told me he had started to see buildings as nothing but ‘boring utensils’. Still, the reality of creating buildings as tools means that architects are highly aware of the performative and instrumental functions both of buildings and of their profession. They see not just the programmatic possibilities of built spaces, but also the theatrical possibilities within them, whether this be the dramatic play of light across a wall surface or the potential for a person to appear, vaunted and elevated, at the top of a flight of stairs.

Landscape Spring 2014

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