Landscape Journal - Autumn 2017

Landscape The Journal of the Landscape Institute

Autumn 2017

LI conference reviewed/ 07 Berlin’s garden festivals/ 27 London’s natural capital/ 37

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Editorial

By Ruth Slavid

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Positive thinking of the people I spoke to at June’s

© 1 – Tom Lee

ONE Landscape Institute conference was a mature student. Not a mature student in the sense we normally know, of somebody who embarks on their education at 25 or even 30, rather than immediately on leaving school. No, he was really mature, about to complete his masters just before his 50th birthday.

And, encouragingly, he was already being contacted by potential employers.

What I found most cheering about this though was how much this man really loved his subject.

He had had a couple of careers already when he took his son on a round of universities, to explore potential subjects. When the father visited a landscape architecture department, he saw a subject that brought together all his interests, and embarked on his own massive life change.

And he has had no regrets, despite the expected financial constraints. Not only does he love the subject as much as he thought he would, but he also found all the people who he encountered open and interested and engaged, in contrast to those he had met in his previous roles.

I think this experience has a lot of positive things to teach the profession – and not that most people should wait half a century before embarking on a career in landscape! Of course, the profession is making great efforts to attract more young people and so it should. But the love for the profession and the humanity of its practitioners are what everybody should aspire to – and what the conference pointed up.

It felt as if there had been a sea change in the profession. There are enormous difficulties and disappointments to deal with, but this conference felt outstandingly positive, both in the presentations that were given and in the mood of the delegates.

The talk was of possibilities and not of problems.

Nothing can compare to the excitement and stimulation of actually attending such an event, not least for the chance encounters and the ad hoc conversations. But for those who could not attend there are compensations. The LI has videoed all the main sessions, and this issue of the journal contains, as well as a conference report, pieces written by some of those who participated. In fact, there were so many of those pieces that we have had to defer some to future issues.

I hope that you find plenty to interest, inform and inspire you in these pieces, which range across countries and disciplines. But most of all, I hope that they make you realise that you really should have been there – and that you will put next year’s dates – 6 and 7 September at the University of Greenwich – into your diaries now.

Landscape Autumn 2017

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Landscape The Journal of the Landscape Institute Publisher Darkhorse Design Ltd 21 Mann Island, Liverpool L3 1BP T 0151 649 9669 52-53 Russell Square, London WC1B 4HP T 0207 323 1931 darkhorsedesign.co.uk tim@darkhorsedesign.co.uk Editor Ruth Slavid landscape@darkhorsedesign.co.uk T 07779 280844 Editorial advisory panel Eleanor Trenfield, honorary editor CMLI David Buck AMLI Amanda McDermott AMLI Peter Sheard CMLI John Stuart Murray FLI Jo Watkins PPLI Jenifer White CMLI Landscape Institute president Merrick Denton-Thompson Landscape Institute CEO Daniel Cook To comment on any aspect of Landscape Institute communications please contact: Paul Lincoln, Executive Director: Marketing + Communications paull@landscapeinstitute.org

Regulars 3

Editorial

Positive thinking

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Update

Technical

I Conference reviewed L Ruth Slavid

59 Practice

Tompkins Conservation Jessica Cargill Thompson

66 On my mind

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Winds of change

Delivering a resilient world Merrick Denton-Thompson

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The LI’s aim, through the work of its members, is to protect, conserve and enhance the natural and built environment for the public benefit.

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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.

Landscape is the official journal of the Landscape Institute, ISSN: 1742–2914 ©2017 Landscape Institute. Landscape is published four times a year by Darkhorse Design.

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© 1 – © Binyi Liu and research team 2 – © Hardscape

The Landscape Institute provides a professional home for all landscape practitioners including landscape scientists, landscape planners, landscape architects, landscape managers and urban designers.

Features

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37

Ecosystems services Mott MacDonald and Cranfield University assess the value of an ecostyems services approach.

London’s natural capital

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Two London boroughs have undertaken an important exercise in natural capital accounting.

Berlin’s garden festivals

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3 – © Mott MacDonald 4 – © Abdul Chowdry 5 – © Frank Sperling 6 – © John Sheaff Associates

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Look back in play

Peter Sheard compares 1985’s show for a divided city with this year’s festival for a very different place.

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Uncovering a stash of unseen photographs took Maisie Rowe back to her childhood and forward to a meditation on the importance of spaces for play.

Landscape The Journal of the Landscape Institute

Autumn 2017

LI conference reviewed/ 07 Berlin’s garden festivals/ 27 London’s natural capital/ 37

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Logo created for this summer’s Landscape Institute conference.

Landscape Autumn 2017

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Landscape Autumn 2017

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Tel: 01273 704970

Update

By Ruth Slavid

The power of positive thinking This year’s LI conference was buzzing with ideas, both on the platform and among the delegates. It demonstrated the skills and energy of the profession.

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hairing one of the sessions at this year’s Landscape Institute conference, Sue Evans of Central Scotland Green Network praised the inspirational nature of the speeches. It contrasted, she said, with the days spent in an office fretting over details and, inevitably, not seeing the bigger picture.

This year’s conference definitely addressed the ‘bigger picture’ but in a way that was grounded in reality, in projects and even in details. Speakers demonstrated the ability of professionals to make a positive difference, in projects as diverse as a flood relief strategy for the north-east, a series of massive interventions in China and ways of thinking about parks to ensure that they provide as much benefit as possible to refugees.

The conference, entitled ‘Landscape as Infrastructure’ was held at Manchester Metropolitan University on 22 June. LI President Merrick Denton-Thompson introduced the conference with a rallying cry to the profession. ‘We need to think very carefully,’ he said, ‘about how we connect with the public. What we really are after is a cultural shift. We are in a unique position at the interface between people and natural systems.’

Merrick also talked about the fact that ‘we have tended to box ourselves into being urban’, whereas many of the largest problems were in rural areas, with loss of water and air quality and, in particular, problems with soils.

He gave the example of the River Itchen in Hampshire, a chalk stream that is one of the best fly-fishing rivers in the country. Although it still looks clear, it is, Merrick said, ‘dead – the level of phosphates is so high that the viscosity has been affected and fly eggs can no longer stick to the plants’.

‘The biodiversity and mineralised content and restoration of our soils is of top importance,’ he said. ‘We are dealing with soils every day, but do we deal with the science and biodiversity of soils? We are very good at fluffy feathery things, but not so good at doing something about actual science.

Every commission for transforming landscape must ask, what is the biological quality and what can I do to improve it?’

Industrial farming, he warned, has a huge impact on air quality as well as Landscape Autumn 2017

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Update

1 – The River Itchen still looks beautiful but is in fact dead as a result of changed viscosity. © Wikimedia Commons

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water quality. Typically, he said, 50% of nitrate fertilisers go into the soil, 25% into aquifers, and 25% into the air, where they form nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than CO2.

The way for the profession to have influence is, Merrick argued, to show how it can influence the issues of today – ‘the state of childhood’, including obesity where ‘we in this room can do more than any other profession’, and the health and care of the elderly where ‘we can do so much for dementia’.

The speakers who followed

We need to think very carefully about how we connect with the public Merrick Denton-Thompson

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demonstrated, through their projects and research, just how much of a difference the profession can make.

Kate Collins, director at Sheils Flynn, talked about the new flood strategy for the area around Hull, where local strategies have been written to be easily understandable and to point up opportunities. ‘The main message is about stakeholder engagement,’ she said, ‘and about the value of a landscape-led approach.’

Professor Xiangrong Wang, leading professor and vice dean of the School of Landscape Architecture at Beijing Forestry University, talked about restoring and improving historic towns such as Suzhou in the Taiha Lake basin by reconnecting the towns with surrounding countryside in a manner that was traditional.

Again, the holistic vision of the landscape disciplines was vital for the success. This approach is vital, he said if the quality of life is not to be further degraded in a country where ‘230 million rural residents will move to cities in the next 15 years’.

Professor Binyi Liu, from Tongji University in Shanghai, showed some massive projects centred round water

– and a sense of time with tree planting that is perhaps unique to the profession.

‘We will realise this beautiful scenery in 50–100 years,’ he said.

Eric Hallquist, of Aecom, also spoke about water, through an insight into the practice’s projects around the world. At the North West Cambridge development, which is effectively creating a new city quarter, he talked about how hard the western edge of the project has to work, buffering noise from the M11 but also preserving and enhancing an existing brook and creating a space for leisure and an engagement with nature. He also explained how different planting regimens in the Middle East could have a massive effect on CO2 emissions by reducing demand for desalinated water.

Larissa Naylor, a geomorphologist at the University of Glasgow, talked about research into the greening of grey infrastructure – of the nonbuilding elements such as civil enegineering structures. In addition to enhancing biodiversity (and, of course, looking nicer), this work can have positive impacts in terms of durability, she said. Barnacles, for example, slow the attack of salt on

2 – Image from the presentation by Sheils Flynn on a new approach to flooding on the Humber. © Sheils Flynn 3 – The conference was well attended, with top-rate speakers and a lively after party. © Ruth Slavid

concrete, and capping sea defences with living materials enhances their longevity. Even ivy, often excoriated as an attack agent, can in the right circumstances actually protect walls.

Richard Hellier, the Forestry Commission’s landscape advisor, talked about the way that careful design can improve the appearance and biodiversity of the new productive forests that are needed and planned for England. A lot of his work involves communicating these points. ‘We are trying to highlight the essential ingredients to landowners and forestry experts,’ he said. ‘They just don’t get it.’

While the benefits of good landscape may seem obvious to professionals, demonstrating their value to the wider world is difficult without hard data. So the fact that a number of speakers dealt with measur­ables and data was most welcome.

Independent consultant Jonathan Buckley helped to develop the Envision sustainability ratings system which aimed ‘to demonstrate that landscape is a good investment’. He argued that ‘the most liveable cities are also the most competitive and landscape is a significant contributor to liveability’.

Based largely on hard-nosed business

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analyses, such as the Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability rankings, Envision measures seven systems, one of which is landscape.

Krista Patrick, who is natural capital coordinator with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, explained the city’s role as an Urban Pioneer. Its objectives include ‘developing a demonstration project that shows the benefits of a natural capital accounting approach to project funding’.

Natural capital accounting was also the subject of a talk by consultants Peter Neal and John Sheaff, who described their work in the London boroughs of Barnet and Barking.

The scope of public spaces included in the two boroughs was very different, but both showed that the natural capital benefits of maintaining these spaces were significant multiples of the costs of doing so.

Steve Millington, senior lecturer in geography at Manchester Metropolitan

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Inspiring Sustainable Spaces

Project: Sidcup Highstreet Client: Bexley Council Contractor: F M Conway Landscape Architect: Murray Smith

Contactt us for more information 01708 867237 enquiriees@ced.ltd.uk www.ceed.ltd.uk

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Update

4 – Floods in Hull led to a new, landscape-led strategy. © 123RF Stock Photo 5 – The town of Suzhou in China is being reconnected with its surrounding landscape. © Wikimedia Commons

University, showed a detailed analysis of the data contributing to the success of town centres. This homed in on the factors that made a significant difference and that town centres were able to influence. Several of these factors were within the remit of landscape architects, including recreational space, walkability and the general appearance of the area.

On a softer but equally important note, Clare Rishbeth, lecturer in landscape architecture at the University of Sheffield, described her research into the factors that make parks attractive to refugees. Suffering frequently from anxiety, isolation and a lack of money, they could benefit from the ‘green therapy’ that parks offer. In general, Clare said, they want places that are not too quiet, that make it clear who is welcome and that offer activities.

At the end of the formal proceedings, LI chief executive Dan Cook wound up, enjoining delegates to ‘help us make the case for landscape and infrastructure’. The issues the profession needed to address, he said, were: • Change planning mindsets; • Health and wellbeing • Education and children’s needs

• Resilience • Biodiversity and soil quality • Food and water security • Economic growth • Intangibles such as tranquillity and beauty.

This would have been a fitting end to the day, but there were more pleasures to come, as delegates were bused to an evening reception in Salford’s Media City, hosted by street furniture specialist Vestre.

This included an inspirational talk by urbanist and maker Lin Skaufel who discussed both her own work in Denmark and the ways that Copenhagen has embraced change and empowered its citizens.

As the hubbub of conversation continued to rise over dinner and drinks, the members of the profession clearly had plenty of ideas to digest as well as making new contacts and finding inspiration among their fellow professionals.

The following morning there was a series of visits to see some of the fascinating ways in which Manchester is dealing with its urban fabric – and of course to have further discussions with new and old friends.

There were representatives from

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small practices and people in large organisations who were the sole landscape specialists and rarely had time to talk to fellow professionals.

There were academics and students and representatives of larger practices, all of whom had more opportunity to debate landscape but perhaps too many responsibilities to take a step back.

This was an immensely valuable occasion and, despite the difficult times, an uplifting one.

Next year’s conference will be in London, at the University of Greenwich, on 6 and 7 September. It will look at demonstrating the value of transforming landscape. It is worth putting the date in your diary now.

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Feature

Ecosystems services take to the road Mott MacDonald has worked with Cranfield University to assess the value of an ecosystem services approach on a live road project

BY COLLETTE PATTERSON, JO MORRISON AND JACQUELINE FOOKES

benefits in a wide variety of HUMANITY ways from all kinds of ecosystems: agriculture, forestry, grassland, wetlands, the sea and the urban environment.

These benefits are collectively known as ‘ecosystem services1’. They are grouped into four broad categories: provisioning (food and water); regulating (control of climate and disease); supporting (nutrient cycles and crop pollination) and cultural (spiritual and recreational benefits).

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As the Landscape Institute’s Technical Information Note Ecosystem Services2 points out, understanding ecosystem services helps us recognise the complex interactions between the living and physical environment and people and helps us describe how the environment contributes to people’s wellbeing.

Consequently, there is growing interest in ecosystem services and their potential role in guiding decisions about the planning, design and management of landscape.

1 – Wildflower meadows in Transylvania – providing provisioning (hay), regulating (slowing storm water runoff), supporting (pollen and nectar for pollinating insects) and cultural services (scenic quality). © Mott MacDonald

References 1 ‘Ecosystem services are defined as services provided by the natural environment that benefit people’. Defra 2011 2 Landscape Institute: Ecosystem Services, Technical Information Note 02/2016

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2 – Ecosystem services are also provided by the urban environment - the ‘Empty Plinth’, Trafalgar Square, London (cultural services). © Mott MacDonald

References 3 https://www. naturalcapitalproject.org/ invest/ 4 A partnership between Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, The Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund 5 Design Manual for Roads and Bridges, Highways England, 2001, Volume 10

Mott MacDonald, with Cranfield University, completed an evaluation of the existing ecosystem services and likely effects on them associated with the construction of a 20km dual carriageway, the Northern Distributor Road (NDR), connecting the A47 and the Wensum valley in Norfolk. We used InVEST3, free open-source software produced by the Natural Capital Project4, designed to map and value the goods and services the natural world provides to sustain human life.

The NDR scheme includes 25km of bridleways, footpaths and cycle tracks. These are separated from the highway wherever possible with associated screening and planting as part of the objective to encourage a modal shift in usage patterns. The design was developed using WebTAG, the Department for Transport’s webbased guidance for design development and appraisal of transport projects. The WebTAG methodology is based on an environmental capital approach, where capital resources are grouped under the topics of landscape, townscape, historic environment, biodiversity and water environment.

The environmental capital approach therefore

covers many of the impacts that would be analysed using an ecosystem services approach.

The landscape design was carried out following the staged process set out in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges5 (DMRB), but importantly Norfolk County Council gave a strong steer to the design team to put landscape at the heart of the design. Although we were not formally adopting an ecosystem services approach, DMRB sets out a structured methodology to the landscape design.

The ecosystem services identified for the NDR corridor included high quality arable land as a provisioning service. The area is a productive landscape, due to a good climate and workable, freely draining soils. However, the soils here are nutrient-poor and the landscape is productive through the uses of fertilisers and irrigation. The soils have been highlighted at risk of erosion and aquifer recharge is noted as an important need in the area. This informed the overall scheme design.

For the NDR, the drainage design means that the scheme only drains into the river system directly in one location - the rest is dealt with through infiltration. This has two benefits: firstly there is Landscape Autumn 2017 13

Feature no direct drainage into the Wensum Special Area for Conservation west of the scheme, thus minimising the risk of additional sediment reaching the Wensum system from the new road and secondly, surface water is returned to ground, aiding recharge of the aquifer.

Treatment of surface water run-off through infiltration techniques involves a three-stage process to clean the run-off, with water running through grass swales and verges into lined attenuation ponds and then into planted infiltration basins. Further, the design approach used on NDR meant instead of the usual steepsided infiltration ponds surrounded by fencing, which are a common sight along new roads, the infiltration ponds were designed to be shallow basins that did not need fencing, had ample space for marginal planting and wildflowers and allowed safe public access.

Semi-natural habitats are an important nectar source for pollinators in an arable landscape. Again this defined another scheme design aim, which was to incorporate species-rich grassland along the NDR corridor, replicating the headlands and field margins which provided diversity in the arable fields prior to construction. As well as providing

nectar and pollen, the meadows sequester carbon, increase deposition of sediment in surface water run-off and are habitats for wildlife.

The InVEST Ecosystem services assessment undertaken for the NDR used data sets that had been used for the environmental impact assessment. It did not look at tranquillity or sense of place, but did have an aesthetic model as a proxy for the ecosystem service and used simple ZTV modelling based on digital terrain modelling to understand whether the scheme was visible or not.

The output was qualitative as was the biodiversity model. The other services relating to agriculture, carbon, sediment, and water were quantitative.

Roadside planting of verges can provide multiple benefits including visually pleasing and interesting environments, soil stabilisation (with the benefits of sediment retention and reduced gully maintenance), flood alleviation, nectar for pollinating insects and foraging for birds.

A number of lessons were learned. We found that the changes in ecosystem services supply, due to the introduction of a major road with associated green infrastructure, were dominated by the loss of the provisioning service of agricultural production 3 – The River Wensum, further upstream from the city of Norwich, is in a Special Area for Conservation. The river habitat is protected from sediment in run-off from the NDR by a three-stage infiltration process.

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4 – NDR mapped existing land cover and proposed land cover utilising available data sets.

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in exchange for the supply of other ecosystem services through the introduction of woodland, scrubland and grassland. These changes varied however not only because of the new land uses and ecosystem service types, but also because of the initial land use and the temporal dimension defined by the time lag between the intervention to the landscape and time of assessment.

References J. Zawadzka and R. Corstanje: Ecosystem Goods and Services Assessment for the NDR Development. 2013. In The Norfolk County Council (Norwich Northern Distributor Road (A1067 to A47(T))) Order: Environmental Statement, Volume 2. Mott MacDonald, 2014, Chap. 13

When compared with the traditional environmental impact assessment, the ecosystem services approach made it possible to appraise both the positive and negative impacts of the development. This offers the opportunity to look at a trade-off, for example, between food production, loss of arable land, and carbon and biodiversity.

This ability to factor monetary valuations into changes to the landscape can be incorporated into cost benefit analyses. Where one is applying for public funding, for example in road schemes or flood defences, this becomes a means of justifying funding, and ensuring landscape design principles are central to the process.

In contrast to an EIA, the ecosystems services approach generated a low-volume and compact report, which could model alternative options to

inform the decision-making process. Additionally, the modelling could be customised to generate a desired target output.

Linking the GIS based InVEST Model to visualisation software produces a powerful combination tool that can not only assess the land use changes, but can also very quickly and efficiently produce a graphic image of how they will look. This enables rapid design iterations hand-in-hand with the assessment process.

Landscape architects could lead a collaborative effort to identify a site’s ecosystem service potential and develop creative design strategies with measurable outcomes. But to do this we need to develop an understanding of soils sciences, geomorphology, water resources and ecology as well as promoting a collaborative working ethic across discipline boundaries.

Collette Patterson and Jo Morrison are landscape architects with Mott MacDonald; Jacqueline Fookes is an environmental scientist with Mott MacDonald. This is a shortened version of a paper that they presented at the Landscape Institute’s annual conference. You can see a full version on the journal website.

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Feature

Look back in play Uncovering a stash of unseen photographs took the author back to her childhood and forward to a meditation on the importance of spaces for play.

BY MAISIE ROWE

1, 2 – Play at Camden Hill Square © Abdul Chowdry

describing landscape as a place in space and childhood as a place in time, might we begin to understand how the two connect?

Do we know what is really happening when children touch a landscape with the tips of their fingers and the soles of their feet? And is such an understanding of any use to us, makers of designed landscapes?

BY

I have been engaging with such questions for two decades, motivated by an unusually vivid, almost synaesthetic, memory for the places I experienced as a child. One of these was the Camden Square Community Playcentre in north-west London, where my brother and I played with our friends when I was around nine and ten years old. Known as ‘the Square’, the play centre was a staffed playground run by Camden Council that existed between approximately 1972 and 1987.

I had tried and failed to find any trace of the play centre until Abdul Chowdry, a former play leader, handed me a scruffy folder containing the negatives of photographs he had taken at the Square in 1978 and 79 and developed in a darkroom in the Square’s shipping-container hut. Most of these 800 pictures had never been printed but, when I began scanning and archiving them, their artistic strength and emotional appeal was conspicuous. These pictures could take their place in the English school of social documentary photography. Curiously, they came to light just as the work of Roger Mayne and Shirley Baker, exponents of that tradition, began to attract renewed attention.

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It was mesmerising to compare my mental scrapbook of memories with photographic evidence of the real thing. As the lost playground came alive once more, something was given back to me.

I learned to trust my fragmentary memories. They were not hallucinations or dreams. This place, which belonged to children, had existed.

Piecing together the playground’s history, I found that the land had an enduring association with play and leisure that exemplified the way in which certain activities can be enduringly imprinted within the landscape. Incorporated into communal gardens when the Square was built in the 1850s, the site had been paved for tennis courts in the 1880s, before becoming a recognisable playground in the 1950s.

The playground supervisor’s hut had a moment of fame in 1970, when it appeared with local children on the cover of the album The World of Cat Stevens.

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Feature

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In 1971, in a remarkable demonstration of community support, 943 local people petitioned Camden Council for a play centre. Architects drew up plans for a hut, which was formed of two shipping containers, and an adventure play area, made from reclaimed railway sleepers and telegraph poles.

Children were drawn to the Square by curiosity about what might be happening there that day.

Even though it had initially been built by the council, the Square belonged to us: we were always doing things to it with wood and rope and string and paint or burning bits of it. Abdul remembers going to the British Rug Company for carpet off-cuts that we used ‘for swings and other things’.

There was usually a big fire smouldering away and we played endless games of Bordering, in which four or five children jump onto the swinging rope one by one, before dropping exhausted into the big cargo net. The knot in this rope was a mysterious lumpen object that evolved as things were added into it.

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There were arts and crafts going on; in my diary, my nine year-old self recorded winning a painting competition.

It is common to overlook the predominantly sociable nature of play but, at the Square, our play was all about hanging out – the highs and lows of friendships, conflicts, laughs, romances and drama.

Sharon Sparkes, who played there in the 1970s, says: ‘There were four age groups and we all got on really well. Seldom were there fights or arguments. We always had each other’s back. The older lot looked after the younger lot, like a family’. Abdul’s pictures show older children holding babies or helping toddlers with toileting. ‘It was fun,’ says Abdul.

‘The whole notion of enjoyment was there.’

3, 4 – Children enjoyed great freedom in the Square. © Abdul Chowdry

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Resuscitated memories testified to the forensic quality of children’s attention to the details of their environment and the stories that often attach to these details. For example, there was a mysterious concrete plinth which we lit fires on and incorporated into our play. It turned out to be the plinth of the hut made famous by Cat Stevens which, being made of wood, had inevitably been burnt down.

The playground’s fences told other stories. The main gate was in a very inconvenient location and children were always scrambling over the tall fence to get to the sweet shop, until the day that someone cut through a fence bar and bent it aside to make a little back door for the children. Sharon Sparkes says: ‘There used to be spikes on the fences but Martin Connelly slipped and fell on them, when he was trying to climb the tree in the corner, and caught his armpit so all the spikes got cut off’.

I remember feeling empowered by this kind of child-centred manipulation of the fabric of the

Square. And the little story of the gate remains embedded in the landscape: when the playground reopened in the 1990s, the main entrance had been relocated to the spot where we’d made our hole in the fence.

The Square may have been an urban project but great value was placed on camps and trips to the seaside, a reaction against the city that underscored the relationship with land and landscape that was at the root of the project. Abdul captured images of skinny city kids buried in sand, running wild in the hills and stick-fighting in the forest. It was hard work for the adults, who improvised and made do: rain-drenched children are pictured wearing bin-bags with head and arm-holes cut into them.

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Feature Today, playgrounds are often designed to cosmetically resemble the adventure playgrounds of old, but the world has moved on and although genuine adventure playgrounds can still be found, it is hard to see how a project like the Square could be authentically replicated on a large scale. For one thing, children were given greater freedom and independence; they went to the Square without their parents and came and went as they pleased.

By today’s standards of regulated social relations, the Square had a wonderful informality and lack of boundaries that enabled families to engage in ways that would now be unthinkable. Abdul remembers: ‘I would come on Christmas Day and the number of kids there was phenomenal. Even the parents came in, which was great because they’d bring Christmas dinner to me as well!’ The Square was inseparable from the community: ‘If somebody wanted help with moving something, we’d grab a couple of the youngsters, go across and help them move bits and pieces, or do little things’.

Cool, rebellious and hilariously funny, the Square’s play leaders were different to other adults. Employed

by Camden’s social services department to work with the children, who came from all sorts of backgrounds and situations, their commitment to the children’s lives went beyond play. Abdul says: ‘You worked with them all. You didn’t exclude anybody. We were a stabilizing influence for quite a lot of folk. We could keep them in check.’ In the mornings, Abdul frequently found that children had slept the night in the Square: ‘It was an area they could go to, feel safe. A sanctuary.’ The children’s perception of this landscape as a refuge was invoked by the name they gave to the playground’s highest platform, a good twelve metres from the ground, which they called the Flood Level.

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Being neither voters nor consumers, children are essentially powerless but our generation of Camden children benefitted from a progressive commitment to play, which the council promoted as ‘a child’s form of work’. The Square existed in a bubble of naive optimism and anarchic enthusiasm.

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8 5 – A poster prepared by the children. © Maisie Rowe.

6, 7 – The serious business of fun. © Abdul Chowdry 8 – A wide range of exciting events took place. © Abdul Chowdry

Architecture students and activists were going into the inner cities and starting playgrounds, farms and arts projects, a radical counter-culture which counted children within its constituency. A screenprinted poster made for the Square perfectly captures its inclusive character and the messy and colourful exuberance of its festivals, which were legendary: Abdul’s photographs record donkey rides, steel bands, face painting, candyfloss, sack races and a huge beer tent. Pete Townshend played at festivals and members of Madness often dropped by.

Sadly, I uncovered a deadly reminder that play is a serious business, indeed, a matter of life and death.

If Camden Town gave us fashion and music, Kings Cross brought us drugs and crime. For the area’s youngsters, trouble was never going to be hard to find. It was devastating to learn that at least ten children who played in the Square did not survive their early years. In a community that has known tragedy, the play leaders’ wisdom and compassion are remembered to this day. Sharon Sparkes says: ‘The play leaders had such a big influence on us, as we grew older. Even those that went astray. They tried their best.’

These anecdotes and memories attest repeatedly to the significance of landscape to the condition of childhood, to the intimacy with which children interact with landscape in the guise of play. Beach, park, garden, playground, forest. Climbing, hiding, seeking, sandcastles, dens, mud, fires, sticks, swimming, running. Beyond the confines of the internet, very little play is possible without some kind of engagement with the landscape outside your skin. If we are talking about landscape as infrastructure, we would do well to frame landscape itself as part of the infrastructure of childhood.

It is problematic how little this is talked about within the profession.

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However, one special corner of this discussion belongs to landscape architecture: the story of the adventure play movement, which originated in Denmark during World War Two when the landscape architect, C. Theodor Sorensen, watched children playing on bombsites and derelict land and noted the intensity and creativity with which they immersed themselves in outdoor play. At Emdrup, Sorensen created the first junk playground or skrammellegeplad, which was filled with junk: ‘wood, rope, canvas, tyres, wire, bricks, pipes, rocks, nets, logs, balls, abandoned furniture, wheels, vehicles, and an unimaginable assortment of other things’, according to Robert Dighton. Sorensen said: ‘It is obvious that the children thrive here and feel well, they unfold and they live.’ What I believe is happening is that such landscapes embody the inner turmoil of the child and, in doing so, give children permission to give expression to this chaotic and disordered emotional landscape.

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In 1948, a second landscape architect, the forthright Lady Allen of Hurtwood, scored double points for the landscape profession by introducing the Danish model to Britain. Lady Allen instinctively grasped the significance of the concept: ‘I was completely swept off my feet... In a flash of understanding I realised that I was looking at something quite new and full of possibilities,’ she said. Displaying a curious attitude to risk assessment, she made it a rallying cry to declare, ‘Better a broken bone than a broken spirit!’

9 – Kings of the castle. © Abdul Chowdry 10, 11 – This was a community in which all ages of children mixed.

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Landscape Autumn 2017 23

Feature Sorensen admitted that his playground looked squalid: ‘Of all the things I have helped to realise, the junk playground is the ugliest; yet for me it is the best and most beautiful of my works.’ How curious that this most significant of contributions to landscape architecture should be a sort of antidesign, produced by child builders, with little aesthetic consideration and minimal involvement of the professionalised adult designer.

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While this article predominantly concerns the minutiae of the child’s relationship with landscape in the guise of play, the discussion is incomplete without locating the child in the context of the city, however briefly. If we are to take this conversation forward, we need to talk about how city-makers blindly privileged the motor car over the child, sacrificed open space to bricks and mortar, and enclosed children within actual and virtual architectures that curtail their ability to spend time connecting with landscapes in the company of other children.

Maisie Rowe is a landscape architect with a particular interest in play.

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12, 13 – The children played in a landscape that they had helped to create. © Abdul Chowdry

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Hardscape supplied a total area of 12,000m2 of Kellen Lavaro mix of 50/200x200/600x80mm Wit, Zwart, Grijs and Rood paving and Kellen Lavaro Wit 701 steps with Crystal Black granite inserts. This was a complex range of Kellen materials used in different patterns together with Kobra granite edgings, Kobra and Poppy granite seating, Kobra granite copings and Royal White granite walling units with internal Crystal Black, Royal White and Cloudy White granites so ultimately the logistics and production processes had to be accurate to ensure materials were delivered on site at the right time.

Landscape Architects: DEP Landscape Architecture, Manchester (Gateway and Adelphi Creative Arts building); Gillespies, Manchester (Public Realm); Aecom, Manchester (hard landscape design and layout). Contractors: BAM Construction, Salford.

For further information on our paving products please visit: www.hardscape.co.uk or telephone: 01204 565 500 26 Landscape Autumn 2017

Feature

Berlin’s garden festivals

When Peter Sheard first visited a garden festival in Berlin, its aim was to provide open space for isolated West Berlin. What is the relevance of this year’s festival in a radically different city?

BY PETER SHEARD 1

Landscape Autumn 2017 27

Feature t he heart of Berlin is the ‘Tiergarten’, a verdant, wooded English landscape park held in great affection by Berliners. All woodland landscapes have deep cultural resonance to Berliners, indeed to most Germans, as symbols of their country’s vitality and continuity. The ‘Tiergarten’ isn’t Berlin’s only wood: almost a fifth of the city is forest. Indeed, the whole municipal area is 44% open space. This is a city that loves its open space and is blessed with plenty. It is also a city with plenty of history, and this too has affected its urban landscape.

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Berlin was infamously divided in two as a consequence of World War Two and the subsequent Cold War. West Berlin remained isolated physically and politically: an outpost of the west in communist East Germany. Meanwhile West Germany’s shattered cities were rising out of the rubble; and in 1951 the first of a series of garden shows (Bedesgartenschau – BUGAs) were adopted to provide new parks. In 1985, after much lobbying, it was Berlin’s turn to have a BUGA to address the city’s unique open-space issues.

I visited this, and had the pleasure of writing about it for the Landscape Institute’s then magazine (Landscape Design: April 1986). Back then the geopolitical backdrop to the BUGA was volatile and pressing: issues of urban dereliction, lack of green space and the resultant social tensions were evident. The city believed that the BUGA would be an environmental vote winner and would reverse deprivation in a neglected district to the east of the city centre. So the park had its work cut out from the beginning. As the city stated in the 1970s ‘it has become clear to us that a new large scale recreation area... could only be achieved through the vehicle of a garden show’. So the BUGA (now the Britzer Garten) was politically motivated: it tapped into significant federal funding; responded to the prevalent ecological movement’s demands for more varied park planning; and addressed the imbalance of parks in a part of Berlin that could best be described as ‘edgy’. The planning was extremely generous (12 years); the design was an impeccably realized English landscape park; and it was all achieved on time and under budget.

At the time I described it as ‘a tranquil retreat from urban monotony’ with its lakes, hills and meadows providing ‘a wild and open feel... of remarkable complexity for a park less than ten years old’.

Fundamentally, it felt like an ‘Arcadia’ in Berlin:

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1 – The water terrace at the original BUGA, seen now in 2017. © Peter Sheard 2 – Aerial view of BUGA in 1985. © Peter Sheard 3 – The stables at BUGA in 1985. © Peter Sheard 4 – The terrace at BUGA, seen in 1985. © Peter Sheard.

5 – The area around the stream at the BUGA site shows the green oasis that has been created in the city. © Peter Sheard 6 – The original lake terrace at BUGA in 1985. © Peter Sheard 7 – The planting on the pergola at BUGA is now well established. © Peter Sheard

a fantasy landscape with hills and streams and trees to compensate for the city’s constrained reality and enforced introspection. Residents spoke to me of Berlin as ‘a big prison’: the BUGA made living in one just that bit better. What was true in 1985 is true now, only more so. It has developed into a mature handsome city park endowed with sturdy woodlands, sweeping meadows covered with wildflowers, and the same sinuous lake now fringed with fetching reed beds. The ‘hard infrastructure’, so evident in 1985, has been mitigated with time; and even some of the park’s pavilions have become enveloped in vegetation. It all hums with insects and birds, and has developed views and prospects which are extremely pleasing and (it has to be said) very English. There are rhododendrons and roses; cafes and curving footpaths; the Britzer Garten speaks volumes about the Germans’ love for this particular style of landscape. But it all felt at odds with the initial aims from 1985 to create a diverse and challenging landscape: the lakes are still only for looking at; no obvious new elements had developed in the park; it was overwhelmingly

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8 8 – The Chinese garden in the Gardens of the World area of the IGA. © Lichtschwarmer

passive; and you had to pay to get in, which is something I find hard to accept in a public park.

This was controversial in 1985 and, to me at least, it is now. Back then many Berliners, and especially the emerging Green Party, felt the BUGA was too exclusive, over maintained, and not nearly ambitious enough. This may still be true, but a park reflects its users and when I visited on a sunny week day, it was packed.

Fast forward then to 2017 and the latest garden festival: what is different and what is the same 30 years later? For a start, Berlin is a capital, not just a reunited city; it is an outward looking, expanding metropolis suffering from the same growing pains as many European cities. In terms of landscape there is the same problem as in 1985: not enough where it is needed, in the suburbs, and the old east. However unlike 1985, the timetable for the IGA (International Garden Festival) did not go to plan and this had a profound effect on the finished park. Initially the IGA site was to be the old Tempelhof airport site ‘as a reference point for sustainable urban development’ according to the city authorities (Senate). The masterplan, the 30 Landscape Autumn 2017

9 – The Christian garden in the Gardens of the World area of the IGA. © Peter Sheard

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Feature budget and the logistics were all in place, but Berliners had other ideas and the entire plan was dropped as too difficult and contentious.

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By September 2012 the Senate had moved the whole, now compressed, IGA to Marzahn-Hellersdorf on the very eastern edge of Berlin, an area defined by one of the largest, communist prefabricated housing developments in Europe with especially poor open space provision. The IGA was to address this problem and extend green policies into the City periphery. However, another factor influenced the choice, and it was a much harder-nosed economic one: the IGA site occupies (indeed expands) an established touristic attraction, namely the ‘Gardens of the World’ (GoW), a sort of horticultural Expo, with a much needed backdrop of established, mature gardens on which the IGA could piggyback. It is not for nothing the IGA was co-funded

by Senate departments for both the environment and economics as a way to justify and achieve such huge expenditure in a city that has described itself as ‘poor but sexy’.

So, after a challenging start, is the finished 100 ha, 130 million Euro IGA a success, and is it indeed sexy? The answer is a bit of both, but to assess that we have to look at the three component parts; the expanded GoW; the wooded Kienberg Hill; and

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10 – Site plan of the IGA showing the distinct areas. © Grun Berlin 11 – The aquatic gardens at the IGA. © Peter Sheard 12 – The Korean garden in Gardens of the World. © Peter Sheard 13 – The English garden in Gardens of the World. © Peter Sheard

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the adjacent Wuhletal Valley, each representing three themes, namely Garden Art, Sustainable Urban Green and a Landscape Strategy for the City respectively, all in their own ways exploring man’s relationship with his environment as custodian, not onlooker.

Firstly, the GoW, which on paper might sound a bit cheesy, but is in reality delightful. More than 20 gardens from five continents are disposed amongst a curvaceous parkland (not unlike the Tiergarten) and all are beautifully realized and maintained. If you are going to have gardens in a garden exhibition, make them permanent and genuine. The Chinese Garden for example, used Chinese materials, designers and workmen in its construction, and became a sort of cultural exchange as well as a piece of garden art. These ‘exhibition-gardens’ in the past were often ephemeral, whereas in Berlin these spaces and pavilions will continue to educate and inspire. New gardens by such designers as Vladimir Djurovic, Zhu Yufan and Tom StuartSmith all showcased gardens as elements of well-being, whilst a new 5000 seater arena provides a vibrant focal point for the district.

Secondly, the Kienberg Hill, which dominates the whole area, will become a wild and wooded area for locals to use. As the Senate expresses it ‘as suburbs become increasingly important... the opportunity to live close to nature is in high demand’. However, this was already the case pre-IGA, and many residents vociferously insisted the exhibition only

14 – The Wolkenhain viewing platform will hover permanently above the woodland. © Frank Sperling 15 – Looking west over the Wuhletal valley from the viewing platform. © Peter Sheard

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16 – The Karl Foerster garden. © Grun Berlin 17 – Historic photo of Kienberg Hill when there were gardens around the blocks of flats.

18 – A footpath leading through the wildflower meadows at Kienberg Hill. © Peter Sheard

had a very light touch when it came to their beloved Kienberg. So the IGA has put in place strategies to manage the wooded landscape, exploit recreational potential (a superb natural bobsleigh track for instance), and establish a dramatic, symbolic folly (the ‘Wolkenhain’) in the form of a cloud-like observation platform which will hover permanently over the woodland, reminding local residents of their park and its relationship with the city.

Meanwhile the third piece of the IGA puzzle, the Wuhletal Valley (effectively a large, natural drainage swale), will be managed to safeguard existing biotopes and habitats to diversify the landscape. The restoration of the water systems together with control of scrubby woodland into the species-rich meadows will make this a valued resource. Indeed, its management will sometimes involve residents, as it did sporadically in the communist era; and will also use endangered breeds of sheep, cattle and horses. The valley snakes between the suburbs for many kilometres and its benefits will be felt over a large area by many people, so in some ways this is the most profound legacy of the IGA. There are other highs (and lows), too numerous to relate here, but a number of personal observations

seem prescient at this stage. The BUGA in 1985 was the first of the German garden festivals I visited; I have seen 10 others since. Their primary value is that they are effective vehicles for change rather than landscape architectural masterpieces: they are safe, solid and dependable. They promote the art and science of landscape architecture; help assemble land and disparate funding streams; and put ‘Green’ at the heart of political decision-making.

Tellingly, their ability to change perception of a place is just as strong now as it was in 1951 when they started. Moreover, they have changed and adapted over the years to address evolving issues and public concerns, which is as it should be; even if to the landscape profession in Germany they are rather predictable and repetitive. To me, Berlin’s IGA did seem a little patchy, disjointed and slightly over-commercialized in places, but I was just a visitor, a tourist. I am not the end-user. If I lived in one of those slab apartment blocks, I would be deliriously grateful that the IGA had bypassed Templehof and landed on my doorstep.

Peter Sheard is a freelance landscape architect, garden designer and writer in London.

The IGA runs until October 2017.

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36 Landscape Autumn 2017

Feature

Putting natural capital into practice Two London boroughs have pioneered the use of Corporate National Capital Accounts and produced some valuable insights 1

BY JON SHEAFF Landscape Autumn 2017 37

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are strange times in the world of parks and green infrastructure. On the one hand, we have witnessed nearly 20 years of unprecedented revival, driven by Lord Rogers’ ‘Towards an Urban Renaissance’ report, the subsequent ‘Green Spaces Better Places’ report and an investment of more than £850 million in the nation’s parks by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The capacity of green infrastructure to deliver a range of positive economic, social and environmental benefits has been well researched and statistically established. The 2014 and 2016 editions of the ‘State of the UK’s Parks’ record that use of parks and access to green infrastructure is rising. This is at a time when the UK’s population is increasing and our parks and green spaces continue to deliver a range of outcomes to meet this level of demand.

But in an austerity economy, funding to sustain the capacity of natural capital to deliver these benefits is under enormous pressure. A current local authority client advised a public meeting earlier this year that if he’d had a budget of £1 to manage green space in 2010, this would have declined to 35p by 2020. The message was clear – despite the council planning for a 48% increase in population over the next 30 years and wrestling with the worst childhood obesity statistics in England, investment in the development and management of natural capital assets would continue to decline.

THESE

‘lends itself to accounting and measurement’ and part of the work undertaken by the Natural Capital Committee has been to develop an accounting framework to capture the economic value of the benefits accruing from natural capital and to model the cost of sustaining these benefits over time (i.e. through the maintenance of these natural capital assets). A number of different initiatives have been developed across the UK to pilot the Corporate Natural Capital Account (CNCA) methodology for a range of asset types, ranging from individual sites to entire asset portfolios. A Corporate Natural Capital Account is being developed for London and work is under way to develop a CNCA methodology for the UK as a whole.

Working in partnership with our environmental economist partners Eftec and Peter Neal Consulting, we have piloted the development of CNCAs for an entire local authority area (the London Borough of Barnet) in a project supported by the Greater

Traditionally, public authorities value their assets in accordance with accountancy rules set out by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA). Until recently, CIPFA has classified parks as community assets with a nominal ‘historical cost’ value (usually of £1). For any given natural capital asset, the cost of sustaining the benefits it delivers has thus always been on the negative side. But we already understand that natural capital assets address the cost to the economy of treating inactivity and the public health consequences of this inactivity. We also understand the vital role that green infrastructure assets play in limiting the impact of extreme weather events (through storing precipitation), in limiting climate change impacts (through the capacity of soils and plants to absorb CO2) and in sustaining complex biodiversity systems and habitats. Yet the value of these benefits to society is not currently accounted for in public authority balance sheets.

Fortunately, as Dieter Helm explained in his essay in the Spring edition of Landscape1, natural capital 38 Landscape Autumn 2017

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1 – Beam Parklands in Barking and Dagenham. © John Sheaff Associates 2, 3 – Natural capital in Barnet (shown here on the Dollis Valley Green Walk) is now accounted for. © Ruth Slavid

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London Authority. A similar account has just been prepared for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. These are the first Corporate Natural Capital Accounts to be commissioned on a borough-wide basis as annexes to strategies for parks and open space. These accounts make a compelling case for continuing to adequately fund the costs of management of green infrastructure but also identify where the greatest returns may be achieved from further investment and enhanced connectivity.

As the GLA’s Peter Massini explains, ‘The GLA is keen to explore how natural capital accounting can provide a robust methodology to help reveal the full value of London’s network of parks and green spaces. Although widely recognised as being vital to the environmental, social and economic health of London and Londoners, we have not, until recently, fully appreciated this network as a green infrastructure. Understood in this context and equipped with a natural capital account, we can make informed decisions about management and investment in green infrastructure. These decisions can be informed by essential economic

insights and equally significant environmental and social considerations.’

Our work to develop CNCAs at the London Borough scale follows the framework for corporate natural capital accounting (CNCA) developed for the Natural Capital Committee. The purpose of the CNCA framework is to help organisations make better decisions about the natural capital assets (or green infrastructure) that they manage. It does this by compiling data and information on the natural capital assets, their benefits and costs of maintaining them into a single accounting structure.

The development of a CNCA is a five-step process and the starting point is the creation of ‘Natural Capital Asset Registers’ for the borough’s greenspace assets, classified by habitat type. The registers include an assessment of the quality of each of these habitat types based on the 2011 UK National Ecosystem Assessment. The quality of each habitat type is assessed against a standard developed for an open spaces strategy quality and value assessment undertaken in parallel.

Landscape Autumn 2017 39

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4 – Diagram showing the process of creating a Natural Capital balance sheet for the London Borough of Barnet. © John Sheaff and Associates

The compiled habitat area and quality data sets are used to develop a ‘Physical Flow Account’ that reports on a basket of annual benefits provided by these assets. −− Recreation (focusing on the number of visits to greenspaces) −− Physical health benefits (using benefits from exercise undertaken outdoors) −− Property value uplift (using the Accessible Natural Greenspace Standard to define a catchment within which capital uplift could be demonstrated) −− Climate regulation (focusing on tonnes of carbon sequestered).

In each case, benefits are assessed with reference to publically available UK datasets in respect of the local authority to produce accounts that reflect the specific characteristics of the study area.

Data on recreation, physical health, property value uplift and climate regulation are ascribed a financial value to create a ‘Monetary Flow Account’.

This valuation reflects HM Treasury and Defra supplementary guidance to the Green Book on valuing environmental impacts and current data on the value of natural capital assets across this range of outcomes. The Monetary Flow Account produces a figure that estimates the total annual value of benefits accruing from natural capital assets measured and the value of these benefits in perpetuity.

As a penultimate stage, a ‘Maintenance Cost Account’ presents the annual cost of maintaining all of the services provided by parks and open spaces and the on-going liability cost of sustaining these benefits into the future.

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5 – Natural Capital balance sheet for 200 open spaces in the London Borough of Barnet. © John Sheaff and Associates 6 – A London Borough of Barnet monetary flow account for 2015-2016. © John Sheaff and Associates

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As a final output, a ‘Natural Capital Balance Sheet’ quantifies the benefits of natural capital assets (under assets) and the cost of maintaining these assets (under liabilities). By capturing the value of the benefits to society of natural capital assets in an accounting framework, this alternative balance sheet presents a very different picture of the value of greenspace when compared with ‘historical cost’ methodology. Benefits in perpetuity will typically outstrip liabilities in perpetuity by a factor of ten or more. Our methodology was specific and selective and care was taken to avoid duplication and double counting across data sets. Other CNCA studies using similar methodologies but based on different data sets produce similar outcomes.

The value of the CNCA process lies in its communication of the true value of the benefits generated by natural capital and green infrastructure.

Much resource is already applied to the management of natural capital (although this is not enough to sustain these benefits over time). The problem is that the deployment of much of this resource is reactive and inefficient. CNCA data can demonstrate the interdependence of capital systems and support better alignment of resources with outcomes.

7 – A field assessment map for the London Borough of Barnet. © John Sheaff and Associates

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Using CNCA data, an integrated and holistic approach to resource management can be developed. The use of green and blue space to store flood water protects local homes and businesses, delivering a range of economic benefits. These same spaces deliver a range of societal benefits including outcomes for health, education, habitat and biodiversity. A more detailed analysis of Beam Parklands in Barking and Dagenham undertaken by Eftec2 indicates it stores 430,000m3 of water with a flood reduction value of £600,000. In addition, the site also delivers £800,000 in educational and health benefits which are all detailed in an overall CNCA balance sheet suggesting an overall site value of £42 million. In this instance, the use of the CNCA helped build a case for establishing an endowment that meets the liability cost of sustaining these outcome values over time. Beam Parklands exemplifies some of the design challenges that the CNCA process presents to landscape architects – how to design for green infrastructure to deliver maximum benefit; how best to physically connect green infrastructure to enhance outcomes; how best to design the interface between green infrastructure and other infrastructural interventions such as major transport corridors that may significantly extend the geographical influence of benefits.

This analysis suggests that the greatest prize is likely to come through health benefits. UK Active estimates that the annual cost to Barnet’s economy of the inactive segment of the borough’s population is more than £17 million. This figure allows for the cost of treating disease and sickness absences from work and equates to £178 per year for every inactive person residing in the borough. The annual value of avoided health costs accruing from encouraging these people to become more active would be more than £19 million.

Translating this into action linking natural capital assets with health initiatives is a challenge which

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the NHS and public health authorities are starting to embrace. Social prescribing is a clinical practice supporting the referral to a range of non-clinical services, including the use of parks, open spaces, food growing and the natural environment. The NHS’ Five Year Forward View (2014) and the General Practice Forward View (2016) both recognise the potential of social prescribing to provide a focus on wellbeing and prevention, to reduce pressure on GP services and the cost of prescription drugs and to deliver a wider range of social objectives around employment, learning and community cohesion.

In Barking and Dagenham we are currently testing the relationship between areas of health deprivation and areas of poor quality green infrastructure provision. Using the borough’s ‘Healthy Towns’ pilot scheme, we aim to translate the value of positive health outcomes described in the CNCA into practical programmes of intervention on the ground that will help to fund the development and maintenance of these benefits over time.

This is not going to be quick win and institutions managing natural capital assets and potential future partners can have deeply embedded, institutionallydefined perceptions of the world we live in. But the real power of the natural capital accounting approach is its fundamentally collaborative and integrated nature. This is an approach that challenges conventional silo-thinking and shows how cross sector working and drawing in the expertise of environmental economists can help to deliver the objectives that we are all working towards – the most effective use of scarce resources to deliver the broadest range of benefits to society.

8 – Natural capital in Barnet (shown here on the Dollis Valley Green Walk) is now accounted for. © Ruth Slavid 9 – A valued asset – Beam Parklands in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. © John Sheaff and Associates

Jon Sheaff is a chartered landscape architectandaDesignCouncilCABEBuilt Environment Expert.

References 1 Dieter Helm: The natural capital revolution: Landscape ; Spring 2017 2 Eftec: Beam Parklands CNCA; 2015

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Landscape Autumn 2017 43

LANDSCAPE DESIGN TRUST SET TO CLOSE. With great regret, Trustees have decided that the Landscape Design Trust (LDT) should close. The Trust was set up in 1985 in collaboration with the Landscape Institute with the purpose of publishing Landscape Design and providing educational services to the profession, at a time when very little technical information was available.

It is a sad time for the Trust but its role has largely been overtaken by the internet. With technical information so freely available publishing journals in the traditional way has become increasingly difficult. A big thank you is due to so many Landscape Institute members who contributed articles to Landscape Design and Green Places as well as the Trust’s many other activities.

LDT has offered the various copyrights it holds to the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) at the University of Reading. MERL already holds the Landscape Institute’s archive and library. The copyrights held by the LDT include that for Landscape Design and its predecessors until 2003, and for Green Places 2003 -11. Issues of these journals from 1986 were published with the copyright assigned to LDT unless specifically indicated otherwise in the article in question. However, should any contributors wish to assert their copyright, or joint copyright, on their articles of any date, would they please register their intention with the LDT Company Secretary, Dr David Jacques (dlj@sugnall.co.uk) by the 31st March 2018.

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44 Landscape Autumn 2017

Technical

By Binyi Liu and Dongxue Wei

Winds of change in Shanghai Research into how design can affect microclimate has led to the gathering of data and then to testing in a live project

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i th the challenge of climate change, one of the most important related issues for human settlements is the outdoor microclimate as it affects human activities. Research on Microclimate Responsive Design Theory and Method of Landscape Architecture in Urban Livable Environment (2014–2018) is the first and only key project supported

by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC in the field of Chinese landscape architecture.

The research focuses on the coupling of three core landscape microclimatic issues, (1) system functions including wind, water and heat; (2) elements and spatial forms; (3) the perception of landscape microclimate which includes theory, method, technology, and case

survey and verification (Fig.1). Based on two climatic zones as Southeast China (hot summer/wet winter wet climate zone) and Northwest China (hot summer/ wet winter dry climate zone), 3 kinds of urban green space (urban square, street and waterfront and residential area) and 9 types within macro scale (5 ha), medium scale (1–5 ha), and micro scale (<1 ha) are used.

Figure 1: Research Strategy – Coupling Between 1, 2 and 3

1 Formative factors of microclimatic function in landscape (accommodation)

2 Spatial factors of microclimatic adaptability in landscape (reconstitution)

3 Physical and psychological evaluation of the landscape microclimatic response (evaluation).

Landscape Autumn 2017 45

Technical

Since January 2014, more than 40 researchers (professors and PhD and postgraduate students) have devoted themselves to this research, conducting around 100 microclimate experimental tests in urban green spaces such as urban squares, streets and waterfronts: covering residential areas on the scale of 1000m2–100000m2 in downtown Shanghai (Figs. 2, and 3).

With three years’ worth of research

now complete, we have learnt the following about localized wind environments: In terms of the formative elements of landscape microclimate at urban squares, the research team obtains wind environment data from different test points on the square from a small meteorological station (Fig. 4, Fig. 5, Fig. 6) to quantify the correlation between the vertical interface of the

square space and wind environment.

The research finds that: (1) the vertical interface in the urban square can effectively reduce the wind speed and stabilize the wind direction; (2) the wind speed at some horizontal direction in the square space may gradually intensify with the increase of distance between such a point and the vertical interface.

In terms of adapting the microclimate by changing the spatial form

Figure 2: Experimental test sites in downtown Shanghai

URBAN SQUARE 1 2 3 4

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KIC Plaza National Anthem Memorial Square Shanghai Century Square Kaiqiao Green Land

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5 The West Coast Greenbelt of Guangfu West on the Riverside of Suzhou River

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6 The Waterfront of No.4 Changfeng Business District in Putuo District

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8 The Southern Waterfront of Suzhou River near Yichang Road in Putuo District

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7 The Southern Waterfront of Suzhou River near Ye Jiazhai Road in Putuo District

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9 The Southern Waterfront of Huangpu River near Binjiang Road in Pudong District

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9 East Jingling Road 10 East Nanjing Road 11 Gubei Golden Road RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT

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Rainbow City Phase 1 Community Expo Garden District Xinlu Garden Huizhihu Garden New Phoenix Town (Fengcheng Road)

Figure 3: Experimental test at Shanghai Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) in July 2014

Figure 4: Experimental test points in Shanghai Century Square

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Vertical interface

Test points

Figure 5: Experimental test points in Shanghai Century Square

Vertical interface Building Tree Shrub

Landscape Autumn 2017 47

Technical

and spatial elements in the urban square, the research addresses the spatial model of Shanghai Century Square by using climate simulation software to further quantify the effect of vertical interfaces of different types on the wind environment at the square space. The research found that when the included angle between the square’s vertical interface and the wind direction is increased gradually, its reduction effect on the wind speed increases gradually at first and then weakens.

When the included angle is 90°, the wind speed reduction effect is the greatest (Fig. 7).

In terms of the urban square microclimatic adaptive physical assessment and perception assessment, the research (based on the actual physical measurement for 21 days in summer, autumn and winter as well as 878 users’ questionnaires) analyzed people’s thermal sensation and thermal preference (Fig. 8) in the square space with sufficient shade. This research found that: (1) in summer, 80% of interviewees prefer a reduction in the air temperature and an increase in wind speed. In both autumn and winter, the majority of people prefer an increased temperature, reduced wind speed and intensified solar

radiation (Fig. 9); (2) in both autumn and winter, the residents’ wind speed preference correlated positively with the air temperature with a correlation of 0.739.

The research also applied the concept and methodology of landscape microclimatic adaptive design to a real urban public space construction project which included landscape, hydrology, urban infrastructure, transportation, bridge, architecture and urban planning.

Called the Cultural Landscape Planning and Design project of the Sino-Arab Axis in Yinchuan, Ningxia Province, the project covers 280ha. Its chief designer was Binyi Liu and the construction cost was 0.3 billion RMB (approximately £34,600,000). The research is using this live project as a case study and experiment. In March, 2016, with microclimatic data collected by experimental tests during late winter, the research team found that the north wind was dominant on the site, with an average of force 2 on the Beaufort Wind Scale, and a fastest gust of force 3.

The maximum wind speed in winter is the crucial issue in planning and design. In terms of landscape climatic adaptive design intelligence in classic Chinese landscape gardening,

WIND SPEED (m/s)

Fig. 6. Wind speed statistics at the test points, 14-5-15

TIME Test point 14 Test point 15 Test point 16

48 Landscape Autumn 2017

one takes advantage of gardening elements such as landscape topography and garden walls to facilitate ventilation by the south wind and to block the north wind (Fig. 11, Fig.12.) We used the climatic simulation software to verify the wind blocking and heatraising effect of having landscape walls of varing thicknesses, height and angles. This project is currently under construction and will be completed by 2019. After construction, the research team will conduct experimental tests on the site to analyse on-site climatic variance and improvement before and after construction.

Research on landscape microclimatic response and adaptation in urban open and green space possesses huge potential benefits and research value for human settlement, particularly with the challenge of climate change in the future, and also for promoting and maybe changing the methods and practice of landscape planning and design. The research will also promote the science and rationale behind Chinese landscape architecture. At a more profound level, the research achievements will further enrich the world landscape microclimate adaptive research database and play an important role in global and regional research.

Soft Landscape Workshop

Taking Gardens & Landscapes to a Whole New Level Podium deck planting – the new Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

Wednesday 24 January 2018

Dan Pearson (Photo: Sir Paul Smith)

Bosco Verticale, Milan

King’s Cross, London – Dan Pearson

Tim O’Hare

PLANT A BIG IDEA. WATCH IT CHANGE A CITY. We don’t just want more urban trees – We want them to last.

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Hear from award winning designer Dan Pearson, Laura Gatti planting designer for Bosco Verticale and Tim O’Hare on soil issues with podium landscapes Visit www.palmstead.co.uk/events for full details and to book online Tickets are £39 (inc. VAT), which includes buffet lunch and a stimulating exhibition from a range of selected suppliers

“Excellent value & CPD”

Landscape Autumn 2017 49

Technical

Figure 7: Schematic diagram of wind speed simulation results for five different orientations of interfaces

A

B

C

Low wind speed

D

E

High wind speed

Figure 8: Test points at Shanghai Guoge Square 04

15

14 13

d ng Roa

17 12

03 01

02

11

05 06

04 07 08

Huoshan Road

a Changy

16

07

09 10

Dalian Road

Figure 9: Voting proportion of wind speed preference in summer, autumn and winter

PROPORTIONS OF VOTES FOR VARIATIONS IN WIND SPEED

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 Increased Unchanged Decreased

10 0 Summer

Autumn SEASON

50 Landscape Autumn 2017

Winter

Figure 10: Master plan and aerial view of Sino-Arab Axis

Figure 11: Master plan of classical Chinese garden

Experimental point Micro-landform Landscape wall Pavilion

Figure 12: Microclimate analysis chart in two seasons on experimental point 2

Wind Sunlight Tree Landscape wall Suitable for hot season

(All figures and diagrams produced by Binyi Liuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research team).

Binyi Liu, Ph.D. and Professor, Correspondent author, Chairman of landscape architecture discipline and profession Committee, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University; Convener of Landscape Architecture Discipline Review Group of the Academy Committee of State Council,

Suitable for cold season

China; Deputy Director of Education Committee of Professional Bachelor Degree of Landscape Architecture, China;member of urban design expert committee of Department of Construction of China; member of landscape architecture expert committee of Department of Construction of China;Vice President of Shanghai Landscape Architecture Society (Shanghai 200092) Email: byltjulk@vip.sina.com

Resting area

Dongxue Wei, Landscape architecture PhD candidate at Department of Landscape Studies Tongji University. (Shanghai 200092)

Landscape Autumn 2017 51

UK partner of

zumtobel group

Material expressions When light blends together with an essential and innovative design, a unique sense of elegance arises with a strong emotional impact. Simple shapes and primitive geometries characterize the range “Tailored”

by Matteo Thun, from the creative collaboration between Simes and the prestigious italian architect and designer. A perfect balance between sustainable and diverse mat rial expressions: the range was developed using a co bination of wood teak that conveys a warm effect and the minimalist lines of aluminium, new finishes specifically dedicated to improve the quality of the lighting performance. Natural elegance and lighting poetry that dress with charm the environments with an unmistakable style.

“Tailored” by Matteo Thun

Wood

52 Landscape Autumn 2017

by

SIMES S.p.A. Via G. Pastore, 2/4 - 25040 Corte Franca (BS) www.simes.com Stephen.creagh@zumtobelgroup.com - or -landscape@zumtobelgroup.com David Warburton - Country Manager UK

Technical This article has been prepared by Hardscape with assistance from AECOM and Gillespies.

Paving the way for student life The paving at Salford University’s Peel Park Quarter draws on historic precedents to create a vibrant, contemporary design that was not without challenges.

S

a lford University’s Peel Park Quarter is an £81 million development, combining student accommodation with cutting-edge university facilities that are linked together by an extensive public realm scheme. The development marries the new university gateway and the Adelphi Creative Arts Building with a public space designed to create an eyecatching destination throughout the residential part of the campus.

The campus has a rich history, with Peel Park being one of Britain’s earliest examples of an urban public park. Salford was also home to one of the founding fathers of communism, Friedrich Engels, in the 19th Century

and the new campus pays homage to this with a fibre glass statue of him as a focal point.

The hard landscape and layout were designed by the landscape architect and project masterplanning consultant, Aecom Manchester which took inspiration from the design aesthetics of Amsterdam Science University (to which Hardscape also arranged a visit), a campus university much like Salford.

Simon Dowse of AECOM writes: ‘AECOM was commissioned by the University of Salford as part of a multi-disciplinary team to develop designs for the campus public realm in association with a major new arts

building and improvements in connectivity and linkages across the campus, which was identified in the University’s masterplan.

‘Our vision for the university involved adopting a holistic design approach for the public realm and the creation of a new pedestrian spine running through the campus, including a series of squares and plazas to act as performance spaces, outdoor lecture theatres or quieter meeting places. ‘Links were also provided to the adjacent Peel Park to provide improved access for both students and the local community to use both facilities.

‘The university wanted to create a modern-looking campus in a drive to

1 – The paving ties the buildings and landscape together © Adrian Lambert

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2 – The colour palette was selected in conjunction with natural stone products. © Hardscape

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attract more students and provide a vibrant, functional and flexible setting for new buildings, including the integration of student accommodation on site to provide greater use and animation of the campus. High on the university’s agenda is the creation of a safe place to learn, work and live and doing so in a sustainable manner. We thoroughly examined a range of paving products and situations to understand manufacturing, application and maintenance implications. A visit to Holland with the client to look at concrete paving products that are manufactured from recycled materials and subsequent visit to a university campus and discussions with their estates team, led us to specify the Kellen product. Other benefits included the range of colours, sizes, and ability to lift and relay when undertaking utility repairs or additions as the campus grows.

‘The colour palette was selected in conjunction with natural stone products.

We elected to use natural pink granite for walls and copings to create raised lawns, which successfully integrated 54 Landscape Autumn 2017

existing mature trees and their root zones at the edge of the spine into the design.

‘We worked in conjunction with the architect, Stride Treglown, in the design of the building interface, creating an outdoor performance space that would relate to the indoor space on the lower ground floor of the building. Significant level change allowed a small amphitheatre to be created which had the dual function of providing an outdoor performance space as well as an informal space for sitting on a range of different sized steps and colours: inspired by the distinctive design of Keller Fountain Park, Portland, by Lawrence Halprin.

The colour and size range enabled the product to be taken inside the arts building to provide a visual and physical connection, enhanced with the use of floor to ceiling structural glazing.

‘The paving was designed to allow for over-the-edge drainage into planting beds to reduce the amount of positive drainage that would end up in the adjacent river Irwell, often prone to

flooding the university’s sports pitches.

Upstands were also excluded to reduce trip hazards and avoid potential damage from maintenance machinery.

‘The design was subsequently detailed by DEP, as AECOM remained client side to lead on compliance, overseeing and reviewing the construction on site.’

Hardscape was presented with the challenge of providing material inspiration that fulfilled Aecom’s brief of a modern, vibrant area to connect the buildings and student housing, whilst also paying tribute to the heritage of the area. Design detailing, construction execution and site supervision was carried out by DEP Landscape for the Arts Building phase and by Gillespies for the student housing phase. Gillespies explained its role: ‘Gillespies, on behalf of a consortium led by Graham Investments, has designed a new “parkland” setting for Peel Park Quarter, a 2,050-unit student residential development at the University of Salford’s main campus adjoining the historic Peel Park.

3 – The large slabs of the amphitheatre presented a technical challenge. © Hardscape 4 – Hardscape also made the purpose-designed furniture. © Hardscape

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‘Planned to be delivered over two phases, the Sheppard Robson-designed development incorporates social spaces including a cinema, fitness suite and games room, along with a high quality public realm by Gillespies.’

‘Working within an approved masterplan, Gillespies’ design provides a series of high quality pedestrian connections and green open spaces that respond to the arrangement of the built form and how the open spaces will be accessed between the residential buildings. The balance between hard and soft landscaping helps to seamlessly connect the new campus with the adjacent Peel Park; one of the first public parks to be opened in the UK. ‘Two podium deck courtyards, formed by the arrangement of the blocks, offer students a safe, open environment in which they can meet, relax and socialise that have a different look and “feel” from surrounding areas.

The use of artificial grass provides year-round accessible use, as well as shade-tolerant planting to cope with the shadows formed by the tall buildings. Pergola structures were also introduced to define the spill out areas from the community rooms, as well as offering students an increased sense of privacy. Recycled plastic decking was introduced to highlight entrance points into the courtyards and refuse recycling bins connect directly to the service yard below.’

‘The technical design was constrained by a level of basement parking partially set into the ground, which responded to the University’s requirements for parking. The minimised depth of construction over the underground parking resulted in the introduction of timber planters containing shrubs and trees to add height, colour and structure.

‘Intuitive movement has been at the core of the public realm design.

The Broadwalk is a wide public realm connecting the new student village blocks to the Gateway Project. The striking geometry of this new intervention, along with its irregular edges that provide random pockets for new planting and informal seating, Landscape Autumn 2017 55

Technical

encourages chance encounters and knowledge sharing, transforming this space into more than just a connecting path. The elevated position affords views across Peel Park and towards the River Irwell. The Broadwalk uses a random three colour mix of Hardscape’s Kellen paving to form a vibrant, social space that corresponds with the palette of the wider masterplan.

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‘The scheme uses a palette of brickwork, natural metal, timber and stone that is sympathetic to its parkland setting. Outside the student village, the client wanted an open feel and to minimise the use of intrusive security fences while providing a deterrent to unauthorised vehicular access. In response to this a modern ha-ha was created along the northern boundary

of the historic Peel Park filled with biodiverse species. External lighting further enhances the vibrancy of the area at night.

‘The design has received BREEAM Excellent, incorporating a CHP system, greywater recycling, PV panels and secure bike parking.’

The client team wanted materials that were rich in texture and colour to reflect the historic roots of the area, and could offer variable unit sizes to provide clear areas of direction and function. Kellen paving and steps offered this choice whilst complementing the futuristic fibre sculpture.

Kellen Lavaro was used as paving for walkways in a striking pattern with a combination of light and dark grey blends, alongside rich, dark red blends injecting colour into the scheme, not only to instill a memorable identity for the university, but to encourage natural movement across the campus. Kellen Lavaro paving was used in many sizes, taking advantage of the product ranges, with 60–70 different sizes available.

The design team also chose to incorporate Kellen material as wall cladding to the futuristic new Adelphi Creative Arts building, giving the illusion of the striking pattern continuing to flow up the wall. This also shows why the chosen material had to have architectural and functional flexibility and the correct technical attributes.

Hardscape supplied a total of 14,000m2 of paving, walling units, copings and bespoke benches. All of the outdoor furniture, designed by Aecom, was detailed and produced

by Hardscape. These pieces helped maintain the visual identity of the campus by using similar blends to the paving, with light and dark grey granite benches. The grey blend of granite used for the benches provided a neutral base with elements that catch the light and sparkle in the sun. The Gateway building architect Stride Treglown of Manchester wanted the material colour and pattern to flow into the building.

Granite was also recommended by Hardscape for the internal paving stairs due to its durability and easy maintenance, which are crucial for indoor areas, in a similar striking

5 – The paving design continued inside. © Hardscape 6 – Seating around the trees punctuates the horizontal surface. © Hardscape

7 – The sculpture of Engels’ beard occupies a substantial position. © Hardscape 8 – Peel Park provides a new place for the surrounding neighbourhood as well as for students. © Adrian Lambert

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pattern to the Kellen outside in order to maintain the vibrant atmosphere.

A striking amphitheatre was also created to encourage passers-by to sit, pause and relax amidst the hustle and bustle of university life and for use as external ‘theatre’ production space.

It consists of 1.5m x 2m x 1m blocks of granite which Hardscape recessed into the paving, a task that was made difficult due to the blocks’ immense size. Hardscape not only advised on

the manufacturing of the large pieces, but also the detailed production schedules and the logistics of construction. It also suggested suitable types and colour, maintaining the same grey tones in the paving and rich dark red as a striking motif.

There were a number of logistical challenges in carrying out such a sizeable project. Production processes had to be scheduled carefully to ensure that the huge range of materials was ready to be delivered to site at the right time. Last minute changes to detailing also had to be managed by providing on-site stone masonry in large volumes which all had to be approved by the client. Hardscape’s flexibility, knowledge of design and specification, not only of the materials but also of the design and intentions, helped to shape the project into what it is now.

Managing director of Hardscape,

Mathew Haslam, said, ‘This was a really exciting project to work on involving multiple materials and several logistical considerations. It was great working alongside Graham Construction, BAM Construction and their subcontract teams. Our materials knowledge was used to its optimum to create the fun and functional space for students and passers-by to enjoy that reflects the interesting history of Salford whilst also complementing the innovative modern buildings.’

The scheme has created an attractive hub where students can live and learn as well as being enjoyed by members of the public passing through Peel Park. This demonstrates the role paving, and innovative uses of materials, can play in creating multifunctional public spaces that offer something for everyone to enjoy.

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Landscape Autumn 2017 57

Telephone: 0800 612 2083

Email:

mail@sureset.co.uk

Awards 23 November 2017

Simon Reeve 2016 host

Š Robert Taylor

Dame Fiona Reynolds 2015 host Š Karen Hatch Photography

Š Robert Taylor

The Brewery, Chiswell Street EC1Y 4SD Drinks reception at 11:30am, 12.30pm lunch, and presentation of Awards from 2pm Cost: ÂŁ150 plus VAT per place and ÂŁ1,350 plus VAT for a table of ten

58 Landscape Autumn 2017

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Practice

By Jessica Cargill Thompson

Making a difference in South America Kris Tompkins, of Tompkins Conservation, has done what few would dream of, in creating massive new national parks in Chile.

How did she do it?

1 – Kristina Tompkins in the wilderness she loves so much and has done so much to preserve. © Tompkins Conservation

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n 15 March 2017 this year, the president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, travelled to a remote mountainside in Pumalín Park nature reserve, Chile, to sign a historic pledge expanding the country’s national parkland by 11 million acres, a momentous show of support for conservation of and public access to some of the most stunning natural landscapes on the planet.

Put into context, this is three times the size of Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks combined. It will eventually lead to the creation of five new national parks across Chile and

Argentina, and a ‘route of parks’ running 1,500 miles down through Patagonia, from Puerto Montt (in the lake district of Southern Chile) to Cape Horn. This is expected to generate US$270 million through ecotourism and employ up to 43,000 people.

The driving force behind this event, and a cosignatory of the pledge, was conservationist Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, the dynamic director of international conservation group Tompkins Conservation: custodians of more than 3.4 million acres of wetlands, grasslands, forest, agricultural land, mountains and coast across Chile,

Argentina and the USA. Indeed, part of the pledge saw Tompkins Conservation donating 1.3 million acres of its own conservation lands to the national parks network, and becoming one of the key partners in a new Friends of National Parks foundation.

For Kris, this has been a 25 year labour of love; alongside her late husband Doug Tompkins, she has worked tirelessly and passionately to help reverse the impact of human activity in Argentina and Chile (forestry, mining, hydro dams, and industrial aquaculture). Both traded in top-level Landscape Autumn 2017 59

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2 – San Lorenzo, Patagonia’s second highest peak, is visible from Estancia El Rincón, the 37,500-acre that Kris and Doug Tompkins donated to Chile’s national parks system. © Tompkins Conservation

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retail careers (Doug was the founder of The North Face and Esprit; Kris is the former CEO of sustainable outdoor clothing brand Patagonia) to build up a portfolio of national parks, promoting carefully managed biodiversity. In 1990, Doug began accumulating land that would grow to become 800,000 acre Pumalín Park: in 1997 purchasing a farm in the Iberá wetlands, northeastern Argentina, that would grow into a a second. And in 2000, Kris founded the Patagonia Land Trust (now Conservacion Patagonica), leading to the creation of Monté Leon National Park.

The couple’s conservation work has meant delicately balancing land restoration and the reintroduction of species, with the area’s use by the local population and its appreciation by visitors (more than 2.7 million in 2015).

Work has included improvements to roadsides, accepting the need for roads but attempting to minimise their impact; the creation of scenic highways promoting widespread appreciation of the landscape; 60 Landscape Autumn 2017

reintroduction of species; making agrarian landscapes aesthetically pleasing; engaging local communities.

Following Doug’s untimely death after a kayaking accident in December 2015. Kris has carried on the work, campaigning around the world, meeting with the presidents of both Argentina and Chile to engage them in the need to promote national parks, and recently starting the foundation’s first projects in marine protected areas in Argentina. She’s been called ‘one of the most important wilderness protectors of our day whose work and intellect influence the global conservation field’ by The Garden Club of America (GCA) who awarded her its Cynthia Pratt Laughlin Medal for outstanding achievement in March 2017.

At one of the foundation’s remote projects, we asked her to tell us more about the role of national parks globally, reversing human impact, the importance of aesthetics, and the delicate balancing act of conserving and living in the landscape.

You talk in the intro to your book ‘25’ (celebrating a quarter century of Tompkins’ work) about the benefits of wilderness and the problems of humans trying to over-domesticate and over-humanise landscapes. How do you manage these wild spaces without over managing them?

By institutionalising the protection of a place, in our case creating national parks, you provide the greatest possibility of long-term success of natural and human communities. This doesn’t guarantee it, but it has proven to be the most consistent and successful conservation strategy around the world.

If you look at the impacts of tourism versus the impacts of other industries, I would have to roll the dice on tourism in terms of the net impact.

I also think that tourism is a way for communities to retain their identity and cultural practices, like ranching, but also develop economic models that keep their children there. Tourism provides another economic option for them. We want people to get out and fall in love with these landscapes,

3, 4 – Pumalín Park is one of the largest and most diverse conservation projects in South America. © Tompkins Conservation

because you will not protect something unless you love it. Industrial tourism, though, is rapacious in many places. It is, as you put it, a delicate balancing act.

When rewilding an area, is there a particular era that you are taking it back to, given that new species of flora and fauna, and new landscape forms, continue to evolve or be created?

How do you decide what to keep and what to change?

In most cases we are not aiming to restore the landscape to a certain era, rather we are supporting the populations of those endemic species that still exist. The goal in each park is restore, monitor, and protect as many endemic species as possible.

Our biggest and boldest projects now involve reintroducing animals, a form of ‘rewilding’ – for example, at our project in Iberá Park in northern Argentina, we are working on a massive project to reintroduce the jaguar, which hasn’t been seen in the province in 75 years. Before starting

3

this project, we of course had to be sure that the landscape could again support a population of jaguars.

We think it should be common practice for national parks all over the

world to protect complete ecosystems with as many endemic species as possible. All we can do is try to reverse the damage done by humans, then let nature take its course.

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5, 6 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Laguna Blanca farm, before and after the Tompkins transformed it from industrial monoculture to organic polyculture. Š Tompkins Conservation

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7 – A dramatic feature in Pumalin Park. © Tompkins Conservation

You have lobbied long and hard – and successfully – for the creation of new national parks. What are the benefits of land being an official national park, as opposed to, say, an independent or private conservation project?

National parks are the gold standard of conservation, providing the longestrunning and most durable mechanism for permanently protecting landscapes.

And there is a sort of democratic nature to them – they belong to everyone. The plan has always been to return these landscapes back to their countries of origin; we cannot manage them forever nor would we want to.

Weaving national parks into national identity is an essential part of our longterm strategy. We are, however, firm believers that private-public partnerships are key to conservation success.

The Chilean Park Service (CONAF) just celebrated its 90th anniversary, and like in the US and most park services around the world, they are in dire need of more funding and resources. This institution of national parks is the best long-term option for wilderness protection, but private individuals have the power to fill in the gaps and elevate these protected areas into world-class park systems.

What role does landscape architecture play in your work?

My husband Doug was the visionary behind the landscape architecture at all of our family farms as well as the parks.

He had an exceptional eye for beauty, the grace and the curves of a landscape, alongside his commitment and love for beautiful, organic food. His eye for detail is apparent in every building and every garden – every fence and road sign. We are especially proud of Laguna Blanca (NE Argentina). The beauty of this particular farm has worked to bring attention to agroecological thinking and the importance and viability of ecological agriculture.

The power of beauty was something Doug understood better than all of us, and it continues to be a driver in all of our projects today.

Beautifully done architecture and landscape architecture work to inspire value in a landscape that may not have

7

been recognised before. Architecture has the power to connect people to a place they otherwise would have overlooked. Doug’s vision for the lodges, cabañas, and hosterias at our various projects, as well as the landscaping around them, was to harmoniously blend them with their surrounding park. Because people must experience these parks in order to ensure long-term protection, landscape architecture and standard architecture has and will continue to play a role in how we interact with, and therefore protect, these wild places.

So, can human intervention sometimes improve landscape?

Personally, I think it is very tough to improve on original natural landscapes,

I can’t think of one example of this.

Minimising impact is essential.

Agriculture uses nearly half of terrestrial land suitable for production and, by and large, the system is toxic, erosion is rarely managed to maintain top soil, and mono-cropping is not healthy for nature.

How would you like to see Tompkins Conservation’s work feeding in to other international conservation projects? Are there any areas around the world that you are aware of that would benefit from being national parks?

Right now in the US we are in the middle of the fight for our lives to protect our national parks and monuments from an administration Landscape Autumn 2017 63

Practice

that is hell-bent on destroying them for short-term gains. Never before have we seen such a direct threat to public lands. Parks that are national monuments or reserves have fewer protections than national parks and so are in more danger. The US government should be looking to countries like Chile and Argentina and taking note of the action they are taking to protecting their natural heritage. Just this spring China announced plans to create a new national park to protect some of the last Amur leopards and Siberian tigers, both of which are dangerously close to extinction.

I recently heard the sad news that Poland is about to lose its last remaining primeval forest, Białowieża National Park, due to over logging and skirting national parks regulations. It’s the last primeval forest in Europe, which in itself is incredibly devastating. Once those are gone, no amount of money or energy can bring them back.

Your South American parks and projects makes the UK’s national parks seem so small, but do you have any advice for those managing or

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64 Landscape Autumn 2017

8 – There is fantastically diverse wildlife in Pumalín Park. © Tompkins Conservation 9 – Another aspect of the diverse topography of Pumalin Park. © Tompkins Conservation

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seeking to create national parks here?

We are at an advantage in Chile and Argentina because it is possible to purchase large tracts of largely wild landscape, which is a much more rare opportunity in Europe, but conservation is absolutely possible at a smaller scale. We had the opportunity of a lifetime to work on one of the largest grassland restoration projects in history, but you don’t have to protect

700,000-acres, you can protect 10, or five, and still make an impact. We just hope more people start taking action to protect every remaining piece of wild nature.

Find out more about Tompkins Conservation’s work or visit some of the national parks: tompkinsconservation.org

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Landscape Autumn 2017 65

On my mind

Delivering a resilient world

BY MERRICK DENTON-THOMPSON landscape profession occupies a unique place, positioned as we are between people and natural systems – we are committed to the sustainable management of irreplaceable resources as well as being transformers for the benefit of both. ‘Landscape as Infrastructure’ – the topic of this year’s Landscape Institute conference – boldly positioned landscape as the premier asset from which all of society can benefit. Our profession can demonstrate real financial returns from investing in landscape infrastructure across any country, securing strong economic performance, increasing capital values and making savings to the public purse by transforming the future health and wellbeing of the whole of society.

We also intend to be at the forefront of challenging weaknesses in governance and legislative mechanisms, championing for instance the need to pursue ‘homes’ not ‘housing’, to modernise Green Belt legislation and to address the misalignment of public investment with the management plans of protected landscapes. We will take the lead in developing a new approach to landscape-led local plans, at the same time empowering local communities to drive the transformation of local landscapes. We are concerned about the state of childhood and we can use our professional experience and expertise to transform the lives of young people and improve their life chances and their health. We also have the necessary skills to meet many of the needs of the elderly, of those suffering from dementia and a range of other ailments. We are specialists in micro-climate manipulation and can build resilience into the landscape in preparation for unquantifiable climatic events. We saw this from landscape professionals spanning the globe from UK to the Middle East and China.

The challenge set by the conference is to build the business case for the full range of desired outcomes within the framework set by the Natural Capital Committee here in the UK. At the same time real values need to be attributed to the basic elements of

THE

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Merrick Denton-Thompson is president of the Landscape Institute

© Robert Taylor

life, of clean water, clean air, restored soils and secure, sustainably produced food. However, the committee’s approach will only stand a chance if the accounting is audited by the Treasury and budgets are rebuilt from the base. Zero-based budgeting has rarely been achieved but that is the vehicle for refocussing the much needed, substantial, investment in the landscape!

We can be certain of one thing – the ever increasing pressure put on our living conditions and natural systems will require us to play an increasingly important part in problem solving. This is an exciting time for the landscape profession and we need the ideas, innovation and collaboration from a new generation to meet these new challenges.

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