Landscape

Architecture
AN INTRODUCTION
Published in 2014 by
Laurence King Publishing Ltd
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London EC1V 1LR
United Kingdom
email: [email protected]
www.laurenceking.com

© text 2014 Robert Holden & Jamie Liversedge

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording or any information storage and
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Robert Holden and Jamie Liversedge have asserted their right under
the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the
Authors of this Work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978 1 78067 270 0

Design: Michael Lenz, Draught Associates

Senior editor: Peter Jones

Printed in China
Landscape
Architecture
AN INTRODUCTION

Robert Holden & Jamie Liversedge

Contents
Introduction
What is a landscape architect? 13
How this book is structured 17

1. The History of Landscape Architecture

Beginnings 20
The growth of landscape architecture as a profession 24
The growth of the profession in Europe 28
The expansion of the profession worldwide 29
Case study: Painshill Park, Surrey, UK 30
Planning 32
City planning and structural green space 36
Changing styles: from Modernism to Postmodernism and beyond 38
Case study: Emscher Park, Ruhr Valley, Germany 44
Changing priorities: ecology, biodiversity and sustainability 46
Case study: Ijsselmeerpolders, the Netherlands 54

2. Beginning a Project
The brief 58
Types of client 65
Case study: Westergasfabriek Park, Amsterdam 66
Fees: how to get paid 68
Case study: Central Park, New York City 70
Site survey 72
Case study: Thames Barrier Park, London 74

3. The Design Process

Developing a design 78
Case study: Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus 86
The principles of design 88
Case study: Hedeland Arena, Roskilde, Denmark 104
Human flow and natural change 106
Case study: Marketplace and Waterfront, Odda, Norway 108

4. Representing the Landscape Design

Drawing and sketchbooks 112
Case study: School Courtyard, London 116
3D modelling and video 119
Photography 122

4
Digital design 123
Building Information Modelling (BIM) 124
Mapping, air photography, satellite imagery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) 125
Report writing 128
Live presentations 129
Case study: Villa Garden at Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus 130

5. From Design Team to Long-term Landscape Management

The stages of work 134
Case study: London 2012 Olympic Park 136
Multi-disciplinary design teams 138
The programme of work and the design team 140
Costing a project 141
Landscape management 147
Case study: The Parks Trust, Milton Keynes, UK 148
Case study: Dr Jac. P. Thijssepark, Amstelveen, the Netherlands 152

6. Education and Employment

Applying for a university course 156
Internships and jobs 163
Setting up your own business 164
Marketing 165
Case study: Thames Landscape Strategy 166
A note on professional status: the way the profession is seen worldwide 168
Case study: Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, India 170

7. The Future
A changing environment 174
Some challenges 177
Case study: The Dutch National Water Plan 178
Case study: Floating Gardens, Shad Thames, London 182
Case study: Korail, Dhaka, Bangladesh 186
Case study: North Holland coastline, the Netherlands 190
Recycling and everyday practice 192
Final thoughts 194

Glossary 196
Bibliography 199
Index 204
Picture credits 208

5
Introduction
What is a landscape architect? 13
How this book is structured 17

Parc Citroën Cévennes, Paris

7
 A
Few lay people really understand what landscape architecture actually
is: something to do with planting schemes, or with laying out the space
between buildings? Certainly both of those activities are involved, but the
landscape architecture profession is much broader than that. This book
aims to give a comprehensive overview of what landscape architecture
is and some idea of how it may develop over the next 40 or 50 years.
It is addressed in particular to those currently considering entering it
as a profession.

Put simply, landscape architects plan, and hence landscape architecture is

design and manage the landscape. also concerned with urban design.
Landscape architecture is an aesthetically While its origins are in design, certain
based profession founded on an forms of landscape architecture practice
understanding of the landscape. That are planning and management based.
understanding requires knowledge of the In some areas such as parks and
land sciences, geology, soils, hydrology, gardens there can be an overlap
botany, horticulture and ecology, and between garden design and landscape
also of biology, chemistry and physics. architecture. Both of the authors of
this book, for instance, are landscape
Landscape architecture grew out of architects who have designed
garden design, and indeed landscape private gardens. Both, however,
architecture and garden design continue have also been involved in large-scale
to be linked. The critical difference planning projects, have undertaken
between the two is that gardens tend environmental assessment work and
to be enclosed and to be designed have worked on urban design projects.
for the private individual, whereas If landscape architecture grew out
landscape architecture is concerned of landscape gardening and was
with open space, the public realm, and primarily a matter of aesthetics
the relationship between mankind’s in the nineteenth century, in the
development activities and the natural twentieth century it became more
environment. Landscape architecture is ecologically focused. In the twenty-
concerned with the public good, with first century it has developed again,
community values and with human to become increasingly concerned
development and its impact on the with sustainability. It now deals
land. The scale of landscape planning with issues such as climate change
may be regional or even national: and biodiversity – while, of course,
landscape architects can design whole continuing to address visual matters.
new agricultural landscapes and forests. It is an applied art based on
Landscape embraces the townscape scientific understanding.
B

8
THE INTERRELATED SYSTEMS OF LANDSCAPE

S PA C E
TIME
E CO L OGIC AL/
H E A LT H H U MAN/S O CIAL

VISUAL & H Y DRO L OGIC AL/

S PAT I A L N AT U R A L
SE T TING P ROCESSES

C U LT U R A L /
POLITICAL/ N AT U R A L H I STO R Y
R E G U L ATO R Y
I N F R A ST R U C T U R E/
T R A N S P O R T/ U TILITIES
C I R C U L ATO R Y

Landscape architecture dealing with

the public realm:
A. The High Line, New York.
B. The South Bank, London.

Garden design applied to a private development:

C. Aphrodite Hills resort, Cyprus.

Introduction 9
Landscape architects’ clients are
usually community (e.g. central
and local government, charities) or
corporate (e.g. developers). The classic
landscape architecture practice is
a private consultancy, consisting of
either a single person or a larger team.
But landscape architects may also
work in multidisciplinary architectural,
planning, engineering and urban design
consultancies, or for quarrying and
forestry companies. Many are likewise
employed directly on a salaried basis
by central and local government or
by charitable foundations such as the
National Trust or Groundwork Trust
in Britain.

Landscape architects are unlikely to B

Landscape architecture deals with a very
become rich. They tend to be less wide range of projects.
well paid than other development
professionals such as architects, A. Parc Citroën Cévennes, Paris: town park
on old industrial site.
engineers and surveyors, though this
B. Almas Tower, Dubai: Middle-Eastern city design.
situation has begun to change in many
C. Tower Place, London: urban spaces in
countries. In the UK, the Landscape commercial development.
Institute reported that the average salary D. London 2012 Olympic Park: derelict land
for chartered landscape architects in reclamation, major world event and leading
2012 was £41,055 while in the US the to long-term legacy.
Department of Labor figures for 2010 E. Zoetermeer Floriade 1992, the Netherlands:
reported a median annual salary of international exposition.
$62,090 (about the same as in the UK). F. Parc Diderot, Paris: urban neighbourhood park.
G. Barge Gardens, London: affordable,
Both figures are above the national
sustainable urban housing.
average, but landscape architecture
H. The Grand Axe, Paris: city planning.
is not a highly paid profession. I. Highcross Quarter, Leicester, UK: urban design.
J. Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands:
Thanks to television, some chefs and international exposition.
garden designers enjoy high public
profiles. This is not the case with
landscape architects. Nonetheless, A
despite the often large amounts of
administrative work involved, it can still
be a highly rewarding pursuit. After all,
this is a profession that deals with crucial
environmental concerns. Sixty per cent
C
of most towns and cities consist of
streets, yards, gardens and parks,
which together form ‘open space’ –
the province of the landscape architect.
All of the land we live on is the concern
of landscape architects.

10
D E

G H

Introduction 11
A

C D E

F G

A landscape architect needs a technical understanding of construction

and a thorough knowledge of plants.

A. Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam: native wetland planting.

B. More London: rills and use of Kilkenny Blue Limestone laid flexibly.
C. Painshill Park, Surrey, UK: conserved with plants available in the 1740s and ‘50s.
D. Chavasse Park, Liverpool One development, Liverpool, UK: immediate effect
planting for commercial city centre shopping and open space development.
E. Dresden, Gorbitz-Kräutersiedlung, Germany: swales and sustainable drainage
for refitted, system-built housing estate.
F. The Bur Juman Centre, Dubai: interior planting.
G. Rue Faidherbe, Lille: road construction detailing and street furniture design.

12
What is a landscape architect?
The work of a landscape architect is The word landscape – often spelled
twofold: it involves work outside, where ‘landskip’ or ‘lantskip’ – became current
you have to relate to lots of different sorts in English in the seventeenth century. It
of people; but it can also often involve comes from the Dutch landschap and
lots of work in an office, maybe spending was originally a painter’s term, meaning
hours or days at a time in front of a ‘a picture representing inland scenery A. Elegant structural design of
computer screen. To work successfully as distinct from a seascape’. Soon it precast concrete steps.
as a landscape architect, you need: also came to encompass ‘a background B. The Paris office of D. Paysage
of scenery in a portrait’ and then ‘a is typical of many medium-
• to be able to design and therefore prospect of inland scenery’ and then sized landscape architecture
offices (ateliers in French,
to draw; ‘a bird’s-eye view’ (from 1723). Today a
which sounds less corporate
• to be able to write and present a case principal meaning of landscape is ‘an
and indicates the creative
for conserving what is good in an extensive area of land regarded as being design ambition of the
existing site while proposing changes; visually distinct’ (The American Heritage French profession).
• to be able to work with people, and Dictionary of the English Language).
to communicate ideas; According to the European Landscape
A
• a technical understanding of Convention’s definition: ‘“Landscape”
construction, of building materials means an area, as perceived by people,
and how to use and assemble whose character is the result of the
them, and therefore a reasonable action and interaction of natural and/
comprehension of chemistry and or human factors.’ In short, landscape
physics as well as of building industry means land as seen or perceived.
procedures;
• a thorough knowledge of plants and
how to cultivate and manage them;
• an understanding of geology, soils
and geomorphology, or how the land
is formed, and of human, plant and
animal ecology;
• patience; Geoffrey Jellicoe began
work on the Hope Cement Works
and Quarry, Derbyshire, UK, in 1940
and continued advising on it until the
1990s; landscape projects can take
a long time, often years and even
decades;
• financial acumen. You are charged
with spending other people’s money
and must do so responsibly and
accountably. You need to be able to
administer, keep records, and take
part in and often to chair meetings.

Introduction What is a landscape architect? 13

A B C

E F G

A thorough understanding of ecology, horticulture and the use of plants appropriate

to place are fundamental to landscape architecture.

A. Liverpool One development, Liverpool, UK: use of grasses.

B. Hotel Riu Garopa, Sal, Cape Verde: palm trees.
C. Le Jardin des Géants, Lille, France: large grasses in a public park.
D. More London: use of monospecific block planting and box hedges.
E. Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands: herbaceous flower display.
F. Thijsse Park, Amstelveen, the Netherlands: a controlled educational display using
native peat bog plants.
G. Kench Villa Garden, Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus: Mediterranean plants.
H. The Mehdi Garden, Hadlow College, Kent, UK: use of large grasses and autumn colour display.
I. Barcelona Botanic Gardens, Spain: Mediterranean climatic zone plants.

14
Landscape architecture is about site: Given that landscape architecture
without a locus (Latin for ‘place’), originated in the United States, one
landscape architecture has no raison should also look to the description
d’être. The classical idea of the genius offered by the American Society of
loci, or presiding guardian or spirit of a Landscape Architects (ASLA), which was
place, is still central to the practice of founded in 1899: ‘Landscape Architecture
landscape design. A landscape architect encompasses the analysis, planning,
should be able to ‘read’ the landscape design, management, and stewardship
and understand the cultural forces that of the natural and built environment.’
have influenced its formation. The story Stewardship is specified in addition to
of civilization has been one of exploiting management since it suggests a more
the land: forests have been cleared to comprehensive approach, and analysis
create arable farmland and pasture, has been added to the IFLA’s trio of
minerals have been mined, and existing planning, design and management.
land ownership patterns have been This is significant in terms of the growth
reorganized for economic, social and of landscape character assessment in
political reasons. The land is a document the past 20 years.
of such developments.

The metaphor of the palimpsest can

be useful in explaining how to read a
landscape. A palimpsest was a piece of
goat’s hide on which medieval scribes
wrote. When they needed to reuse the LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IS A TRINITY OF
valuable skin, they would scrape away the DESIGN, PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT.
original text with a knife before writing
over the traces. As a result, a palimpsest
would come to hold traces of earlier
layers of writing. This is comparable
to the way many landscapes have
developed. A landscape may contain the
lines of Roman roads crossing prehistoric

P
drovers’ routes and Celtic field systems;

LA
remains of medieval fishponds have
GN

N
N
become ornamental lakes.
SI

IN
G
DE

Definitions of landscape architecture

include the art, science and management
of landscape. The International
Federation of Landscape Architects
(IFLA) definition of 2003 has been LANDSCAPE
lodged with the International Labour ARCHITEC TU RE
Organization as a proposed entry in its
International Standard Classification
of Occupations and reads: ‘Landscape
Architects conduct research and advise
on planning, design and management
of the outdoor environment and spaces,
both within and beyond the built
environment, and its conservation
and sustainability of development.’

MANAG EMEN T

Introduction What is a landscape architect? 15

A

Finally, one should also look at the Institute’s inclusion of landscape A. Thijsse Park, Amstelveen, the Netherlands,
definition offered by the oldest management and science memberships demonstrates an ecological awareness and
professional body in Europe, Germany’s is atypical. In most other countries, represents peatland habitat.
Bund Deutscher Landschaftsarchitekten landscape architects’ professional
(BDLA), founded in 1913. ‘Landscape associations emphasize design and
design expresses the spirit of the time; planning. Nature conservationists may
it is a cultural language and involves both also be included in their number.
the conservation and reinterpretation In some countries the term ‘landscape
of landscapes. Landscape architects architect’ is little used: in Russia, for
combine ecological awareness and instance, landscape architects often
expertise with planning competence; graduate in green engineering while in
they assess and prove the feasibility of France and Spain landscape architects
plans and realize projects. They take are not allowed to use the professionally
creative responsibility for our natural protected word ‘architect’ in their titles
reserves and for the interplay of the and so call themselves paysagistes
environment with our social and built or paisajistas instead. In Germany,
environment.’ The significant point landscape planning is very important
about the BDLA definition is that it refers and many government landscape
to landscape as a cultural construct architects are planners. In the UK, the
(‘a cultural language’) and includes an distinct profession of town planning is
ecological awareness. It also emphasizes well established so there are far fewer
the executive nature of the profession: landscape architects engaged in town
landscape architects ‘realize projects’. and country planning than there are,
This is also explicit in the use of the say, in Germany. In the US, landscape
word ‘architect’ in the BDLA’s own name. architects often undertake plot layouts
But note that the nature of landscape for housing estates or the design of road
architecture varies from country layouts; in some other countries, these
to country and from landscape to tasks would be undertaken by surveyors
landscape. In the UK, the Landscape or civil engineers.

16
How this book is structured
Chapter 1 begins with an introduction Finally, in chapter 7, we end with a
to the scope of landscape architecture, look at future opportunities and roles
looking at its origins and historical for landscape architects.
development, and then focuses on how
it relates to political and economic forces. Thoughout the book case studies
Afterwards we look at the aesthetic and are used to illustrate and give meaning
environmental concerns that landscape to, and provide context for, the main
architecture addresses and outline some points in the text.
of the ideas of ecology and sustainability
that have influenced landscape
architecture in the past half-century.

In chapter 2, we then look at pre-design

work, discuss the definition of the brief,
and review the sorts of clients landscape B. Landscape architecture is a wide-ranging
architects can work for. We briefly discuss profession that is often at the centre of
costs and distinguish capital costs and placemaking. 9/11 Plaza water feature, New York,
management and maintenance costs designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker.
and the revenue needed to pay for
management. This leads to a discussion
B
about fees. Finally, as part of pre-design
work we look at site survey. Knowledge
of site is fundamental to the development
of the brief; it is also fundamental to
landscape architecture.

In chapter 3, there is a description of

design and of the design process and its
basic elements, such as the significance
of site, of inspiration, hierarchy and
human scale, linearity, colour, form
and texture, and human flow, and ideas
of process and change.

Following this, in chapter 4, we discuss

different techniques of presenting
designs such as manual drawing and
digital design, modelling and use of film
and video, and mapping and Building
Information Modelling, Geographic
Information Systems, Zones of
Theoretical Visibility and report
writing and public presentations.

Project coordination and implementation

are discussed in chapter 5, focusing
on the nature of the design team and
introducing the economics of parks and
also long-term management. Here we
go into the capital costs of landscape
projects in some detail.

How to become a landscape architect

is covered in chapter 6. This includes
applying for a university course, obtaining
work experience during education
(internship), getting a job and thoughts
on setting up your own practice.

Introduction How this book is structured 17

1
The History of Landscape
Architecture: Changing
Practices and Concerns
Beginnings 20
The growth of landscape architecture as a profession 24
The growth of the profession in Europe 28
The expansion of the profession worldwide 29
Case study: Painshill Park, Surrey, UK 30
Planning 32
City planning and structural green space 36
Changing styles: from Modernism to Postmodernism and beyond 38
Case study: Emscher Park, Ruhr Valley, Germany 44
Changing priorities: ecology, biodiversity and sustainability 46
Case study: Ijsselmeerpolders, the Netherlands 54

Stowe Gardens, Buckinghamshire, UK. The most

famous eighteenth-century landscape garden in
England. The designers were Charles Bridgeman
and William Kent.

19
The histories of gardens, parks, agriculture and urban settlement are
important to the practice of landscape architecture and design in the
present. Like most art forms, landscape architecture is in constant
dialogue with its past and its origins. To be a good landscape architect,
it’s therefore essential to know about the discipline’s development across
the centuries and changing emphases in professional practice. The focus
is on the history of the landscape architecture profession. History permits
us to see our place in the flow of time, and even to catch a glimpse of the
future. For sure, the future is one of change. This chapter is designed to
serve as an introduction to all of these areas.

Beginnings
Gardening is an ancient activity, which In East Asia, the first gardens that we Each civilization influences and shapes the landscape.
began as soon as man started living in know of developed in China, perhaps A. Fishbourne Roman Palace Gardens, Sussex, England.
towns. The cultivation of plants was with the Shang dynasty (c. 1700–1046 B. Model of the first-century AD Fishbourne Roman
the major step in mankind’s move from BC) and certainly by the time of the Qin Palace; the layout illustrates Roman symmetry.
nomadic hunting and cattle herding to dynasty in 221 BC. The earliest imperial C. The Acropolis, Athens, Greece: Athenian asymmetry.
agricultural settlement, which involved garden is said to have been the Shanglin D. The Nasrid Palaces, Alhambra Palace, Granada,
people living together in larger groups. garden built by the emperor Qin Shi Spain: with commanding site and enclosed
Huang at Xianyang. As in the West, so courtyards and gardens integrated.
Garden design is both a popular activity in China, there were hunting parks,
and an aspect of aristocratic and royal gardens and also merchants’ and
leisured wealth. Mesopotamian culture mandarins’ gardens known as ‘literati’
developed the idea of the park, which gardens. Japanese gardens, which
was to give rise in the Middle Ages to ultimately achieved a huge level of A

both the hunting ground and the royal sophistication developed later from the
park and later, in the nineteenth century, first millennium AD on and were much
to the public municipal park. Egyptian influenced by Chinese examples. The
and Roman civilizations also fostered Japanese also had palace, private and
parks and gardens. In towns, the latter temple gardens.
were courtyards enclosed by houses;
in the countryside they became a series
of enclosed spaces usually organized
as outdoor rooms.

20
C

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Beginnings 21

A

22
A. The castle garden: medieval castle gardens B
contained small plots and flowery meads: this
manuscript illustration of the Garden of Pleasure
shows a lutenist playing, the plots, the flowery
mead or meadow, an elaborate fountain and
a rill, the borders marked by a lattice edge and
fruit trees.
B. Château de Villandry, Loire, France, a 1920s
idealization of a Renaissance garden.

Given the profession’s North American Italy. Ideas derived from Chinese gardens the rubber tree spread from Brazil to
and European origins in nineteenth- such as sharawaggi or studied irregularity Malaysia via Kew Gardens and Indian
century industrialized cities, it is worth also influenced the English landscape tea plants were transplanted to be
looking at how historic example has garden indirectly, just as idealizations of grown in East Africa.
influenced contemporary landscape what Roman gardens might have been
architectural practice at various times. like had an impact on early eighteenth- While landscape gardening and garden
Chinese gardens included the idea of the century landscape gardeners. Later in design have a long history, landscape
borrowed landscape or view of the wider the eighteenth century Indian garden architecture is a relatively recent
world as part of the composed pictures motifs were introduced to the West. profession. It is also a profession
they offered. The medieval European with great promise for the future.
garden explored the romance of the All of this activity was accompanied
pleasaunce – a walled flower garden by new horticultural discoveries and
for pleasure – as a retreat. enthusiasms fed by plant collectors as
Europeans explored the Americas and
The Renaissance garden was about Africa, India, China and the Pacific.
creating an ideal model of nature In the eighteenth and nineteenth
(extensive, formal and in perfect centuries Russian gardeners and botanists
symmetry) in relation to the revival of explored further and further eastwards
classical learning: hence primers on into Siberia and the Himalayas. Plants
gardening began first with a section on also migrated from Europe to other
geometry and then with a discussion continents as colonists attempted to
of Roman gods and goddesses. The remake new lands in the image of their
eighteenth-century English landscape old ones. Centres of botanical study
garden revived the ideas of classical and horticulture such as Kew Gardens,
Rome, based on what people had seen on the outskirts of London, acted as
when they went on the Grand Tour in botanical clearing houses. For example,

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Beginnings 23

The growth of landscape
architecture as a profession
The precursors of landscape architects in EMERALD NECKLACE – BOSTON
the nineteenth century were landscape The Emerald Necklace is an 11km-long, chain of parks or
gardeners such as Humphry Repton and linear park from central Boston extending westwards, and built
Joseph Paxton in England and Andrew in the 1880s to Frederick Law Olmsted’s design, with detention
basins to store stormwater drainage.
Jackson Downing in North America, who
laid out private gardens and estates and
then, with the growth of the cities, began
to work on public parks. The scope of
the discipline has since grown from a
visual appreciation of the landscape BOSTON COMMON
N
to encompass the whole of mankind’s
CH
HARLES RIVER
physical relationship with the land. In
a sense, this can be seen as a kind of PU
UBLIC GARDEN
democratization, moving out from private
garden design to the wider man-made
environment, for both the public and
private good. CO
OMMONWEA
ALTH AVENUE MALL

It was the American architect Calvert

Vaux (1824–95) and the journalist,
farmer and mine manager Frederick Law BACK B
BAY FENS
Olmsted (1822–1903) who in 1863 first
applied the term ‘landscape architecture’
to their new profession. In 1858 they had RIVERWAY
Y
won the competition to design Central
Park in New York, and the Board of the
Central Park Commission adopted their
term in 1865. Olmsted and Vaux, first
together and then separately, went on
to design parks, campuses and housing OLMSTE
S T D PARK
ST
estates in several cities in the 1860s
and ’70s.

With the growth of the North American

city came large municipal park systems.
For instance, in 1881 Olmsted and his JAMAICA POND
nephew, John Charles Olmsted, began FRAN
NKLIN PARK
an 11km-long park system for Boston,
linking Boston Common and the Charles
River to Franklin Park on the edge of
the city, which became known as the
Emerald Necklace.

In Europe municipal park design was

ARNOLD ARB
BOR
RETU
UM
pursued by the likes of the landscape
gardener Peter Josef Lenné (1789–1866),
who designed the first public park in
Germany, Park Klosterberg in Magdeburg
(from the 1820s), the horticulturist Joseph
Paxton (1803–65) in the 1850s in England
NORTH
(Olmsted visited Paxton’s Birkenhead
Park), and the engineer Jean-Charles
Alphand (1817–91), who designed many
Second Empire parks in Paris in the
1850s and ’60s.

24
A

A. Looking north across Central Park to Harlem, New York. C

The park was design by Olmsted and Vaux.
B. Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Paris. The park was commissioned
by the emperor Napoleon III and designed by Jean-Charles
Alphand. One of the main features of the park, shown here,
is the Belvedere of Sybil which sits on an exposed outcrop
surrounded by a lake.
C. View across the lake to the Roman Boathouse at Birkenhead
Park, Liverpool, UK, where Paxton shaped the land to create
an undulating park for strolling, with pavilions, lakes, sequential
gardens and rockeries.

1 The History of Landscape Architecture The growth of landscape architecture as a profession 25

A

In both North America and Europe, these exposition in the ‘New World’ which establishing a professional association
designers were applying private park and celebrated America’s culture, civilization and starting an educational programme
garden design ideas to public projects and international position. It was in landscape architecture – has been
and incorporating concepts regarding Olmsted who successfully argued followed in other countries. The
utility or public health in their layouts. for the location on Lake Michigan key impetus for the growth of the
The management of stormwater was and designed the landscape and profession everywhere has been
key to Boston’s Emerald Necklace, a lakes of the 240-ha site. legislation requiring landscape plans
series of parks with stormwater detention and therefore the use of landscape
basins which stored run-off in times of On 4 January 1899, eleven landscape architects. Political lobbying has been
heavy rain. While in Berlin, Paris and architects, including Downing Vaux, key to its development. In 1865, for
London air quality and ideas about the son of Calvert, met to form the American instance, Olmsted served as one of the
spread of disease by an atmospheric Society of Landscape Architects. In first Commissioners who managed the
‘miasma’ as well as concern about civil 1900 Harvard University opened its Congressional grant of the Yosemite
unrest (following the 1848 revolutions) first landscape architecture course, Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove
impacted on designs. with Frederick Law Olmsted Jr at its to the State of California as a park.
head. Further courses were established A century later in 1961 in Hong Kong,
In 1893 Olmsted was landscape at Cornell in 1904, and at the Department for example, it was statutory outline
architect for the Chicago Columbian of Forestry at Berkeley in 1913. development legislation that led to the
World Exposition, which drew nearly building of new towns with landscape
26 million visitors. Along with architect The North American model – of one or masterplans in the 1960s and ‘70s and
Daniel Hudson Burnham, Olmsted was two practitioners promoting the practice this required a landscape architecture
central to the success of this first world and then, with like-minded professionals, profession to carry them out.

26
In the US, the establishment of the Parkways – landscaped roads for
American National Park Service in 1916 recreational driving, promoted by state
led to the establishment of a landscape and local governments – were widely
architecture division under Charles constructed in the US in the 1930s
P. Punchard Jr. The Tennessee Valley and involved the input of landscape
Authority, set up in 1933, employed architects. An example is the Westchester
landscape architects in the design of County Park Commission’s work,
new towns. Later in the same decade begun in 1932 with Gilmore D. Clarke as
the New Deal policies of the Roosevelt landscape architect. Such work was to
administration included the work of influence autobahn (motorway) design
the Farm Security Administration, for in Germany in the 1930s and landscape
which landscape architects such as architects played a significant part in their
Garret Eckbo (1910–2000) planned new alignment, grading and planting.
settlements in California for migrant farm
workers from the Dust Bowl states of
the Midwestern prairies. Eckbo, Daniel
Kiley (1912–2004) and James C. Rose
(1913–91) were classmates at Harvard in
1937–38, and together were responsible
for the ‘Harvard Revolution’, applying the
A. Columbian World Exposition 1893, also known as
principles of Modernism to landscape
The Chicago World’s Fair, the exhibition attracted
architecture and emphasizing interlocking nearly 26 million visitors; Frederick Law Olmsted
spaces, asymmetry, the importance of was landscape architect.
site, functionality, biomorphic shapes B. Bronx River Parkway in the 1920s. Built between
and the public good. 1907 and 1925, the US’s first limited-access road
with median strips and two carriageways.
C Farm Security Administration district landscape
architects Vernon Demars, left,and Garret Eckbo,
right, working on a site model of the Vallejo,
California, defence housing dormitories in 1942,
built to house workers in the expanding weapons
industries of WWII. Eckbo went on to help found
what later became Eckbo, Dean, Austin and
Williams (EDAW), since part of the
multi-disciplinary AECOM.

B C

1 The History of Landscape Architecture The growth of landscape architecture as a profession 27

The growth of the profession in Europe
The first European professional landscape to facilitate teaching about the flora Erwin Barth (1880–1933) established
architecture association was the German of the Dutch countryside. This was the first university landscape architecture
Bund Deutscher Landschaftsarchitekten an indication of the growing interest and garden design course in Germany
(BDLA), which began life in 1913 as the in natural plant communities and in 1926, and in 1929 became the first
Bund Deutscher Gartenarchitekten ecology in landscape architecture. holder of a chair in Garden Design at
(Federation of German Garden Architects). The first heempark was the Thijseepark the Berlin Agriculture Technical School,
The profession expanded from this in Amstelveen, south of Amsterdam, later part of Friedrich-Wilhelm University,
garden design basis in the 1920s and ’30s. from 1940s and the principles of the Berlin. His term ended with the coming
German autobahn landscape design was heemparken were to have a huge of the Nazi regime in 1933. His successor
directed by Alwin Seifert (1890–1972) and influence on landscape architecture was Heinrich Wiepking-Jürgensmann
there were 6,000 km by 1936. in the next decades. (1891–1973), who promoted nature
conservation legislation. Ominously,
Ideas concerning the value of public At the same time Moscow’s 1930s he also worked for Himmler on
parks and gardens, the need for public Genplan celebrated the birch forests landscape plans for the German
access to sunshine and fresh air, etc. have of Russia in the form of green wedges. colonization of Poland and Ukraine.
traditionally been shared by political left These ideas of green wedges (or Historically, landscape architecture
and right. Landscape architects often green corridors) and celebrating native has often been tied up with political
need to become politically engaged in woodland and landscape, were also imperatives. In the UK the practitioner
order to gain or generate commissions. expressed in an extreme form by German who first really established the profession
Landscape and the environment fall landscape architects after 1939 in their was Thomas Mawson (1861–1933).
under the remit of the public good or plans for ‘Aryanizing’ the conquered With Patrick Geddes (1854–1932), he
public benefit and so are often financed Polish landscape. The use of native used the term in the masterplan park
from the public purse. species is still promoted, sometimes design competition for Pittencrieff
uncritically (because native sounds good) Park in Dunfermline in 1903. The
Ideas about national plant communities and sometimes because they serve as Landscape Institute was established in
were promoted by the Dutch naturalist host plants for a large number of native 1929, with Mawson as its first president.
Jacobus P. Thijsse (1865–1945) who insects and other wildlife. It should always Nonetheless, Mawson described himself
had the idea of creating heemparken be remembered that plants are part of a as a ‘garden architect’ for much of
containing native landscape plant types wider ecological community. his career.

A B

A. Kröller-Müller Museum, near Arnhem, the

Netherlands, with landscape and gardens
originally designed by landscape and garden
designer Mien Ruys in 1948.
B. Kröller-Müller Museum, sculpture
designed by Professor Jan T.P. Bijhouwer and
which opened in 1961 is a late Modernist design
complementing the original 1938 museum of
Henry Van der Velde.

28
The expansion of the profession worldwide
By the 1940s the discipline was established responded by enacting environmental
in North America and much of north- legislation that fosters the growth of
western Europe. Professional associations the profession.
were set up in Japan in 1964, in Australia
in 1966 and in New Zealand in 1969. More The International Federation of
recently a Society of Landscape Architects Landscape Architects (IFLA) was
has been established in both China (in established in 1948, with Sir Geoffrey
1989) and India (in 2003). By the twenty- Jellicoe (1900–96) as its first president,
first century landscape architecture was while the European Federation for
firmly established worldwide with the Landscape Architecture (EFLA) began
exception of Africa (outside of South its meetings in 1989 and now works
Africa) and parts of the Middle East. with IFLA as its European Region,
Recently, the profession has grown most IFLA Europe.
dynamically in China, where the expansion
of the economy has led to large-scale
environmental problems comparable to C. Sha Tin Town Park, Hong Kong: the growth of
the challenges posed by industrialization in new towns in the New Territories, first proposed
nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe in the 1960s to accommodate the growing
and North America. The Chinese state has population, led to the development of the
landscape architecture profession from the
late 1970s onwards.

1 The History of Landscape Architecture The expansion of the profession worldwide 29

Painshill Park, Surrey, UK

Historic landscape garden conservation

Painshill was a well-known landscape garden developed by Charles
Hamilton from 1738 to 1773 at Chobham, south-west of London. The
estate had been divided up in 1948 and much had been planted for
forestry, the garden buildings were in ruins and the lake was overgrown.

Elmbridge Borough Council had been Burford commissioned a survey of Ensuring public access to the site took
buying parcels of the Painshill Park historic trees, so as to ‘read’ the history ten years because of local opposition
estate, which had originally covered of the estate from tree dating. This was and access was finally secured by a
100 hectares, since 1974. In April 1981, done by a team recruited through the new footbridge across the River Mole
Janie Burford was appointed landscape MSC under the supervision of National to the south-west of the site. These
architect and the Painshill Park Trust Trust tree surveyor Johnny Phibbs. The delays, however, gave the restoration
was formed. There was no staff and little survey recorded 169 trees surviving from time to develop and settle in and
money. But the study of material relating Hamilton’s time, including four Cedars allowed the Trust time to develop
to the park began and work started on of Lebanon. This was supplemented by an education strategy.
site using volunteers. Burford recalls: archaeological evidence of the sites of
buildings that had disappeared, like the In 1994 the Painshill Park Trust
Bath House and the Temple of Bacchus. received a Europa Nostra medal
‘We needed to understand the mind Documentary sources were then cross- for ‘the exemplary restoration, from
of Charles Hamilton, the topography referenced with direct observational a state of extreme neglect, of a most
of the site and every element of evidence in the tree records and the important eighteenth-century
his vision and design. He was an archaeology to build a complete picture. landscape park and its extraordinary
exceptionally strong designer, artist garden buildings’.
and plantsman, and very early on This led to a masterplan to cover
I realized that it was an enormous the restoration of the site and its Burford retired from Painshill at the
privilege to be walking in his footsteps development for public use. The first end of 2003. However, she has since
and trying to re-create the genius of building to be restored was the Gothick become a trustee of the Chiswick House
the man.’ Temple. The remains of the timber and and Gardens Trust, which with English
plaster temple had been supported by Heritage and the London Borough of
scaffolding for more than ten years. Hounslow is supervising the restoration
Opening up the site and starting the One of the challenges was that many of Lord Burlington’s Chiswick House
project was possible through the of the buildings had been built very and gardens.
government-funded Manpower Services cheaply because Hamilton was not
Commission (MSC), which ran work- wealthy and had built in timber and
experience schemes for the long-term plaster to represent stone.
unemployed. Some of the team were
graduates in the disciplines of Burford was in effect ’a ranger, a
archaeology, natural sciences, plantswoman, an administrator, a
horticulture and landscape and there landscape historian and a landscape
was a historian and archivist who used architect all in one’ but also a fundraiser.
documentary evidence to help assemble In the first 20 years of the formation
the missing details of Painshill’s of the Trust, £20 million was raised for
development and layout. the conservation project.

30
A

B C

Painshill Park, Chobham, an English landscape garden resurrected.

A. The restored Chinese bridge.

B. Grotto walls and ceiling of calcite, fluorite and gypsum.
C. An eighteenth-century landscape garden won back from
forestry planting in the 1940s. The grotto is to the right.

1 Case study Painshill Park, Surrey, UK 31

Planning
Historically, landscape planning has National Parks. In the 1850s Galen Clark, suddenly grasped that the wilderness was
aimed to reconcile human development a homesteader, was so impressed by a valuable and threatened commodity.
with the ecological, cultural and the Giant Sequoia trees of Mariposa This was followed by further protectionist
geographical features of the landscape. County, California, that he called for their measures being enacted elsewhere: for
This has been done largely by the protection from loggers. With support instance, the Yellowstone National Park
protection of specially valued areas. from photographer Carlton Watkins and was set up by the US Congress in 1872.
Until recently, its role was largely US senator John Conness, this led to This was managed federally; eventually
conservationist and limited. However, proposals to protect the whole of the the whole system of US National Parks
this has changed in the past half-century Yosemite Valley. In 1864 (at the height of was rationalized with the formation of
so that landscape planning has become the Civil War) President Lincoln signed the US National Parks Service in 1916.
much more proactive, mapping and the Yosemite Grant to protect Yosemite
promoting the whole landscape Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant In Germany the term Naturdenkmal
rather than just exclusive, already Sequoias. This was the first piece of (‘nature monument’) was coined by the
protected areas. federal land set aside by the US Congress geographer Alexander von Humboldt
for public use and preservation. Having in 1814 to refer to large or historically
Illustrative of the conservationist or spent three centuries in westward significant trees, and was later expanded
protectionist approach are the American expansion, the North American colonists to include geological and topographical
features and whole landscapes. The
A botanist Hugo Conwentz was a follower
of Humboldt and became the first
director of the Prussian Staatliche Stelle
für Naturdenkmalpflege (State Office for
Nature Monument Protection), set up in
Danzig in 1904. The nature conservation
movement in the 1920s and ’30s
promoted Landschaftspflege – literally,
‘landscape care’ – which encouraged
stewardship of the landscape. By the
1930s this involved a vision of the Heimat
(homeland and community), which
included an orderly and organized
integration of new industry and transport.

Contemporary with the development

of nature and landscape conservation in
Germany in the early twentieth century,
a non-state organization was set up
in England in 1895, the National Trust,
B initially to purchase and protect wetlands
like Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire and
mountains in the Lake District. In the
1930s there were large-scale protests
about restrictions on access to upland
moorland, such as the Kinder Scout mass
trespass of 1932. Such events led to the
1949 National Park Act. The ten National
Parks established in this way were very
different from the wilderness areas
represented by the US National Parks.
US national parks are in the main
wilderness areas, with few inhabitants,
but in Britain there is little such
wilderness; in Britain national parks
included farms and settled areas:
they conserve cultural (or human-
influenced) landscapes.

32
C

A. Cadair Idris in the Snowdonia National

Park, Wales: British National Parks contain
farms and villages.
B. The Lüneburg Heath in North Germany was the
first large German nature reserve to be formally
protected by law in 1921 when an area of 234
square kilometres was protected. Today 27 per
cent of the land area in Germany has some form
of nature and landscape protection status.
C. Yosemite National Park, a wilderness
conserved for the nation.

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Planning 33

Such developments were essentially In Germany, the Federal Nature
protectionist and involved identifying Conservation Act of 1977 requires
areas of special interest and drawing lines the preparation of landscape plans
on a map to protect them. Examples are ‘to protect, maintain, further develop
European Special Areas of Conservation and, if necessary, restore the visual
(SACs) and Special Protection Areas diversity, uniqueness/distinctiveness
(SPAs), which form part of a European and beauty of landscapes’ working
network known as ‘Natura 2000’, which through federal, Länder and local
applies to both bird sites and habitat sites. councils producing regional landscape
The situation has changed considerably plans, local landscape plans and green
over the last 20 years, so that the whole structure plans. As a result of a century
landscape now falls under the remit of nature conservation planning in
of landscape planning. For instance, Germany since the setting up of
Landscape Character Assessments the Prussian State Office for Nature
cover the whole of a county or country, Monument Protection in 1904 there
while the Council of Europe’s European are now several categories of protected
Landscape Convention of 2000 covers areas in Germany such as national parks,
the whole landscape. As it says: ‘this biosphere reserves, landscape protection
Convention applies to the entire territory areas, nature parks and Natura 2000 sites.
of the Parties and covers natural, rural, The 2002 Federal Nature Conservation
urban and peri-urban areas. It includes Act also enacted a new requirement
land, inland water and marine areas. for the Länder to set up networks of
A. The Douro Valley, Portugal.
It concerns landscapes that might interlinked biotopes for at least 10 per
B. Landscape-led Ile-de France Masterplan
be considered outstanding as well as cent of their land area. There have (Schéma Directeur de la Région Ile-de-France)
everyday or degraded landscapes.’ The also been policies of active soil Paris, France, which sets Paris in its
above moves to protect and value the conservation as part of these general greater landscape.
landscape have often been led by nature nature conservation and landscape C. Cornwall Historic Landscape Character
conservationists, botanists, ecologists planning policies. Zones. Map plotted in 1994.
and those concerned with public access
to the countryside. But landscape
architects have usually been involved
because, as a profession, they have A

some of the responsibility for carrying

out such policies.

Landscape planning also involves the

laying out of new landscapes. For
example, in the Netherlands there was
extensive land reclamation, and new
polders were developed in the Zuider
Zee between 1921 and 1975 following
the plans of Cornelis Lely which were
first devised in 1891. From 1921 to 2004
there was also extensive landscape
consolidation (ruijlverkaveling) covering
1.4 million ha. This was similar to the
earlier enclosure movement in England
and involved the consolidation of
fragmented agricultural plots and in effect
the replanning of the whole countryside.
Landscape architects worked on new
polder landscapes (including one of the
authors as a student) and on landscape
consolidation.

34
B

Schéma directeur de la région île-de-Franc

”Projet soumis au Conseil régional pour adoption, 25-26 septembre 2008”

Carte de destination générale des différentes parties du territoire

Cette carte, exprimand le champ d’application géographique des orientations, doit faire l’objet d’une
application combinée avec le rapport auquel elle est étroitment subordonnée

Vocation urbaine Vocation naturelle

espace urbanisé à optimiser espace agricole

secteur de densification préférentielle espace boisé ou naturel

secteur d’urbinisation préférentielle espace de loisirs

secteur d’urbanisation conditionnelle espace vert à créer ou espace naturel

à ouvrir au public
pôles de centralités à conforter hors
agglomération centrale continuité écologique ou coupure
d’urbinisation à maintenir
front urbain d’intérêt régional
continuité agricole ou liaison verte à
créer ou à renforcer

Infrastructures de transport

Réseau routier: Fleuve et espaces en eau

existant

tracé
Aéroport - aérodrome
principe de liaison

principe de liaison long terme

(préservation de faisabilité)

nouveau franchissement Limite de commune

ison
cipe
nt
ista

lia

Transport collectif:
ac

in
Pr
Ex

de
Tr

LGV

liaison vers aéroport

RER

réseau ferroviaire voyageur

Arc Express (fuseau d’étude)

métro

tram - train et train léger

transport collectif en site

propre sur voirie

Cornwall HLC Zones (1994)

AEL (altered C18 & C19)
AEL (altered C20)
Airfields & military
Anciently enclosed land
Coastal rough ground
Dunes
Navigable rivers
Ornamental
Predominantly industrial
Recently enclosed land
Recreation
Reservoirs
Steep-sided valleys
Upland rough ground
Upland woodlands (plantations)
Urban

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Planning 35

City planning and structural green space
London and Frankfurt are examples Similar ideas influenced the planners A. Housing, Jönköping, Sweden, from the
of cities where green belts have been in Copenhagen, who developed the 1940s, showing a landscape setting.
developed. The Frankfurt GrünGürtel so-called Green Finger Plan in 1947. B. Port Sunlight, Merseyside, UK, from the 1890s
an example of the Garden City ideal.
follows the ideas of the town planner This used the five fingers of the main
Ernst May in the 1920s for residential railway lines and roads as a structure
developments with access to green for future development radiating from
space provided in the form of gardens the ‘palm’ of the old nineteenth-century
established around the old city walls. city. Green wedges in between the
The GrünGürtel was formally set up fingers were designed to provide land
B
in 1991 and now comprises 8,000ha for agriculture and recreation, easily
including forests, fields, meadows, accessible from the adjacent housing.
gardens, parks, orchards, fields, streams With the building of the road and railway
and ponds. Frankfurt is a remarkable bridge across the Øresund to Sweden,
city in that green space comprises an extra finger was added to the south
50 per cent of the urban area. across the island of Amager. Planning
in Copenhagen includes active policies
The London Green Belt really began in to promote pedestrian and bicycle
1935 when the London County Council travel, with the result that 40 per cent
began giving grants to surrounding of journeys to work in the Danish capital
county councils to buy land for are made using bicycles. Copenhagen
conservation purposes and to put into introduced its cycle hire scheme in
effect ideas proposed by Sir Raymond 1995. In Copenhagen 36 per cent of
Unwin in the 1920s. Concerns included all journeys are made by bicycle.
a desire for breathing space in the face
of population ‘overspill’ and the ‘menace
of the outward sprawl of building
which leads to ribbon development,
conurbation (the joining up of towns)
and the engulfment of small towns’.
Such thinking gave rise to the Green
Belt Act of 1938, later reinforced by
Patrick Abercrombie’s Greater London
Plan of 1944 and then the Town and A
Country Planning Act of 1947, which
established a country-wide planning
system including provision for green
belts. There are now 14 green belts
controlling development and protecting
open land, usually farmland, around
English cities from Oxford to the great
conurbations of the Midlands such
as Birmingham and North such as
Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

The 1935 Genplan or General Plan for

the reconstruction of Moscow set the
model for green wedges or corridors
penetrating the city. The latter are largely
birch forest rather than the fields, farms
and woodlands that typify the London
Green Belt. The wedges worked well in
Soviet times when most people travelled
by public transport, providing accessible
recreation areas within walking distance
of the city’s apartment blocks.

36
A B

The Moscow Genplan of 1935 with

The London Green Belt. wedges of birch forest.

C D

The Frankfurt GrünGürtel.

The Copenhagen ‘Green Finger Plan’.

1 The History of Landscape Architecture City planning and structural green space 37
Changing styles: from Modernism
to Postmodernism and beyond
For much of its history, landscape architecture in the main company design maintained a form of stripped-
architecture has followed architectural website and you see it listed in a bundle down picturesque style marked by
and engineering design practice. In of professional consultancy services the use of standard trees and flowing
the mid-twentieth century landscape under ‘property services’. mounds.
designers, like architects, donned
white lab coats and tended to think MODERNISM TO POSTMODERN Postmodernism, by contrast, is rich
of themselves as scientists, reordering AND BEYOND in surface ornament, non-rectilinearity
cities and countryside according to a The main artistic movement of and references to historical forms.
functional aesthetic that rejected the the twentieth century to influence Examples of some of these elements
symmetrical but curiously adopted the landscape architecture was Modernism, are found in the late historicist work of
asymmetric picturesque aesthetic of which might be defined as absolute, Geoffrey Jellicoe (who in the 1950s
the eighteenth century as a model. Post- functionalist and orthogonal (meaning had been a strict Modernist) or, more
war English New Towns are often set in rectilinear) in character, and marked by recently, in the Canberra Garden of
a landscape of mounds and tree clumps an absence of ornament. Modernism’s Australian Dreams of 2001 by Richard
which is reminiscent of a Capability influence in landscape design can be Weller and Vladimir Sitta of Room
Brown park in miniature. seen particularly in the work of the 4.1.3, which is full of symbolism.
‘Harvard Three’, Garret Eckbo, Daniel
The reaction to this prescriptive ‘scientific’ Kiley and James C. Rose, from the Bet Figueras’s Barcelona Botanic Gardens
approach in the 1970s was to adopt forms late 1930s onwards, and in the public is structured by acute angular forms with
of community action that tried to engage spaces created by Peter Shepheard and zigzagging paths and uses Corten steel,
the whole community. More recently, in Peter Youngman for the 1951 Festival both markers of landscape design of
some countries landscape architects have of Britain. The English New Towns of the turn of the twentieth century.
developed a more corporate approach the early 1950s, Harlow, Crawley and It is certainly not Modernist, but its
and set up as limited companies. Some Hemel Hempstead, were designed interest is as much in the creation of
landscape consultancy practices have in a Scandinavian-influenced, English habitats based on the five worldwide
sold up to large professional services Modernism. While later English new Mediterranean climatic regions as in
companies who also run insurance and towns such as Cumbernauld were more the sharp stylistic forms of the distorted
pension schemes. Search for landscape Brutalistic yet curiously the landscape net which is the plan.

A. The Stockholm Woodland Crematorium of

1940 is a masterpiece of Modernist architecture
coupled with a picturesque landscape of
mounds and trees. The designers were Erik
Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz.
B. Barcelona Botanic Gardens, Spain with a built
structure of acute, angular shapes draped
over the hillside of Montjuïc.
C. Garden of Australian Dreams, Canberra:
a symbolic and allegorical design.

38
B

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Changing styles 39

LA VILLETTE TO LANDSCAPE In this statement, we can see
URBANISM suggestions of the Office of
Perhaps the most significant and Metropolitan Architecture’s Parc de
influential design of the past thirty La Villette design, which was about
years is the Office of Metropolitan cutting and ‘distinct juxtapositions’, A

Architecture’s entry for the Parc de La and post-industrial landscapes such

Villette competition in Paris in 1982–83. as Latz + Partner’s Duisburg Nord
It won second prize and so wasn’t Landschaftspark of 1991 onwards,
actually built. Nonetheless, its parallel- while the most obvious precedent
stripe plan form has reverberated through for the functional design idea of the
the landscape design of the past few railway viaduct-made-park is the earlier
decades, as can be seen in Robert Promenade Plantée (opened 1993)
Townshend’s linear urban design for by Jacques Vergely in Paris (itself a
the More London office development historicist design). Yet it was James
in London (1999–) or more recently Corner who has particularly promoted
Michel Corajoud’s Cour du Maroc the label of landscape urbanism,
park in Paris (2005–7). Corajoud worked meaning the shaping of cities
on the original La Villette design with on the basis of landscape ideas as
OMA. The OMA La Villette design was opposed to building-centred urbanism.
avowedly more about programmatic
ideas than a style.

It established arbitrary ways of structuring

the park, such as contrasting strips each
50m wide, in turn subdivisible by 5m
widths. The idea of sharp contrasts in a
plan comes from Rem Koolhaas’s student
dissertation on the Berlin Wall. The aim
was to establish an architectural structure
for a programme which to quote OMA
B
combines a ‘programmatic instability
with architectural specificity (which)
will eventually generate a park’.

Post-industrial landscapes have been

discussed in relation to landscape and
urban design since the 1980s. Since this
point there has been a fresh appreciation
of the value of the products of industry
and its cultural and historical importance
together with the ecological value of the
derelict sites which became vegetated
naturally. In his account of his High Line
urban park in New York (2003), landscape
architect James Corner describes:

‘the post-industrial railroad character

of the site – the rail tracks, the
linearity, and the fact that it really is
a thin, narrow ribbon… The entire
High Line really cuts through blocks
and buildings, and I sought to create
a distinct juxtaposition where there is
this green ribbon existing against the
stoic grid of the city… There is also
this almost sad, melancholic, silence
that permeates the place… We wanted
to… give people the feeling that
they’ve come across a secret, magic
garden in the sky.’

40
C D

A. Jardin d‘Eole, Paris, designed by Michel Corajoud using a stripes theme and
influenced by the OMA La Villette competition entry of 20 years earlier.
B. Parc de La Villette competition, the OMA entry of 1982, with the stripes or
horizontal bands designating different activities.
C. More London, London: the same parallel linearity is found in Robert Townshend’s
design designed 20 years after the 1982–83 La Villette competition.
D. The High Line, New York: the way up.
E. The High Line, New York: created on a disused railway viaduct.
F. The High Line, New York: it straddles the streets of Manhattan’s West Side.
G. The High Line, New York: with gardens in the sky.
H. The High Line, New York: offering a refuge and a prospect.

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Changing styles 41

A CAVEAT ABOUT STYLES A

Perhaps the ultimate Postmodernist design

is that for the River Manzanares, Madrid, by
West 8. It is certainly not orthogonal, but it
is playful and uses symbolism. However,
ask the designer Adriaan Geuze and he
will reject all stylistic labels. Design is not
about application of a style, but rather is
about development and application of
ideas which will draw on contemporary
design, ideas and concerns, which theorists
and historians will categorize afterwards.
Isms make convenient pigeonholes for
design discussion.

42
A. Two madrileños by the cherry planters, River Manzanares, Madrid. E. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark: bunkers made into play pens.
B. Avenida de Portugal, River Manzanares, Madrid. The urban motorway is F. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark: gardens in the bunkers.
placed in a tunnel and a park made above; part of the network of 43km G. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark: water treatment and cleaning is
of tunnels with public open space above. key to the way Peter and Anne-Liese Latz have dealt with pollution.
C. Salón de Pinos and Oblique Bridge, River Manzanares, Madrid: West 8 H. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark: former ore storage bunkers now
have revealed the course of the river and provided riverside access. house gardens.
D. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark: view from the 65m-high I. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark: under the blast furnaces
blast furnaces. of the old steelworks.

D E F

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Changing styles 43

Emscher Park, Ruhr Valley, Germany

Environmental transformation of a city region

The section of the Ruhr between Duisburg and Essen was the most
economically depressed area in the former West Germany. In the 1980s
coal mines and steel mills were closing down with a significant impact on
the population of 2.5 million people. By way of response, the Nordrhein-
Westfalien Länder government set up the Emscher Park Internationale
Bauausstellung (IBA), which ran from 1989 to 1999 and aimed to revitalize
the economy of the whole area by underwriting environmental
improvements. In other words, the state government saw an area
that was suffering economic, social and environmental problems
and devised a way forward that put ecology and environment first.

The thinking, in other words, was: fix The boldest project was the reclamation 200ha Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark by
the environment and the economy of the River Emscher, which in the Anna-Liese and Peter Latz, which reuses
would improve. The scheme’s principal nineteenth century had been sacrificed the A.G. Thyssen steelworks which had
aims included: to carrying industrial waste and sewage. closed in 1985. The project is a major
With the River Emscher effectively turned work of interpretation of industrial history:
• the ecological regeneration of the into an open sewer, seasonal flooding one can now climb the 65m-high blast
350km length of the River Emscher led to typhoid epidemics. As a result, in furnace, while below mountaineering
and its tributaries; 1904 the Emschergenossenschaftt (the climbers practise rock climbing in old
• the creation of the Emscher Emscher water management association) ore bunkers and heavy metal bands
Landscape Park (300km2 of parks was established by local councils and play from the slag heaps.
and green spaces linked by cycle industrial concerns to stop flooding.
and footpath routes); This was done by building dykes and In total 13 major parks were created
• the upgrading of 3,000 existing canalizing the Emscher and lining the throughout the Ruhr. Elsewhere business
homes and the building of 3,000 tributaries with concrete. and science parks have been developed
new ones; such as the science park in Gelsenkirchen
• job-creation schemes based on a The decline of coal mining and the Rheinelbe or the 40ha Erin Business Park
chain of 22 technology centres set ending of the consequent problem of on the site of the former Erin coal mine
in new parkland; subsidence permitted the removal of the in Castrop-Rauxel, opened in 1867 by
• the finding of new uses for industrial concrete and dykes and the re-creation Irishman William Thomas Mulvany.
buildings and landmarks. of the 350km network of rivers and These represent just a few of the
tributaries as a natural river system with 71 employment-creation projects.
Every individual project had to show water meadows. Industrial effluent is now
a net ecological gain. channelled into a piped sewerage system Although the IBA ended in 1999, the
connecting to five new sewage plants. work continues through the local
The scheme was government-led. The whole river system is in the process councils and two regional agencies.
Two-thirds of the total £1.13 billion of being renaturalized.
funding came from federal, Länderr and
European Union sources; one-third came Linked to the regeneration of the river
from the private sector. The IBA acted as is the 300km2 Emscher Landscape Park
a catalyst, operating through the 17 local which has been designed as a green lung
authorities with a staff of just 30 people for the whole region, although further
and a steering committee including parkland and green spaces were created
representatives from local authorities, throughout the urban area. In total, the
trade unions, and nature conservation Emscher Park fostered 450 projects.
and planning organizations. Major individual projects included the

44
A

B C

A. The Emscher Park IBA (Internationale

Bauausstellung) in the Ruhrgebiet, involved
decanalising streams and restoring them
as natural watercourses.
B. Example of canalized stream, with culvert,
at the Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark.
C. The Erin Business Park (built on the site of
an old coal mine) in Castrop-Rauxel is one
of over 120 projects in the Emscher Park
IBA, all providing a net ecological gain.

1 Case study Emscher Park, Ruhr Valley, Germany 45

Changing priorities: ecology,
biodiversity and sustainability
For the past half-century landscape A
architecture has been increasingly
influenced by the science of ecology.
Basic ecological definitions are now key
to an understanding of the ways
in which landscape architecture is
developing. Ecological ideas have also
fundamentally impacted on concerns
for sustainability, which is a growing
concern for landscape architects.

Ecology is the study of the natural

environment and human, animal
and plant communities and their
interrelationships. The name has the
same Greek stem, oikos (meaning
‘house’), as economy and was first
coined in 1866 by the German biologist
Ernst Haeckel. Ecology looks at:

• life processes and adaptation;

• the distribution and abundance
of organisms;
• the movement of energy
and materials;
• ecosystem succession;
• biodiversity.

In most other countries, it is plant

ecology that has had the greatest
influence on landscape architects,
particularly since the 1950s. Work
by local botanists on native plant
communities have been very influential.
Ecology is by its nature holistic, in the
sense that it regards the whole system
as more than the sum of its individual
parts. At its extreme (or most advanced),
B
this has influenced biogeochemical
theories such as the Gaia hypothesis
formulated by the chemist and earth
scientist James Lovelock in the 1970s,
which proposes the whole planet to be
a self-regulating and dynamic system.

46
C D

E F G

Landscape architects have to understand the

I
differences between habitat types.

A. Gunung Pulai Forest, Johor, Malaysia: a Virgin

Jungle Reserve with Dipterocarpus, Shorea,
and Cleistanthus trees.
B. Rotorua geothermal lakes, New Zealand
with silicate and mineral formations.
C. Industrial wasteland, UK, with ruderal or
spontaneous herbaceous pioneer vegetation.
D. Beech woodland, France.
E. Karst limestone landscape, Guilin, China,
formed by water dissolving the rock along
fractures or bedding planes in the limestone.
F. Saltwater marsh, Sussex, UK.
G. Insel Hombroich Wetlands, Germany.
H. Terraced rice fields, Japan.
I. Coastal maquis, Cyprus.

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Changing priorities 47

A Habitats vary across the world.

A. Urban public realm, London.

B. Volcanic desert, Cape Verde Islands.
C. Upland reafforestation with spruce
planted since 1919, Wales.
D. Sand dune protection, Ilha Deserta
in the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa,
Faro, Portugal.
E. Planted palms, public realm, Dubai.
F. Sinai Desert, Egypt.
G. Tree ferns, Taranaki, New Zealand.
H. Mountain pine forest, Greece.
I. Palm grasslands, Indonesia.

B C

48
D E

H I

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Changing priorities 49

SIMPLE ECOLOGY DIAGRAM ECOSYSTEM COMPONENTS

I NG F UN
GI BAC
TE
ND RI
OU A
R REDUC
S UR TS ER
N
LA
BI
P O
NIT ROG EN

NSUMER
TI
E
ANC
MINE RALS

C
ST
SUB

ORGAN
C
HUMANS GY OTI

NT
LO A BI

ANIMA
EN
O YG
EC

NME
OX
CARBON

IRO

CO
IS
M

LS

R
S
IN

E
ENV

C
ANI
O

U
R

P ROD
G

TS
MAL
A

N
N

LA
IC

P
S

Ecosystems, which are the total concepts include succession and A

environment, include all the living biodiversity. Succession is the process
organisms and the inert or non-living by which a plant or animal community
physical aspects of that ecosystem such develops and changes into another
as air, soil, water and exposure to the community until a stable climax is
sun. For example, a forest may be an reached – here climax refers to a long-
ecosystem: a planted forest is a modified lasting, stable community. For instance,
or human-made ecosystem. The living former railway yards may become birch
components of such a system are woodland, which then develops
generally referred to as a community. into ash and oak woodland as soil
So a pine forest may be a particular fertility develops.
plant community, named for its
dominant species. The 1992 United Nations Convention on
Biological Diversity defines biodiversity
At a much larger scale there are biomes, as ‘the variability among living organisms
which are globally significant groups of from all sources including, inter alia,
ecosystems – the Mediterranean biome terrestrial, marine and other aquatic
is one such. Habitat refers to the physical ecosystems and the ecological
environment in which a community complexes of which they are part;
of ecosystems may develop, whether this includes diversity within species,
mountain-top alpine habitats, marshlands between species and of ecosystems’.
or chalk grasslands. A biotope is the We have introduced the United Nations
habitat of a biological community: for definition here to underline the point
instance, a tropical rainforest. A biotope again that there is a political imperative
may be artificial – for example, a roof in environmental science. But phrases
garden can create a habitat for nesting and words are often used without a full
birds. By contrast, a niche is the physical understanding of their meaning, so it
environment of a single species. is important that landscape architects
understand the science behind these
Natural resource management involves very live political agendas. We return
stewardship of the landscape. Important to this theme in our final chapter.

50
A. Managed chestnut coppice with bluebell understorey. One concern that landscape architects
B. Hoge Veluwe National Park, near Arnhem, the Netherlands: can help address is the fear we may be
heathland being restored from early twentieth-century forestry. entering a sixth phase of species mass
C. Hoge Veluwe National Park: restoration of inland sand dunes.
extinction, the so-called Holocene
D. Hoge Veluwe National Park: early twentieth-century forestry
extinction. The most recent previous
in the background.
E. Insel Hombroich near Neuss, Germany: wetlands restored. mass extinction was the Cretaceous–
Tertiary extinction some 65 million
years ago when dinosaurs disappeared.
The current loss of species is related
to human settlement, consumption of
resources and anthropogenic (human-
made) climate change. If only from a
B selfish point of view, mankind should be
concerned about biodiversity because
if there is no room on the planet for other
species, there may soon be no room on
the planet for Homo sapiens either.

Inspired by such ecological thinking,

the latter part of the twentieth century
has added a wider responsibility – that
of sustainability – to the idea of respect
for a particular place. Sustainability is
most commonly defined in the terms
of the 1987 Brundtland Commission
as ‘meeting the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own
needs’. This embraces two conflicting
concepts, that of needs (implicitly those
of the world’s poor), and that of placing
limits on the environment’s development
and hence its capacity to meet present
C D
and future needs. This relates to the idea
of mankind’s ecological footprint and the
capacity of our planet to support present
human activity and, indeed, life generally.
It is forecast that we are consuming
resources unsustainably: for instance,
at present rates of consumption the
supply of oil will be exhausted in the
next 30–40 years according to many
industry authorities.

Underlying our exploitative use of the

E
Earth’s resources is the world’s growing
population (over seven billion at the time
of writing in April 2012), projected by the
UN to grow to up to 10.5 billion by 2050.
In 1947, when the older of this book’s two
authors was born, the world’s population
stood at 2.5 billion.

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Changing priorities 51

Landscape architects can play a particular (1985) has also benefited landscape work of Ian McHarg on Environmental
tactical role by giving meaning to the fine architecture practice – so much so Impact Assessment (EIA). EIA began
words on sustainability found in many that some landscape architects now in the 1960s in the US and was then
public and private corporate statements; specialize in Environmental Assessment applied to the development of the
they can help translate political rhetoric (see below). The landscape received its North Sea oil fields from the early
into practice. To give one obvious, most emphatic international political 1970s onwards.EIA is defined by the
highly practical, everyday example: imprimatur in 2000 in the form of International Association for Impact
rigid, inflexible paving laid on a concrete the Council of Europe’s European Assessment (IAIA) as ‘the process of
foundation uses far more embodied Landscape Convention (see Appendix identifying, predicting, evaluating and
carbon and energy than flexible paving 2: ‘The significance of legislation and mitigating the biophysical, social, and
laid on stone aggregate foundations. conventions, national and international other relevant effects of development
and the European Landscape proposals prior to major decisions
Industrialization and international Convention’). This commits countries being taken and commitments made’.
trade have led to the growth of urban to preparing inventories of the entirety In 1985 assessments of this kind were
settlements and to changes in the way of their landscapes, not just special made mandatory across what is now the
the countryside is used. Landscape areas of natural interest such as national European Union, where it is referred to
architecture responded initially by parks, and to promoting landscape as Environmental Assessment. In 2002,
focusing on the provision of recreational (and thus, implicitly, landscape Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
space, both public and private, and on architecture) education. was introduced in the European Union,
general ‘city beautification’, and then subjecting economic plans and policies
by broadening its remit to encompass As the growth of the profession reflects, to a similar type of prior investigation.
managing the impact of a changing landscape architecture is well placed as a
society on the wider landscape. This discipline to address the problems caused Environmental Assessment is by its very
in turn led to the protection of natural by industrialization and rapid urbanization nature multidisciplinary, and landscape
areas, such as in national parks. Olmsted and the consequent changes in the architects have a specific role in it
was one of the commissioners for countryside in India and China. Since given that they are the only profession
the proposed Yosemite reservation in the 1960s landscape architecture has educated to assess the visual aspects
1864–66. Most recently, this has led increasingly been concerned with ideas of the landscape. Indeed, visual impact
to a concern for the whole landscape, of sustainability, ecological health assessment has a wider application in
including industrial and non-designed (including derelict and toxic land) and relation to assessing the impact of any
or vernacular landscapes. global warming, biodiversity, population development. Landscape architects
growth and the ecological footprint. establish a baseline assessment of the
The new purpose-built public municipal existing landscape character, undertake
parks (a nineteenth-century innovation) When designing external spaces, a ZTV (Zone of Theoretical Visibility)
provided the initial impetus for the architects and developers tend to focus mapping and then assess the visual
development of both the discipline and on buildings, which are relatively finite impacts and how these can be managed,
profession of landscape architecture; and made of dead materials; by contrast, reduced or enhanced, all accompanied
environmental legislation has since landscape architects focus on the spaces by photomontages or three-dimensional
widened its role. For instance, the 1946 between buildings. Landscape architects visualizations.
British New Towns Act led to a whole have a primary concern with site and
generation of British landscape architects a wish to embrace living processes, In China, the Environmental Impact
working on new town masterplans. Post- ecological systems and change, and base Assessment Law of 2002 is starting
war German Bundesgartenschauen or their ideas on an understanding of the to have some impact. In Asia, major
Garden Festivals were used to regenerate natural world. Due to this holistic base, development projects are taking
German cities. The 1984 Liverpool landscape architecture is a profession place and illustrate the need for good
International Garden Festival was a British with the potential to help address the landscape planning. The Three Gorges
import of this policy made in reaction problems caused by humankind’s Dam on the Yangtze River, for example,
to civil unrest. The International Garden impact on the planet. has had an extensive impact on the
Festival was a world exposition and it landscape. This has been planned for
attracted nearly four million visitors. The principles of landscape planning to a degree, but future monitoring of
are now incorporated in various types of the project is likely to show that better
International or transnational legislation legislation and policy documents. In the landscape planning and design might
such as the European Community US, the National Environmental Policy have been possible.
Directive on Environmental Assessment Act of 1970 was influenced by the

52
A A. Example of a 15km-radius, multi-point,
composite radial line ZTV analysis for a 60m
single wind turbine located at the centre of the
circle, shown on an Ordnance Survey 1:25,000
map base. The turbine is most visible from the
areas that have the deepest blue colour.
B. Example of a 3km-radius, five-point ZVT analysis
for a group of 44m-high industrial buildings with
an 80m-high chimney located at the centre
of the circle, taking into account existing visual
(woodland) barriers. The buildings and chimney
are most visible from the areas that have the
deepest red colour.

1 The History of Landscape Architecture Changing priorities 53

Ijsselmeerpolders, the Netherlands

Making new land and landscapes

The Netherlands’ history over the past 1,000 years has been one of claiming
farmland from the sea. Set as it is in the Rhine delta the land reclaimed in the
Dutch polders is highly productive. (A polder is a tract of land reclaimed from
a body of water and usually enclosed by dykes.) First using windpower then
from the nineteenth century using steam power, water was pumped out from
larger and larger polders, leading to the reclamation of the Haarlemmermeer
in the nineteenth century. The greatest opportunity was the Zuider Zee, an
inlet of the North Sea. In the twentieth century the aim was for self-sufficiency
in food production; the wartime famine of 1944–45 intensified this desire.

The Rijksdienst voor de Ijsselmeerpolders So the last two polders, the Oostelijk The earliest polders were laid out
(RIJP) or Dutch State Office for the Flevoland and the Zuidelijk Flevoland, traditionally, with tree planting providing
Ijsselmeerpolders was set up in 1918 were reclaimed with clearwater lakes, shelter (particularly for cyclists) along
and continued in operation until 1989. the Veluwemeer and the Gooimeer all the roads. The villages reflected
The works undertaken involved the respectively, varying from 500m to 3km the Dutch vernacular tradition as
enclosure or damming of the Zuider Zee wide between the new polder and the reinterpreted in the twentieth century,
by construction of the Afluitsdijk (literally mainland. These lakes separate the new so the houses had pitched roofs. This
‘enclosure dam’; 1927–32) and then polders from the mainland and help changed in the Oostelijk Flevoland, where
the planned empounding of five main maintain fresh groundwater levels in the settlements had flat-roof Modernist
polders: first the Wieringermeerpolder, the old land. buildings and the landscape was made
laid out as farms of 20ha; then the much more open. The farm plot size was
Noordoostpolder, laid out similarly to The polders were all originally intended to increased to 50ha with mechanization.
the Wieringermeerpolder, but including be used for agricultural production. The
two islands, Urk and Schokland, which reclamation process consisted of planting To the north-east of the Zuidelijk
were to maintain their identity; third was Juncus reed to dry out the drained Flevoland, the Oostvaardersplassen is
Oostelijk Flevoland, laid out with larger land and establish a soil structure, then a 5,600ha nature conservation area of
farms and the new town of Lelystad as after two or three years the RIJP built swamps, pools and shallow islands. This
an administrative centre for all the new drainage ditches and planted first rape, area was originally intended for industrial
polders; and the Zuidelijk Flevoland, to suppress the reeds, and then cereal use and developed ruderal vegetation
which included the new town of Almere, crops, to develop the soil and the fertility and fauna. It has drier and wetter areas
built as an overspill for Amsterdam. A of the land. The land was then subdivided and the dry part was initially a willow
further fifth polder, the Markerwaard, into farms and road and other services tree nursery. To graze this area, Konik
was planned and its enclosing dyke infrastructure was built. The Dutch State ponies, red deer and Heck cattle were
was largely built before the project Forestry Service (the Staatsbosbeheer) introduced, with the result that there is
was abandoned in 2003. took over both forestry land and the now a herd of 600 Heck.
conservation areas. The forests of
The first two polders, the white willow (Salix alba), planted by the The new polders in total increased
Wieringermeerpolder and the State Forestry Service, were as much the land area of the Netherlands by
Noordoostpolder, were contiguous for recreational use as for commercial 5 per cent. So much so that by 1965 the
with the mainland but groundwater exploitation. Increasingly, from the 1960s, Netherlands was self-sufficient in basic
problems were discovered, particularly land was devoted to nature conservation foodstuffs despite being one of the most
in the much larger Noordoostpolder. in the form of wetland areas. densely populated countries in the world.

54
A D

Ijsselmeerpolders, satellite imagery of Zuidelijk Flevoland

C with the mainland to the south, separated by the waters of
the Veluwemeer and the Gooimeer. The false colour imagery
has red for vegetation, with the brighter red indicating more
vigorous vegetation such as trees and reeds. Water is navy
blue. Built-up areas are pale blue and the bare soil of arable
fields is grey-green. The three views show the changing
development of the new polders.

A. 8 September 1980 satellite view: large arable fields

seen as grey-green.
B. 23 May 1989 satellite view: fields have been subdivided,
building work continues in Almere to the west.
C. 1 July 2006 satellite view: mid-year view, there are
far fewer ploughed fields, Almere to the west has
grown to a town of over 190,000 and the bright red
Oostvaardersplassen conservation area with its lake
is seen at the top.
D. Typical new polder view.
E. 1984 plan with the small Wieringermeerpolder (193km2)
top left, the Nordoostpolder (469 km2) top right
contiguous with the mainland, at the bottom Oostelijk
Flevoland (528km2), and to the west Zuidelijk Flevoland
(430km2).

1 Case study Ijsselmeerpolders, the Netherlands 55

2
Beginning a Project
The brief 58
Types of client 65
Case study: Westergasfabriek Park, Amsterdam 66
Fees: how to get paid 68
Case study: Central Park, New York City 70
Site survey 72
Case study: Thames Barrier Park, London 74

Construction workers installing a major

water feature, Hong Kong.

57
This chapter sets out the initial stages of any landscape architecture
project, beginning with the brief and proceeding through the positives
and negatives of working with particular types of client, the various ways
of estimating costs and the kinds of information that need to be gathered
in a site survey. All of this work precedes the actual business of making
a design, which will be covered in the next chapter.

The brief
A project begins formally with the brief, • design and specification of site
a description of the services the furniture and fixings such as light
consultant is to provide for the client. fittings, seats and litter bins;
This might be a one-page sheet or it • liaison with the services engineers
might be a much longer document. regarding location of services and
Often clients may not know quite what trees, and
they want or what a landscape architect • monitoring the implementation
can do; in such cases, the brief is often by contractors.
the result of a series of discussions
between landscape architect and client. Details will inevitably vary from project
On the other hand, the client may have to project and from country to country.
a great deal of commissioning experience In the US, landscape architects often
and come up with a brief with little prior undertake earthworks engineering and
consultation. plot layout for housing projects. However,
landscape architects need to be careful
The extent of the landscape architect’s not to accept responsibility for structural
role will depend on their capabilities elements that are beyond their areas
and on the project. Usually, however, of professional competence, not least
the landscape architect will undertake because of the insurance implications.
the design and specification of the
following for a building or engineering
development:
W H Y:
• earthworks and mounds (with W H AT:
engineering advice for structural PHILOSOPH Y
mounds such as road embankments);
COMPONEN TS
• planting (i.e. trees, shrubs, herbaceous
materials, grasses);
• topsoil or other soil;
• site grading and contours, including
general levelling of roads and
footpaths, working with engineers,
and liaising with the architect on A GOOD
the ground-floor levels and siting BRIEF
of buildings;
• water features, e.g. lakes, swales,
D ESC RIBES
ponds and fountains;
• roads, footpaths and other paved
areas in terms of their layout and
appearance, including detailing
kerbs, steps and path edges, again
working with other consultants (in
this case, civil engineers); H O W:
W H E N:
D E LIVE R AB L ES
P ROGRAMME

58
A B

Landscape architects need to develop an D

understanding of all the elements of a design.

A. Earthmounding, Venlo Floriade 2012,

the Netherlands.
B. The potential of external lighting: simple
fluorescent tubes mounted under the seats
at La Villette, the design dates from the
1980s, nowadays LED lights are used.
C. Selecting plant material, Hilliers Tree
Nursery, Hampshire, UK.
D. The seasonal colour changes of planting.

2 Beginning a Project The brief 59

Therefore, while a landscape architect with some responsibility for advising
may design road layouts and propose on formation of engineered mounds;
the paving and draw the edgings and • design and specification of irrigation;
set the levels, he or she should ensure • coordination of underground services
that a civil engineer is responsible for the (i.e. drawing them on plan and liaising
structural aspects of the road, including with services engineers in order
the base make-up, and that services to ensure there was space to plant
engineers design the electrical layout shrubs and trees);
for the lighting and drainage of roads • specification of backstage landscape
on any but the smallest projects. Public maintenance areas;
roads or larger road projects will require • monitoring the work on site and
a highways engineer to undertake the reporting to the client. A. Landscape lighting in a scheme designed
layout design. Artificial lakes may well by Yann Kersalé, Musée du Quai Branly,
require the services of an engineer The brief was predetermined by the Paris with methacrylate 3W LED light sticks
specializing in dam design. client Walt Disney Imaginering (WDI) and varying in height from 30cm to 2m.
B. Earthworks, EuroDisneyland, Paris: the
their project manager, Lehrer McGovern
planted perimeter mounds are about 9m
At the earliest stage the landscape Bovis, in a document of over 100 pages.
high and built to exclude the outside world.
architect should visit the site and discuss The client wanted European landscape C. Bank of China water feature, Hong Kong.
the outline capital cost of a project. architects to ensure implementation of D. Planters, seats and interactive water feature
Indeed, costs should be discussed prior their design. WDI had designed three at Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands.
to agreement of the professional fees Disneyland theme parks beforehand. E. Wooden decking at Venlo Floriade 2012,
unless it is agreed to pay time-based They knew what they wanted, but the Netherlands
fees for initial discussions. Professional they did not know how it could be F. Stainless-steel reflection pool designed by
fees are the payment for the professional implemented in Europe. The whole Peter Walker, Town Center Park in Costa
services (pp.68–69) while contract costs design team visited the Los Angeles Mesa, California.
G. Timber boardwalk, Venlo Floriade 2012,
are the monies paid to contractors to Disneyland and individual members
the Netherlands.
construct or plant the work (pp.141–44). were also delegated to visit the Florida H. Cutting granite paving, London.
and Tokyo versions. Morgan Evans, Walt I. Curved timber bench, Faro, Portugal.
As an example, the landscape architects Disney’s original landscape architect, J. Corten steel steps designed by Michael
for the Paris EuroDisneyland theme park acted as a ‘coach’ on the tours and van Gessel, Grebbeberg, the Netherlands.
in 1990 were responsible for: subsequently in Paris. K. Hardwood terracing, Amsterdam.

• sourcing of plants;
• design and specification of planting;
• design and specification of topsoil

A B

60
C D

F G H

I J K

2 Beginning a Project The brief 61

A Designers need to develop a confidence
in planting and materiality.

A. Meadow planting, Venlo Floriade 2012,

the Netherlands.
B. Mature tree planting, Liverpool One, UK.
C. Birch grove planting, London.
D. Mixed prairie planting, the Netherlands.
E. Autumn colour planting, Parc des
Cormailles, Paris.
F. Bamboo planting, Le Jardin des Géants,
Lille, France.
G. Large-scale perimeter earthworks,
at EuroDisneyland Paris.

62
D

E F

2 Beginning a Project The brief 63

A B

C D

Landscape architects will need to work with a range

of clients, both public and private.

A. Pre-cast concrete and timber benches, The High

Line, New York: a public park, owned by City of
New York, but run and operated by Friends of the
High Line, founded in 1999 by local residents.
B. Screen wall lighting installation, Abu Dhabi:
private developer.
C. Scalloped mounding and autumn leaves, Jardin
Joan Miró, Paris: owned and managed with
direct labour by the City of Paris (Ville de Paris).
D. Concrete swimming pool construction,
Cyprus; private developer.
E. Lake earthworks under construction,
Reading, UK: for a private-sector business
park development.
F. Turfed amphitheatre terracing, Hedeland Arena,
near Roskilde, Denmark: a public company, I/S
Hedeland, an Interessentskab or partnership
owned by the three surrounding local authorities,
manages the area as a country park.

64
Types of client
The context within which landscape be a local authority requiring work to of the River Rhine in the past few decades
architecture is carried out varies be completed to a tight timescale and linked with its decanalization can be seen
according to the ways in which at an inappropriate period of the year as commons management and there are
economies and administrative policies (whether too cold or too hot) because of now concepts of global commons such
change. Hence, landscape gardeners financial-year or electoral considerations. as climate change and air quality. How
in the eighteenth century worked for Government projects can also be wide- to price or value these is a challenge for
individual patrons; nowadays public ranging. The New Towns in the UK were economists and for designers involved
and corporate clients are the norm. government-agency developments and in their provision as well as society as
Clients vary and may be categorized the Rijskdienst voor het Isselmeerpolders a whole.
as follows: was the government body tasked with
polder reclamation from the Zuider Zee THE VALUE OF THE LONG VIEW
PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS (say, for a garden in the Netherlands over seven decades. Often the best private-sector clients
or estate or private house) can make the Some of the largest central-government are those with long-term financial
most challenging clients, especially if they bodies with large land holdings in the interests. Both banks and pension funds
are not used to construction and delays UK are the Forestry Commission and have money, and their challenge is
caused due to weather or late supply of the Ministry of Defence, while in the to ensure the value of that money is
materials. However, private clients can US the National Parks Service manages maintained over the long term by good
also be the most understanding, not 340,000km2 of federal land. financial investment. One of our best
necessarily wanting an instant result, and clients was the former nationalized
instead being prepared to wait for longer- NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS electricity pension fund Electricity Supply
term outcomes. The work can also be the (NGOs) are not-for-profit bodies. In many Nominees, for whom the challenge was
most satisfying because you are providing countries, the largest of these are nature- to ensure the value of their investments
a personal service, and you can transform conservation charities and foundations. would grow over a 40- or 50-year
their personal outdoor environment. They have a long-term interest in the timescale: pensions funds are highly
stewardship of the land and therefore capitalized. This is a forester’s timescale.
PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPERS: these can make very good clients. Community Much more short-term in outlook are
may be industrial or leisure companies and public-interest groups include bodies speculative developers who are interested
developing sites for their own occupation such as the Central Park Conservancy in a quick return, selling on developments
or may be real-estate developers of in New York, which is devoted to the swiftly in order to generate more money
housing or offices or retail space, upgrading of Central Park. In the UK to put into the next development.
whether on a short-term speculative or the Painshill Park Trust is a local charity Universities, by contrast, can make wise
longer-term basis. Real-estate developers devoted to resurrecting an eighteenth- and intelligent clients, but can also be
may well have predetermined briefs and century landscape garden (see p.30). In difficult because they are staffed by highly
established ways of working that one Lisbon the Calouste Gulbenkian Trust is educated specialists who may not have
has to comply with and that might prove housed in a superb, 7-hectare Modernist a good understanding of the property
problematic. Some of the best private park designed by Gonçalo Ribeiro market or of design. The key to landscape
developers are the landed estates, such Telles and António Viana Barreiro which architecture practice is building up a
as colleges or pension funds with a long- it commissioned in 1968 with a lake, supportive client base. Remember too
term interest in the land. For example, sculpture park and open-air theatre. that clients often have ideals and you
it was the private developer at Canary should live up to them.
Wharf in London’s Docklands who THE COMMONS
wanted a strong masterplan and One issue for landscape architecture is
a high-quality environment. that so much of its work involves what
economists term common goods or
CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ‘commons’. Traditionally common land
which will usually be like private or alpine pastures and tropical forests
developers in having predetermined (communally owned and shared) were
ways of working. Often they make seen as common goods. However, the
for challenging clients because their definition is being extended to areas such
working methods can unduly limit design as oceans, or Antarctica, clean air and
flexibility. One typical example would water, or silence. Arguably the clean-up

2 Beginning a Project Types of client 65

Westergasfabriek Park, Amsterdam

Town council as client

Westergasfabriek Park in Amsterdam is a 13ha public park built for A. Westergasfabriek: entrance bridge from the
south across the Haarlemmertrekvaart, the
Stadsdeel Westerpark. The old Wester gasworks ceased production in seventeenth-century fast passenger boat canal
1967, leaving a highly contaminated brown-field site that by 1992 had to Haarlem with views of the old gasworks
fallen completely out of use. The area is only 3km from the centre of building beyond, now a cultural, music and
Amsterdam but is cut off on the north by railway lines. In the 1990s it film venue with Sunday markets outside.
B. Gustafson Porter’s competition-winning plan
was decided to develop the site for cultural purposes – rather than for arranged on an east–west axis, with a more
housing or offices or other forms of commercial use – and that its role naturalistic area to the north-west where it links
would be to serve all of Amsterdam rather than just the local borough. with the earlier Water Natuurtuin, a peat wetland
nature reserve. The east of the park is more
formal with a large events lawn, and formal
concrete-edged pool for summer wading
Some of the industrial buildings had 2003 by the mayor of Amsterdam, and play. To the east are the existing
survived and could be converted for Job Cohen, and renovation of the old Westerpark gardens, which date from 1891
cultural or recreational use, and there was gasworks followed. The park had been when the area was first developed.
C. View of the stream and ‘valley’ to the west
lengthy discussion about the standard turfed and planted with advanced nursery
of the park.
of remediation required for the toxic stock (i.e. quite big) trees in the hottest
D. Though the two pools may seem one, in fact
materials in the ground. The brief was summer on record in Europe since at the wading pool and the cypress pool are totally
framed as a prestigious metropolitan least 1540. The result was the death of separate, the wading pool fed with clean water,
development of a ‘cultural/art/new media’ over 90 per cent of the trees and turf. while the latter takes surface drainage water
type, with some ‘community’ facilities, Clearly the designers had been overruled and is part of the water-cleansing system.
set in a model ecopark. In January 2000 by the private developers so that the E. View of the cypress pool with embankment
an agreement was made by Stadsdeel planting had taken place out of season. and wading pool beyond. Swamp Cypress
Westerpark (by then the landowners) If the client had been better informed (in (Taxodium distichum) trees grow on individual
to sell the site to a private developer for the way that the old City of Amsterdam mounds.
F. The cascade between the cypress pool
the equivalent of US$5 million, with the Parks Department was), this would not
boardwalk and the reed pool to the left;
undertaking that they would renovate have happened. This is a good example the cascade oxygenates the water.
the industrial buildings and construct of a client insisting on inappropriate G. The gasometer pool, planted with reeds
the park. action for political or PR reasons. The and with islands for ground-nesting birds.
park was subsequently replanted two
Gustafson Porter of London were years later. In 2007 it won the Landscape
selected as the landscape architects. Institute’s award for best park over 5ha
The park was opened on 7 September in area.

66
B C

F G

2 Case study Westergasfabriek Park, Amsterdam 67

Fees: how to get paid
The capital values (the monetary value Stuart Lipton, the developer of Stockley Note that the cost estimate should come
of the development contracts) for which Park, in our view Britain’s best-designed first. When first appointed, the landscape
a landscape architect is responsible are business park, once quipped that architect should ensure that the capital
often small compared to those handled ‘Landscape costs peanuts’, yet he also value is sufficient for the works. One of
by other development consultants, such realized that the attentions of a landscape the authors of this book participated in
as engineers or architects. Therefore architect can seriously enhance property the work for the first 56ha theme park at
the cost and overheads of a landscape values. That is, landscape architecture EuroDisneyland, now Disneyland Paris.
architect’s attendance at a regular site can make developers money. The The initial-stage landscape consultants,
or at design team meetings may be challenge for the landscape architect Clouston based in London with Paris-
proportionally much more than the is to ensure that their contribution is based API, were responsible for the
value of the work they are responsible properly valued. planting, topsoiling, irrigation and services
for. The upside is that a landscape coordination. On being appointed, the
architecture practice is usually involved The overheads (e.g. travel, office costs, landscape architects found that the prior
in more projects simultaneously than, meals, and, if at a distance, hotel fees) allocation for the landscape works was
say, an engineering or architectural in landscape architecture are always a 40 million French francs. A detailed cost
practice, not only because of the smaller challenge so it is wise to negotiate time estimate by the landscape architects
capital values of landscape projects, but fees for attendance at design meetings, based on outline drawings determined a
also because the projects tend to last site meetings, and plant nursery visits cost estimate of 180 million francs: the
longer. When a building is complete and – which, remember, might well be final cost was in the order of 120 million
handed over to the client, the architect’s abroad: major European centres for big francs. The initial cost estimate by the
involvement is usually at an end; by tree production are in Pistoia, Italy, the project managers was too low by a factor
contrast, landscape architecture projects Netherlands and Schleswig Holstein. of three. Cost estimation should always
are often just beginning to develop when If you are looking for large palm trees be made on the basis of comparable
the clients take them over, so there can you may have to visit Florida or Spain. projects and land area.
be continuing management consultancy Elements that need to be established
roles for landscape architects. Financially early on include: Sometimes a client does not know who
this equates to smaller financial eggs put will be responsible for the ongoing
in a greater number of baskets. a) an adequate estimate both of capital management of a project. For example,
and ongoing maintenance costs; the London Docklands Development
It is also important to distinguish capital Corporation (LDDC) presumed that
development costs from continuing b) a design programme – the timetable the local London borough of Newham
management and maintenance costs. for the production of the designs and would take on the management of
Management and maintenance is key drawings, for costing purposes and then the Thames Barrier Park (see p.74)
to the long-term success of landscape for a planning application and finally when it was completed in 2000.
projects as well. This can range from for production information so that However, management costs money
street cleaning and litter collection to contractors can tender for the work; and the LDDC had failed to put any
painting and maintaining signs and financial arrangements in place for
railings, to horticultural maintenance c) a tender programme – the timetable the site’s ongoing management so
from grass cutting to pruning trees for competitive tendering. This requires Newham refused to take over the new
and indeed the wide range of normal selection of suitable companies, a development. The LDDC could have
gardening. Lakes need dredging from reasonable period to permit tendering made such financial arrangements
time to time, fountains and pumps need and then time to consider and check a covenant as part of its planning
regular maintenance as does lighting and the tenders and appoint a successful permission, or built a service-charge
painting of timber structures. All this has contractor; arrangement into subsequent land
to be planned for and programmed from sales (it was the landowner as
the beginning. And the revenue stream to d) a site works programme – the well). The adjacent private housing
pay for all this, and which may be service programme of works with effective developments could have helped finance
charges on rental property, has to be and realistic timescales, covering all the maintenance of the park – not
planned for. work up to completion; inappropriately since they benefit from
the park. In consequence the opening
e) a maintenance programme with of the park was delayed and ultimately
responsibilities and provision for the newly founded Greater London
continuing finance (through a planned Authority, under the Mayor of London,
revenue) of site maintenance and took over responsibility.
management.

68
FEES LUMP-SUM FEES are fixed sums, they which all work arising is required to be
There are three main ways of charging often include expenses (which should carried out by the landscape consultant.
for consultancy work: time, percentage be costed as at least an additional 10 per But, again, there has to be a clear
and lump sum. cent of the total fee), and are preferred definition of the extent of the work.
by many clients who wish to have a firm
TIME CHARGES can be at an agreed idea of costs. The initial calculation is PAYMENT STAGES – Stage payments
hourly, daily or weekly rate for each grade first made on a time-fee or percentage can apply to all methods of fee
or individual member of staff, including basis and then converted to a lump calculation and each stage fee is best
principals, and will vary depending on sum. However, there has to be a clear invoiced monthly, based on the current
staff experience and responsibilities. agreement as to the timescale (and timetable for design and implementation.
There should also be review dates, allowance for delay in the total project), This ensures an adequate inflow of
especially for long projects and in times prior agreement as to what happens money and means that you are not
of high inflation – fees can be index- if there is a change of brief (called having to wait an undue time for
linked. Index linking involves relating a ‘change order’, which involves an payment, say, because of a delay in
agreed fees to an agreed price index extra fee for extra work) and allowance a project or because the client prefers
whether cost of living, national wage for inflation. to release payment slowly.
levels or construction industry costs
so the rise is in line with inflation over There is a fourth kind of financial Stage fees break up the design and
the months and years. Time charges arrangement, made on a retainer-fee contract implementation programme
(which might be to a pre-agreed limit) basis. This is for when a client wants of a development into various letters
are particularly appropriate for early- to retain the services of a landscape phases or stages, for instance as below.
stage work or for desk studies such as consultant on an ‘as-needed’ basis over The Landscape Institute’s current
environmental assessment or landscape an extended period of time, during percentage stage fees are:
planning work. They are a secure way
of assessing fees.

PERCENTAGE FEES relate to the value of

the work and are usually a percentage
of the total cost of a contract or WORK PROPORTION TOTAL
subcontract for which the landscape STAGE OF FEE FEE
consultant is responsible. For instance,
a £1,000,000 landscape project might
require 5–10 per cent fees which would
A Inception N/A N/A
be £50,000–£100,000. Alternatively it
might be a much lower percentage, say B Feasibility N/A N/A
0.5 to 10 per cent, of the total capital
cost of the whole project, particularly if C Outline proposals 15% 15%
the landscape architect is advising on the
location and orientation of buildings or D Sketch scheme proposals 15% 30%
the masterplan framework for road and
other engineering work. Percentage fees E Detailed proposals 15% 45%
generally also vary with the complexity
of the type of work and the size of the F/G Production information and bills 20% 65%
capital sum. Lower-value projects rate a of quantities
greater percentage of the total value in H/J Tender action & contract 5% 70%
fees; greater complexity likewise justifies preparation
a larger percentage fee. For example,
golf courses, country parks and forestry K Construction 25% 95%
schemes are generally considered less
complex, while urban design or historic L Completion 5% 100%
landscape conservation are considered
the most complex. Most landscape
architecture professional bodies have
guidelines for percentage fees.
Percentage fees are not appropriate for stages A and
B, and these stages should be charged on a time-fee
or lump-sum basis (it does not imply they should be
done for free). You could say that each should be
charged at 5 per cent .

2 Beginning a Project Fees: how to get paid 69

Central Park, New York City

Charity as client
Central Park is a 341ha city park in the centre of New York City, initially
opened in 1857, it was designed by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law
Olmsted. By the 1970s it had become run-down. In 1980 the Central Park
Conservancy was founded, a private, not-for-profit organization, which
included a group of civic and community leaders and aimed to restore,
enhance and manage Central Park in partnership with the City of New York.

In a power-sharing arrangement between of all aspects of the park. This led In 1998 the Conservancy and the City
the city council and the charity, the to the creation of a masterplan. The formalized their partnership. Currently
Central Park administrator serve as plan included the restoration of the the Conservancy is responsible for the
the chief executive officer of the park park’s Sheep Meadow, the planting of day-to-day maintenance and operation
and of the Conservancy. In 1979 park thousands of shrubs and flowers, and the of the park. It employs 90 per cent of
commissioner Gordon J. Davis appointed restoration of significant structures such the park’s maintenance operations staff,
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers as the Central as the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain and provides 85 per cent of its $42.4
Park administrator. Rogers was a park and the Belvedere Castle. It proposed million annual management budget
activist and the author of books and spending $150 million on a ‘systematic through fundraising and investment. In
articles on parks and Olmsted. Davis and coherent renovation’ in a ten- to addition to paying an annual fee to the
asked Rogers to raise money from the fifteen-year period. By the end of its first Conservancy for the services it provides,
private sector to cover her own salary as decade, the Central Park Conservancy the City funds lighting, maintenance of
administrator. In 1980 this arrangement had raised more than $65 million for the park’s drives and law enforcement.
was formalized with the creation of this public-private venture, contributing Central Park now has 35 million visitors
the Conservancy. From 1982, Rogers more than half of the park’s budget a year and the Conservancy is a model
oversaw a team of landscape architects and exercising substantial influence on for the renewal of a historic city park by
as they undertook a three-year survey decisions about its future. a public-private partnership.

70
B C

D E

The 341ha New York Central Park.

A. Looking across the lake to the Central Park

West Corporation building.
B. View from the Central Park Conservancy towards
the south-west.
C. The Sheep Meadow in context with the backdrop
of 8th Avenue and the Theater District.
D. Looking north towards Harlem, with the Sheep
Meadow, the lake and the Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis Reservoir engulfed in the tree canopy.
E. The long view down the lake towards
Central Park South.

2 Case study Central Park, New York City 71

Site survey
Knowledge of site is the basis of A site survey should look at/include In addition, the site should be placed
landscape architecture and it should be the following elements: in its social, environmental, ecological,
gained by both direct observation and economic, transport and historical
research into records and published • geology and surface geology; context so that the external factors
plans; in this way, an understanding • site soils, infertile and fertile soil; affecting it can be evaluated. For
can be built up that is both factual and • hydrology, water table and surface example, the presence and capacity
emotional. It is essential to walk a site, water, e.g. pools, streams and rivers, (or absence) of services such as mains
experience it at different times of day flooding, shorelines and tidal areas electricity or sewers may facilitate or
and year, and record its elements. Ideally with high and low tides; restrict the nature of a development.
one should also sleep on the site, though • climate and microclimate, sunny Proximity to employment, schools and
this is not entirely usual practice – but on aspects, frost pockets, areas exposed shops and transport is an important
the one occasion we slept on a site, we to wind, sheltered areas, sun-path factor in housing projects, while the
won the international design competition. diagram, the latitude and longitude presence of special habitats or sites of
of the site; historical or archaeological significance
The site survey should record the physical • vegetation including grasses, may restrict the scope of, or offer
features on the site. Often the ground herbaceous and woody vegetation, extra opportunities to, a particular
survey, which includes details of existing and significant habitats; individual development.
contours, built structures and the main trees and woodland;
vegetation, will be carried out by a • site history: historic and listed (or Survey plans may then be collated and
specialist surveyor, but this should always protected) buildings, structures and analysed in the form of a composite plan,
be supplemented by a landscape survey artefacts; usually referred to as an opportunities
to ensure that the landscape architects • site use, both formal and informal, and constraints plan, or sometimes a
themselves gain a thorough knowledge and regular and occasional; SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses,
of the site. A full landscape site survey will • views in, out and within; and types Opportunities and Threats).
involve a ground survey by the engineers of view such as extensive panoramas
to show the bearing capacity of the soil or views to landmarks; Only after all this information has
and groundwater levels and may involve • site surfaces, buildings and artefacts; been collected and organized can the
a detailed tree condition survey by an note building materials including actual design work begin. Landscape
arboriculturist (a tree consultant). stone, the bond of brickwork, architecture is nothing without
type of mortar, colour and texture, knowledge of site: it is vital to visit,
paint colours; to breathe in and understand a site,
• site services: drainage, electricity, take time, sleep on it if you can, live
water, telecommunications, gas, etc; on it is better and certainly experience
• climate: wind, rain, temperature, it at different times of the day. Without
exposure; an adequate understanding of the site,
• topography and levels, contour one may proceed with a design that
survey of the site, steep slopes; ultimately proves unworkable or
• photographic survey; extremely expensive to implement.
• noise and pollution, both ground
and air pollution;
• planning and ownership status,
building covenants, planning
controls and designations.

72
SITE ELEMENTS
TO BE RECORDED

POL L U TION

VIEWS
M I C R O C L I M AT E

CHARAC TE R C I R C U L AT I O N & A C C E S S

B O UNDAR IES F L O R A & FA U N A

SE RVICES &
U TILITIES

LAND USE

DRAINAG E
G E O L OG Y & S OILS

LANDFORM

A. Site survey drawing A

ZERKALNY
THEATRE

HERMITAGE THEATRE UL
ITS

SHOO
H TING
T
TI
I GAL
A LERY
RY
RY
A
KA
RE
TN
YR
IAD

OPEN AIR
A THE
T ATRE

CHES
H S CL
C UB
UB
STAG
AGE
AG
G BOX

SPHERE THEAT
AT
TRE

2 Beginning a Project Site survey 73

Thames Barrier Park, London

Public-sector development corporation as client

This project represented the idea, new to post-war London, that public
urban park investment could lead to the wholesale redevelopment of an
area. The park is characterized by a green dock, reflecting the historical
use of the site, copses of trees and concrete paths. The Thames Barrier
Park was intended to encourage private housing in the adjacent plots.
This has happened to the west and east, although the Pontoon Dock
site to the north on the far side of North Woolwich Road remained
empty and vacant at the time of writing.

The park’s uses are traditional and The overall tender price was just over only one mound was actually built at
mainly passive: it is a place for walking, £8 million, which came from the LDDC, the northern end. Now the view extends
for horticultural display and for enjoying English Partnerships and the London uninterrupted from the entrance across
views of London – the Thames Barrier, Borough of Newham. As developed, the whole park to the shapes of the
the river itself and tree-clad Shooters Hill the park is much as the original design Thames Barrier’s bright, stainless-steel-
to the south. The site fronts the north envisaged. It covers 9.3ha and this gives clad piers. This green dock gesture is
bank of the River Thames just west of the an all-in figure of £86/m2 compared with impressive at first, but on repeated visits
Thames Barrier. The post-industrial site the £300/m2 for the Parc de Bercy in can prove a bit anticlimactic since there
of the park in Silvertown had a legacy of Paris, an eastern Parisian equivalent, is only one way in and one way out. Paths
pollution, particularly oils and tars. The also sited next to a river. at the plateau level lead to connections
Greater London Council had proposed to the high-level Pontoon Dock
a park in 1984, an idea adopted by The Patel Taylor/Groupe Signes design station on the Docklands Light Railway
the London Docklands Development was for a simple, square-shaped grass extension to City Airport opened in
Corporation (LDDC), which acquired plateau fronting the Thames, with 2005. The elegant effect is typical of
the site in 1995, and it launched an housing development on three sides. late Modernism. It is refreshing to see
international two-stage competition for The housing blocks were to be like such a simple, confidently handled, truly
the reclamation of the derelict and toxic ‘armchairs’: long, central façades contemporary park design in the UK.
land and development of a park and bookended by two shorter blocks
residential scheme. At this stage there maximize views in and out. Most of
was no set budget. this square plateau is mown grassland,
but it is marked by patterns of long
The London-based architect Patel Taylor meadow grass and copses of birch trees.
and the Paris-based landscape architect The original idea was for six white, red,
Groupe Signes won the competition, blue and yellow wildflower meadow-
with Arup as engineer. The Groupe Signes grass areas, but this has not been
team were led by the French landscape realized and the long grass is dominated
architect Allain Provost, who had by green vetch. Wildflower meadow
designed the Parc Diderot at La Défense grass is challenging to achieve in public
and the Parc Citroën-Cévennes in Paris. parks because people trample on it and
it needs skilled management. At the
Meanwhile, in 1998 the LDDC had been Thames Barrier Park the imported
wound up and the park passed first to topsoil proved to be overly fertile,
English Partnerships (another central- causing the wildflower meadow to fail.
government agency) and then to the
new mayor of London and the Greater In the competition entry, the green dock
London Authority (GLA) in July 2000. had mounds rising and falling within it
The park is now owned and maintained like waves to create a sense of mystery as
by the GLA and park maintenance is one approached from the park entrance
under contract. on North Woolwich Road. However,

74
A B

A. The pavilion remembering the victims of WWII.

B. The remarkable green dock retaining walls clad in
Lonicera pileata.
C. Between the hedges are monospecific block displays
of flowering herbaceous plants.
D. View from the DLR railway station over the green
dock to the river and the Thames Barrier (top left).
E. Green dock showing the wave pattern of the hedges.
F. Dying yew hedges in the green dock due to imported
wet clay topsoil.

2 Case study Thames Barrier Park, London 75

3
The Design Process
Developing a design 78
Case study: Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus 86
The principles of design 88
Case study: Hedeland Arena, Roskilde, Denmark 104
Human flow and natural change 106
Case study: Marketplace and Waterfront, Odda, Norway 108

The Erin Business Park (built on the site of an old coal

mine) in Castrop-Rauxel in the Ruhrgebiet, one of
the Emscher Park IBA projects.

77
This chapter reviews design process and its basic elements such as
the significance of site, of inspiration, hierarchy and human scale and
human flow and natural change. It describes the five components that
a landscape architect deals with, discusses ideas such as hierarchy,
symmetry and asymmetry, national attitudes to landscape, human scale,
linearity, colour, form and texture, and ideas of process and change.

Developing a design
The design process is the sequence cope with stormwater) or lakes and
of steps that a designer undertakes landscape areas or gardens for offices
when responding to a commission. with a perimeter shelterbelt.By contrast,
Sometimes this is logical, sometimes a solution-based approach might involve
more intuitive and sometimes thinking of a business park as a place
pragmatic. The sequence includes of work where creativity and teamwork
such things as design methods, skills might be enhanced by the design of
and inspiration, which together form the open space and the creation of an
a focused programme of action. environment that provides relaxation
from the meetings and computer-based
General approaches to a brief might be activities of a normal office. This might
simplified as falling into two categories: offer a landscape garden setting and Design ideas are often derived from the contextual
problem-based and solution-based. a regular opportunity to look away nature of the site, the genius loci, understanding
For example, a business park proposal from the computer screen to take in a these different qualities help in the development of
a design response and guide the design process.
might be framed in a problem-based view of pleasing scenes with water and
manner: it has so much floorspace, vegetation – a setting that encourages A. The courtyard of the Mezquita de
with a predetermined road access people to work together in groups with Córdoba, Spain.
network and a range of buildings with access to gardens for relaxation or B. The English picturesque: Painshill Park,
a similarly predetermined number of meditation or for a place for discussion Surrey, UK.
C. Post-industrial: Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark,
car park spaces related to floorspace or trim trails or grouse or duck shooting
Germany.
(e.g. one car parking space/20m2 of or golf. The issues of access and site
D. Desert shelter, southern Sinai Desert, Egypt.
building floorspace). This helps define planning are then subordinated to this E. Elevated viewpoint, Grebbeberg, the
the consequent approach to the ambition. The argument here could also Netherlands, overlooking the Rhine flood plain.
open space design, such as whether be that a better environment will give F. Contemporary public realm, Liverpool, UK.
to provide wet balancing ponds (to greater real-estate value. G. Karst limestone scenery, Guilin, China.

N P ROCES
D ESIG S

CLIEN T
BRIEF

COMPLE TED
P ROJ EC T
D ESIG N M E TH OD S AC T IO N S,
E V E N T S O R ST E P S ,
S U B-P ROCESS ES

78
A B

C D

3 The Design Process Developing a design 79

A B

C D E

80
F

G H

Landscape architects need to be able to recognize function, scale,

juxtaposition, and the enclosure of space as they evaluate context.

A. Multi-level retail public realm, Liverpool One, UK.

B. Patio de los Arrayanes, Alhambra, Spain.
C. Temple bathing pool, Bali.
D. Mémorial des Martyrs et de la Déportation, Notre Dame, Paris.
E. Renaissance courtyard grotto with cascade, Genoa, Italy.
F. King’s College from the Backs, Cambridge, UK.
G. The Grand Axe crossing Paris viewed from La Défense.
H. Cataract, Nikko, Japan.

3 The Design Process Developing a design 81

GENIUS LOCI

A U D I TO R Y
F L O R A + FA U N A
VISUAL SMELL S U R FA C E S
B U I LT
TA ST E FORM
EPHEMERAL CON TEN T

LANDFORM W AT E R
SENSORY P H Y SICAL

UNIQ
UENE
SS

G ENIUS LOCI

SPIRIT OF THE P L ACE

C U LT U R A L
CONDITIONING

E X P E C TAT I O N MEMORY

L EARNING & MY TH

Misty upland pasture, in the valley

of Nant Cymdu, Aberdraw, Wales.
The spirit of this place is that of
Celtic culture, sheep farming
and memories of the tailors who
owned this field, and made flannel
suits in their homes, using wool
woven in local mills.

82
REVEALING THE SITE FOR DESIGN SKILLS fly-throughs. Envisioning involves
THE DESIGN These may be summarized as: creating mental images of things or
There is an orderly sequence of events by means of spoken or written
techniques: for instance, site survey, • thinking; cues or even by an event such as a
analysis and design (known as SAD), • problem solving; community workshop. UDATs (urban
the site as revealed by the analysis of • research; design action teams) are precisely this
the survey should in turn determine • design; sort of community action and from the
the design. For example, don’t build • communication. beginning involve the community in
on a flood plain, don’t develop on generating ideas for a project.
steep slopes or areas of poor ground- The necessary skills needed also
bearing capacity or don’t develop on involve the abilities to create a ‘product’
existing areas of biodiversity value. In which could be in the form of:
the 1960s Ian McHarg’s sieve-mapping
technique involved overlaying maps each • drawings;
showing different criteria to define the • models;
feasibility of different areas. Nowadays • visualizations and walk-throughs;
digital design including Geographic • envisioning.
Information Systems (GIS) facilitate
this technique. Sieve mapping involves These can be analogue or digital or a
mapping constraints and opportunities. combination of both. Drawings can be
Environmental Assessment is another both freehand, mechanically drawn (i.e.
rather similar design method. Such analogue) or digital. Likewise, models
methods require understanding of a site, can be real, three-dimensional objects
the development of form, following rules or can be digitally created. Visualizations
of composition, whether symmetrical or can be hand-drawn as in a comic book
asymmetrical, and so on. or film storyboard, or can be digital

DESIGN SKILLS

ME THODS

SKILLS
P ROCESS

D ESIG N IS
A COMPLEX
D I S C I P L I N E T H AT
C O M BI N E S . . .

I N S P I R AT I O N

CON TEN T

CON TEX T

3 The Design Process Developing a design 83

 Derelict hill village,
Urbino, Italy.

DESIGN APPROACHES

DEVELOPMEN T H I STO R I C A L L AY E R S / PA L I M P S E ST S
F RAMEWORK

P R A G M AT I C- L I N E A R-R AT I O N A L

A L L E G O R Y & N A R R AT I V E
S U STA I N A B I L I T Y D ESIG N
AP P ROACH E
S C O M M U N I T Y- B A S E D

ST Y L I ST I C PAT T E R N L A N G U A G E

ECOL OGICAL
I N T U I T I V E/G E N I U S L O C I

P O ST-I N D U ST R I A L D E S I G N W I T H N AT U R E

H O L I ST I C PAT T E R N M A K I N G

84
INSPIRATION Kent was influenced by seventeenth- Later, in his Guelph lectures, Jellicoe
This comes from all sorts of sources, century painting and the contemporary defined five archetypes which he termed
and is usually a product of our wider vogue for the Grand Tour of Italy which transparencies ‘each carryng an imprint
lives, meaning the society in which he undertook twice. Geoffrey Jellicoe was of the experience of an era’:
one lives, the education one has had, influenced by the early twentieth-century
cultural interests, etc. Clearly people developments in psychiatry and the ideas 1. Rock and Water: ‘so remote as to
living in dense urban areas, or countries of conscious and subconscious: some of be scarcely perceptible’;
with high population densities where his designs might be described as Jungian 2. Forester: ‘most small domestic
land is much scarcer, tend to have psychoanalysis-made-landscape. For gardens are inspired by the instincts
different attitudes to people in more instance Jellicoe described use of the of the Forester’;
rural or less populated areas. subconscious in design thus: 3. Hunter: ‘from this idealistic
transparency comes much of the
Nationally Americans and Russians who ‘The process is simple. You first English eighteenth-century
live in rural locations may have a very prepare a design in the normal way, Romantic landscape’;
expansive view of the landscape because you find it uninspiring, you place the 4. Settler: ‘the era began through the
for them land is freely available; the drawing at a distance and preferably discovery of geometry as a means
American prairies or the Russian forest upside down, and you gradually of defining territory in an agricultural
or tundra appear to go on for ever. The become aware that it suggests a rather than a nomad economy...
Dutch, the Danes or the Japanese have shape foreign but friendly to your mathematics were divine’;
a much more managed approach in own. In this shadowy shape you hope 5. Voyager: ‘the unfinished transparency
lands where space is limited. These are to discern some form that aspires to of our own era, which might be called
neat, man-made, tightly organized and the perfection we call beauty (in the the Voyager in contrast to the Settler’.
managed landscapes. first three examples that follow are
concealed animal forms, humans as Such an approach is very different from
American landscape architect Lawrence symbolism, and allegory). You now the logical determinism of the SAD
Halprin’s work was influenced by his reorganize the details of your design method, but that does not mean they
marriage to a choreographer so his to conform (but not recognizably so) cannot be combined.
design work has investigated ways of to the abstract idea within. Tell no
provoking an ‘urban choreography’ one, if you can, for this is a message
(including UDATs). The landscape design from one subconscious to another,
of the English landscape gardener William and the intellect spoils such things.’

INSPIRATION

THE SEASONS
SCIENCE & M Y T H, L E G E N D L O V E & H AT E
M AT H E M AT I C S & FOLKLORE

E V E R Y D AY L I F E
B I R T H - D E AT H

T H E N AT U R A L
WORLD
I N S P I R AT I O N CON TEX T &
P ROXIMIT Y
(G E N I U S L O C I )

ACCID EN T

PHILOSOPHY

M USIC AND
THE AR T S RH Y THM & SEQUENCE

PEERS
L I T E R AT U R E

3 The Design Process Developing a design 85

Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus

Tourist resort in a landscape of forestry

and classical heritage
The Aphrodite Hills resort is a large 234ha integrated golf resort with
five-star hotel, 18-hole championship golf course and villa housing
(with individual pools) on the west coast of Cyprus near Paphos. Large
beach resorts are not generally low-impact sustainable developments,
so the challenge here was to minimize the adverse environmental
effects, in particular on archaeological sites and forestry. Water supply
was also an issue, since the island regularly suffers drought.

The site is in a particularly beautiful part to reduce dependence on private car A. Panoramic view from the east plateau
of Cyprus, well treed and developed use and encourage walking, cycling showing the entrance road rising up the
agriculturally. Crossing it is the Argaki and communal methods of transport. ravine to the village centre.
B. The 18th green and fairway flowing down
Tou Randidiou ravine, with its maquis
to the golf club and village centre gardens.
vegetation and Mammonia complex of Aphrodite has been designed as a
C&D. The central ravine is protected from
rock formations. (Maquis is characteristic sustainable resort community based encroaching development.
Mediterranean vegetation, with leathery, on the local climate, ecology, topography E. The cascade in the hotel swimming pool.
broad-leaved evergreen shrubs or small and archaeological inheritance. Aphrodite F. Aerial view looking north of the golf resort
trees such as juniper, laurels, and myrtles.) is an important archaeological site so visible in the green areas and the golf course
No development is permitted here; the features have been protected. Cyprus on the hilltops, with hotel on the landward
area is conserved as a landscape spine. has active forestry policies and the side of the Limassol–Paphos highway and
The character of the Kapsalia and Dasia Mediterranean climate can be excessively linked to the beach by a passageway under
the highway.
plateaux with both Lentisc (Pistacia hot in summer so shade was important.
lentiscens) and Kermes Oak (Quercus Active water features are self-contained
coccifera) dominating the maquis has recycling systems; pumps filter and
thus been maintained. recirculate the water. Energy-saving
lighting was designed to minimize
The landscape is managed by the resort night-time ambient light pollution;
in conjunction with planning authority visual comfort and the appreciation
and forestry department requirements. of the night sky were also priorities.
There are footpaths allowing public This development is an illustration of
access to the site and the surrounding landscape architects grappling with
forest. Construction in the ravine area the potentially harmful environmental
is in the traditional Cypriot vernacular, aspects of tourism in order to minimize
with main features like the bridge being its impact and maximize appreciation
faced with local stone. In developing the of the landscape’s natural beauty.
resort road system, the intention was

86
A

B C D

E F

3 Case study Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus 87

The principles of design
The five main components of Landscape design is a type of futurology
a landscape plan are: – a masterplan is a forecast of an ideal
future image of a site, which will change
• vegetation: trees, shrubs and in the process of implementation and
hedges, and herbaceous plants thereafter. In truth, masterplanning is
including grassland; not so much a plan as a process. Any
• vertical structures: buildings and masterplan will change and develop.
other built forms including bridges Therefore a favourite metaphor for
and walls; landscape design is (again) that of the
• horizontal structures: roads palimpsest, a manuscript that has been
and paving; partially erased and then written over.
• water: rivers, streams, This is obvious in many historic parks
ponds, lakes and shorelines; and gardens, where medieval fishponds
• landforms: slopes, hills and valleys have become formal lakes, before
(described using contours and entering a more picturesque form and B
spot levels). then perhaps silting up and drying out.
Masterplanning is therefore best seen as
Site planning is the organization of a site a process whereby change to a site can
to accommodate development using be executed. Organizational structures
these components. The aim is to promote (which may be roads or services lines)
some form of human behaviour. It creates can be drawn diagrammatically and
a pattern of the five main components in these may be adapted in response to
space and time, which then will change context and function.
and grow and be subject to future
management. Given this, the drawings,
sketches, plans and specifications which
the landscape architect produces are
merely conventional ways of describing
and communicating a forecast of this C
organizational complex in a physical form.

88
D E

F G

A. Vertical structures: shade pavilion,

Zabeel Park, Dubai.
B. Horizontal structures: Exhibition Road
repaved, London.
C. Horizontal structures: juxtaposition of timber
and steel paving, Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam.
D. Water: cascading water feature and autumn
leaves, UNESCO, Paris.
E. Vegetation: massed agapanthus planting and
Corten steel façade, Córdoba, Spain.
F. Water: reflection pool, Mies van der Rohe
pavilion, Barcelona.
G. Vegetation: clipped allée planting, Versailles, Paris.
H. Vegetation: planted roof terraces, Parc Güell,
Barcelona.
I. Water: interactive fountain court, Somerset
House, London.

3 The Design Process The principles of design 89

A. Water: lakeside development, The Greens, Dubai. A
B. Landform: sweeping grassed areas, Jubilee
Park, London.
C. Landform: golf course landforming,
The Centurion, St. Albans, UK.
D. Vegetation: mass herbaceous border planting
designed by Piet Oudolf, Potters Fields, London.
E. Landform: Undulating play mounds at the Venlo
Floriade 2012, the Netherlands.

B C

D E

90
HIERARCHY Spaces may be defined by the use of spaces are arranged geometrically, with
Hierarchy in landscape design relates to mounds, by lines of trees, hedges and the spaces demarcated by hedges, walls
the way elements are arranged to make walls, and of course by buildings: most and rows of trees. While the spaces are
some more dominant than others – say, city spaces are enclosed by buildings – simple in plan form, a variety of ‘readings’
the main streets of a town or the paths here landscape architecture overlaps – or ways of experiencing them – are
through a park. Hierarchical organization with urban design. Bernard Tschumi in possible. The overall order at Dan Kiley’s
is a fundamental aspect of landscape his prize-winning design for the Parc de La Défense in Paris is symmetrical, based
design. Spaces may be sequenced and La Villette in Paris defined the spaces on the straight Grand Axe that extends
made dominant by means of their shape using lines, surfaces and follies. The lines from there to the Tuileries in the centre
and size or by arranging their proximity are paths, both straight and curvilinear, of the city. The green spaces lie within
to an entrance or transport node or by the formes (to use Tschumi’s French) the larger space formed by the office
placing them on a symmetrical axis. are surfaces, triangular and circular, blocks on either side and provide a
The language used to describe designs enclosed by lines of trees, and his human scale. By contrast, in the Water
may be broadly geometric (grid, axis, ‘follies’ are constructions on a 50m Gardens, Philip Hicks organized the
radial, orthogonal, centre) but common grid to provide a regular grid of points spaces around pools non-axially and
metaphors also relate to animal and plant to structure the park. In Modern are to be viewed as a whole from the
structures (spine, head, arm, arterial, Movement gardens and landscapes such apartments above. Hicks’ asymmetrical
finger, node, branch, trunk) and clothing as Philip Hicks’ Water Gardens in London organization is characteristic of the
(belt, skirt). of the 1960s (below), garden-scale Modern Movement.

A. Hierarchy of elements: Tschumi’s

bird’s-eye view plan of Parc de la Villette
plan, Paris.
B. Vegetation: Dan Kiley’s simple, square-grid
plane tree planting at La Défense, Paris.
C. Hierarchy of elements: a Modernist design
by Philip Hicks, built 1961–66 as roof gardens B
over basement car parks, space arranged
orthogonally (at 90 degrees in plan) and
asymmetrically, Water Garden, London.
D. Hierarchy of elements: The Grand Axe,
Paris, a strong visual axis across the city.

C D

3 The Design Process The principles of design 91

Gardens or parks organised symmetrically orientation-giving landmarks. Business parks such as Aztec West,
around a central axis are characteristic Redevelopment in the 1950s-70s near Bristol, attempted to deny their
of Italian Renassance garden design, was often highway engineer-led and urban character by use of similar planted
but more recently of the Arts and resulted in the loss of pleasant, pedestrian mounds alongside the main roads in
Crafts movement. Such spaces can be friendly urban spaces. The growth of order to give an impression of
considered almost as outdoor rooms, motor-car traffic in towns has tended to somewhere green.
particularly the early twentieth-century fragment the continuity of the enclosing
private gardens at Great Dixter in East buildings, roads have been widened Practitioners of the New Urbanism of the
Sussex or Sissinghurst in Kent. Their and flyovers have cut across streets. In 1980s analysed urban form in terms of
public equivalent are the municipal consequence, many urban spaces have figure-ground plans, which show the built
parks of Thomas Mawson. now lost definition: town centres have form as black and thereby emphasize
become dominated by car parks and the white spaces in between. The New
At a much larger scale, the post-war inner ring roads. Furthermore, building- Urbanism attempts to reverse this loss of
Dutch polders are organized on a plot sizes have tended to become bigger, urban character by increasing the density
formal spatial basis. There, the main so limiting flexibility of use and promoting of settlements and re-creating enclosure
discussion point related to the size of the uniformity of street frontage – which has and pedestrian-friendly spaces. Such
consequent spaces. The smaller, older consequently become less interesting. re-establishment of the city as a pleasant
Dutch polders offered only restricted Perhaps the ultimate formal expression place to walk and work goes back to
views, further restricted by roadside of this loss of urbanism or anti-urbanism the work of urban designers such as Jan
tree planting (to provide wind shelter is the town of Milton Keynes in southern Gehl in Copenhagen who worked on the
for travellers); the much larger, later England (see pp.148–49), which was pedestrianization of the main shopping
twentieth-century polder landscape by planned around car-based travel, and street, the Strøget, in the 1960s.
contrast opened up views to create a where each grid square of housing or
more expansive sense of the landscape, commercial development is hidden
closer in feel to Canadian prairies, with by surrounding tree-planted mounds
high points such as church towers and (Milton Keynes is organized within
power station chimneys viewed as a 1km-wide loose grid of roads).

A B

SIMPLE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES

CEN T RAL SPINE GR ID PA N H A N D L E/

LOOP
C

MAGIC WAND CONCEN T R IC F I G U R E O F E I G H T/

R ADIAL RING S DOUBLE LOOP

92
D E

A. Six typical organizational masterplanning

structures.
B&C. Clipped evergreen hedges defining garden
rooms, Sissinghurst, Kent.
D. Water dominates the public spaces at
Arlington Business Park, Theale, UK.
E. The main distributor road in Milton Keynes,
the 'city of trees' has become a sort of blind
anti-urbanism. This is in the middle of
a town with a population of over 200,000.
F. At Arlington Business Park, Theale, UK,
the entrance lake provides a strong business
setting.
G. Early development view of Aztec West,
a business park near Bristol, UK, showing
the loop road configuration.

3 The Design Process The principles of design 93

THE HUMAN SCALE Human scale can be overturned A

Landscape is land as perceived by in landscape and urban design:

humans, and its scale can be human
or much bigger, overwhelming the • for monumental and especially
human observer to create a feeling political effect: buildings, spaces
of grandeur or the sublime. and memorials can be constructed
at an intimidatingly larger-than-
The term ‘human scale’ relates to human life scale – which is what Hitler’s
perception and may thus also relate to Germany, Stalin’s Russia and
time, where a lifespan is about 70 years Ceaucescu’s Romania did;
and a generation may be as short
as 15. It may likewise refer to attention • for functional effect: many twentieth-
span, which can be minutes to hours, century town planners and architects
to temperature, to sound tolerance including some Modernists designed
(anything more than 50 decibels is buildings and spaces to represent
very noticeable, 130 decibels – aircraft ideas of structural purity and
take-off noise level – is approaching clarity of form over ‘concessions’
the pain threshold, but the quiet of the to human scale: for example,
countryside can paradoxically prove landscape architects Sasaki, Dawson
unsettling for town-dwellers). and DeMay’s 1969 Copley Square
in Boston, overshadowed by the
Landscape design at a human scale Hancock Tower designed by I.M.
B
relates to the height and interval between Pei & Partners;
steps, slopes, enclosures, path widths,
walking distances and accessibility for • in response to car use: buildings
the average human being – though, of built to front highways tend to have
course, median averages themselves simplified shapes and to be much
may vary with age (children’s gardens smoother. The eye can take in about
can be downsized) and nutrition. three objects per second. A passer-by
steadily walking past a 30m frontage
The design of the buildings in Disneyland can perceive about 60 to 70 features;
Main Streets uses theatre set design, and a car driver passing at 45kph can
forced perspective to give an impression take note of just six or seven. Thus,
of height. The Main Street first storey is in the face of increased car use,
at three-quarter scale, then five-eighths streets become bigger, urban form
scale at the second storey and half scale loses its complexity, signs grow larger
at the third storey. This gives a friendly and walkers feel more exposed (and
almost toy-town like feeling while at literally are more exposed to winds
first glance appearing full-sized. As and downdraughts). In the past 60 C

Walt Disney said, ‘No, it’s not [just the years cities have increasingly become
way it used to be]… It’s the way it should less friendly to the pedestrian. It is as
have been.’ if we were deliberately setting out to
design a dystopia.

The scale of space often defines its character.

A. The Scoop, City Hall, London: space as

performance place, designed by Fosters.
B. Sunken seating spaces, The Serpentine Pavilion
2012, London.
C. La Grande Arche, La Défense, Paris.
D. The Burj Khalifa, Dubai: the 829.84m-high
tower dominates the park.
E. Mémorial des Martyrs et de la Déportation, Paris.
F. The Serpentine Pavilion 2012, London.

94
D E

3 The Design Process The principles of design 95

STRAIGHT LINES AND CURVES By contrast, curved lines tend to seen to the imperial power of Edwin Lutyens’
Linearity can be created in a landscape as informal, relaxed and natural. Use of 1920s New Delhi and the triumphalism
by juxtaposition of two surfaces, such the serpentine line began in the early of Albert Speer’s proposed Ost–West
as at the edge of a lawn, or by the use eighteenth century in English landscape Achse (East–West Axis) in Berlin, which
of a long, linear feature such as a canal gardens, inspired by (what was thought was planned to extend 50km in a
or road. Landscape architects often to be) Chinese precedent. By the mid- perfectly straight line.
design by drawing lines on a plan (as eighteenth century the serpentine line
opposed to model-making or creating had become standard in the Picturesque The mid-twentieth century saw a
a sequence of storyboards) or with the landscape garden. The eighteenth- counterreaction to this and forms
assistance of vector-aided computer century painter William Hogarth delineated by lines modelled on
graphics (consisting of points joined by called it the ‘line of beauty’. the human form (biomorphic lines)
lines) which emphasizes this tendency began to appear. Thomas Church’s
to linearity. Reality is three-dimensional By the mid-nineteenth century John post-war California gardens such as
and two-dimensional plans undertaken Ruskin was asserting that ‘all curves are Donnell Garden in Sonoma County
without an appreciation of the third more beautiful than right lines’. Curves characteristically used such curves,
dimension can lead to flat design: designs were increasingly applied to both often complemented by similarly
that appear strong from above may be landscape and park design. City design curved sculpture.
ineffective at ground level. was similarly influenced: for example,
think of the curve of John Nash’s Regent Verticality raises the eye to the sky –
Straight lines are direct, strong and Street in London as it turns to meet or to the heavens, where medieval
formal. Whether arranged symmetrically Portland Place at the point marked by cathedral spires are concerned. Such
or asymmetrically, they guide the eye the vertical emphasis of the spire of All verticality can provide a town with a
to an end point which may be given Souls Church, or the great descending landmark – whether a cathedral or a
emphasis by a vertical termination. curve of John Dobson’s Grey Street in skyscraper – or provide a park with
Diagonal lines are straight lines slanted Newcastle upon Tyne. Such devices an eye-catcher, as does Captain
across an orthogonal layout, as at the add a sense of mystery or discovery Grenville’s Column in Stowe Gardens.
Parc Citroën-Cévennes in Paris. They to a route, an effect that was well Fastigiated trees can similarly provide
may also be organized as a 60/30-degree exploited by Humphry Repton in his park an accent in a Picturesque layout or
plan layout as in many mid-century designs. In these, the curved approach an emphasis in an avenue, like soldiers
parks such as the 1970s Parc de path allows visitors to catch an initial on parade.
Cergy-Pontoise, north-west of Paris. glimpse of the house, usually across a
Nowadays the straight line is often lake, before swerving into woodland or Horizontal lines can give a feeling of
seen as formal and manmade and behind mounds and tree clumps so that expanse and rest or repose. They can
therefore an ‘unnatural’ landscape the residence is only seen again and unite a space and can be formed by low
element. Renaissance landscape more fully when they are much closer. steps, walls, footpaths, terraces and wide
gardeners such as Le Nôtre would The latter part of the nineteenth century lawns. Many Dutch landscape designs,
not have agreed: they saw their formal, saw a reaction against swerves and such at that of the 1970s Oostelijk
linear parks as an ideal representation curves with the advocacy of the ‘formal Flevoland, emphasize the horizontal
of nature. garden’ by Reginald Blomfield, leading in this way.

A B C

96
D E

I J

A. Sweeping lines of amphitheatre seating, Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands.

B. Interlocking forms of marble sett paving, Porto, Portugal.
C. Controlled linear elegance of a temple entrance, Kyoto, Japan.
D. Formal mirror pool, Parc Citroën-Cévennes, Paris.
E. Overlaid grid and lines, Exhibition Road, London.
F. Sinuous granite edge, Jubilee Gardens, London.
G. The serpentine rill at Rousham, Oxfordshire, UK.
H. Informal gravel path reinforced by avenue planting, Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands.
I. Vaux-le-Vicomte, Ile de France, designed by André Le Nôtre, with straight axes
and a lattice pattern of paths in the woodland.
J. Parc Citroên-Cévennes, Paris: straight, orthogonal (right-angle) plan cut
across with a diagonal.

3 The Design Process The principles of design 97

A

98
B C

UNITY, HARMONY AND But symmetry can also be applied

(A)SYMMETRY: to geometrical pattern making, as
Consistency and simplicity are ways in Arab tile or paving patterns. One
of achieving a harmonious effect in a can construct landscapes using
landscape design. This might involve such geometrical repetition (as in
minimizing the number of materials C. Th. Sørensen’s work (see above right))
used, avoiding clutter, massing plants and and find symmetry in number theory
employing strong effects, such as water, and in the helix and double helix.
tree lines and paving lines, very simply. The symmetry found in mechanics,
quantum mechanics, the Standard
Symmetry involves positioning objects Model of particle physics, relativity
of equal value – whether size, height or theory and cosmology can be applied
form – on either side of a central point, to landscape design, as is the case with
axial line or surface. Symmetry denotes Charles Jencks’s Garden of Cosmic
balance and order, and therefore, for Speculation, near Dumfries in Scotland.
some, is a divine principle.
At a much more basic level, patterns
Biological symmetry is common in using the square, hexagon and
multicellular organisms, usually as equilateral triangle can be applied
bilateral symmetry, in which body parts to landscape design in both detail
are repeated along a central vertical and at a larger scale.
axis in one plane like a mirror image or
as in butterfly-wing patterns. It can also Asymmetry is the absence of symmetry,
be radial or rotational, as in flowers or the lack of equality between parts. In the
arrangements of leaves on a branch. 1930s and 1940s James C. Rose, Garrett
However, in nature such symmetry is Eckbo, Thomas Church and Dan Kiley
rarely perfect. used orthogonal asymmetry as a way A. Directional pebble mosaic, Mezquita de
of aligning their work with Modernism, Córdoba, Spain.
Bilateral symmetry is common in and as a reaction to the ruling B. Picturesque harmony of Compton Verney,
landscape design, as in an avenue or axis, symmetrical Beaux-Arts style. Later Warwickshire, UK.
but balance can also be achieved through Kiley tended to absolute symmetry and C. The Geometric Gardens, Herning, West
horizontal repetition, as in mirror pools as a use of formal geometry. At a garden Jutland, Denmark, 1983, designed by
landscape architect C.Th. Sørensen.
well as in vertical structures such as the scale, the keynotes are planar walls,
D. The rotational symmetry of the Canberra
Pont du Gard in southern France, where interplay between interior and exterior, masterplan of 1913 by Walter Burley Griffin of
the storeys of arches repeat. Rotational emphasis on the horizontal (flat roofs triangles with linking circles or ronds-points
symmetry as in a flower appears in and rectangular pools); and at the wider, draped over the hills; it is now counterpoised by
Beaux-Arts-type circular plans such as landscape scale, interflowing spaces, the water axis of Lake Burley Griffin, created
W.B. Griffin’s 1913 plan for Canberra. and overlapping elements in plan. in 1964.

3 The Design Process The principles of design 99

A B

100
COLOUR, FORM AND TEXTURE: TEXTURE has both tactile and visual E

Landscape design deals with colour, qualities. Paving can be rough or smooth,
texture and form, which may be described and roughness may be desirable to prevent
or defined by lines, mass and shapes to surfaces becoming slippery. Plantings
create space. As in architecture, but unlike similarly can be rough or smooth.
film or proscenium arch theatre design,
landscape architecture is experienced by Clipped hedges demonstrate the
the audience (the users) as they move differences between landscape and
through it. Unlike architecture, however, architecture. A formal clipped hedge,
the components of landscape change such as those of a French parterre, may
because they include living biological be thought to be finite and unchanging.
forms. This dynamism is what can make But even in this most controlled and
landscape architecture with its living walls architectural form of garden design
and moving roofs so much more exciting there is constant change: hedges grow
than a static architecture, and become looser and more coarsely
textured through a season and change
COLOUR has three main qualities: colour and, of course, serve as a habitat
brightness, saturation or intensity, for insects and birds and provide cover
and hue. Hue is the quality of red, green, for mice. So, although they can be
yellow or blue in a colour; saturation is used to create ‘rooms’ in an unroofed
the intensity of white or grey in a colour; house or palace, the result is far from
the brightness of a colour is its luminance an architectural construction.
or reflectivity. So an intensely green
landscape such as an English landscape Textures vary greatly depending on plant
garden in spring can appear bright, while species, from the long thin leaves of F
a grey urban square can apprear drab, Oleander to the sharp prickly danger of
especially when empty. Brick buildings can holly to the frilly foliage of Chamaecyparis.
be soft reds and oranges. The use of Luis Living compositions can be placed
Barragán-style planes of bright pink, reds, alongside constructed walls, paving
yellows as a stylistic feature of gardens and pools, paving can be patterned and
and landscape designs became popular pools can be reflective, there are endless
in the early twenty-first century. possibilities for composing these effects.

FORM is the three-dimensionality and

shape of an object. It may be regular,
precise and human-made, or organic
and natural in form (biomorphic). Natural
forms may be controlled and fixed by
clipping or by breeding, so, for instance,
regular mop-headed trees can be grown
by cloning.

A. Japanese gardens often contain a simple harmony of elements, Kyoto, Japan.

B. Asymmetrical repetition of clipped yew topiary, Rodin Museum, Paris.
C. Complex harmony often contains many elements, in situ concrete path, Jardin Atlantique, Paris.
D. Transformation of form: clipped box hedges, Parc Diderot, Paris.
E. Combination of textures, Parc Diderot, Paris.
F. Contrast of material textures, Daisen-in Temple, Kyoto, Japan.
G. Association of colours and leaf textures, the Mehdi Garden, Hadlow College, Kent, UK.

3 The Design Process The principles of design 101

ELEMENTAL DESIGN CRITERIA
OF AN OBJECT

TO N E O R B R I G H T N E S S

HUE S AT U R AT I O N O R
IN TENSIT Y

COLOUR

VISUAL INORGANIC OR
H U M AN-M AD E

OBJECT

TE
XT

M
R
UR

FO
N AT U R E O F T H E E T H R E E-D I M E N S I O N A L I T Y
S U R FA C E

TA C T I L E O R G A N I C O R N AT U R A L

INFLUENCES ON DESIGN OF A HEDGE

L E AV E S

BARK F LOWERS

AU TUMN
COLOURS F RUIT

COLOUR

G E OM E T R IC
LEAF

HEDGE CLIP P ED
TE
XT

FORMAL
M

T RACERY
UR

R
FO

INFORMAL
E

H E I G H T, W I D T H,
LENGTH
T WIG
N AT U R A L
HEDG E ROW

IN F L U EN C ES O N CH OIC ES: P L AN T S P E CIES

L O C AT I O N / S E A S O N / F U N C T I O N /
MAIN TENANCE

102
A B

E F

Understanding the elemental design selection criteria of the

properties of materials develops a rationale for use. When applied
to hedge materials these influences guide species choice.

A. Clipped beech tree blocks displaying autumn colouring,

Parc André Citroën, Paris.
B. Autumn colour used to reinforce linear edge, Parc André
Citroën, Paris.
C. Ordered complexity of marble sett paving, Faro, Portugal.
D. Japanese gardens use colour change as focal features.
E. Hot herbaceous planting exploring texture and form,
Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands.
F. In situ concrete with bamboo texturing.

3 The Design Process The principles of design 103

Hedeland Arena, Roskilde, Denmark

A post-industrial landscape
East of Roskilde, on Denmark’s main island of Zealand, is a 1,500ha
gravel and clay extraction site. A brickworks opened here in 1897, with
gravel-working operations following. The result was a crazy carving of
the landscape-made-moonscape into a series of hummocks, hills and
lakes which contrast with the broad, rolling, fertile fields that surround it.

Interressantskab Hedeland (I/S Rising out of the middle of the gravel- A. Hedeland Arena, view from the grass terraces
Hedeland), set up in 1978, is the body working site are a ski-slope mountain by when there was a working gravel pit beyond.
responsible for the redevelopment of Lea Nørgaard & Vibeke Holscher and a It has since closed and the backdrop is now
a lake.
this post-industrial landscape. It oversees great arena of bright, green grass terraces
B. The terraces with at the top the ticket office,
land purchase, planning, construction which Is the brainchild of Erik Juhl, who
roofed with grass turfs.
and management. Gravel extraction is director of I/S Hedeland. The intensely C. The arena is set in a heathland landscape
continues on the site but is now green and formal landform contrasts marked by gravel workings.
interlaced with an extensive recreation with the loose piles of sorted gravel. The D. The coarse gravel car park, toilet blocks in the
development, which serves the area to new outdoor arena has a red and white foreground, and the area arena beyond, not
the south and west of Copenhagen. pre-cast concrete circular performance a place to dress up, although the Opera
area backed by a strip of white gravel, Hedeland performs here in the summer.
Thanks to I/S Hedeland’s interventions, which marks the area off from the gravel
this sublime moonscape has been works behind. It accommodates 3,500
transformed in part into the short mown spectators and performances include
grass of an eighteen-hole golf course, pop, classical and ballet. One-metre-
and in part into woodland and nature high, 45-degree grass sloped terraces
areas. There is a network of bridlepaths, rise 20m above the red and white circle
footpaths and cycle tracks along with in a great arc. A mound at the top of the
a narrow-gauge tourist railway. I/S terraces controls access and entry is
Hedeland has also planted a vineyard via gatehouses built of turf and timber.
and developed wildflower meadows, Beyond and on axis are toilet blocks, also
a motor cross centre, arboretum, turf-walled and -roofed, and on either
allotment/weekend leisure gardens side are circular gravel areas laid out
and scout camp. cheaply for car parking and screened by
grass mounds and fastigiate tree planting.
Because the topsoil has been lost, it is
possible to create an extremely diverse The arc of the arena is marked by radial
and species-rich mix of woodland, scrub timber-edged steps which rise to the
and grasslands on the subsoil and gravel gatehouses; these radial lines emphasize
material. The tree planting will eventually the symmetry of the design. Made from
be dominated by oakwood (Quercus) industrial materials, this is an exquisitely
and alder (Alnus). No herbicides and simple and economical design (total cost:
fertilizers have been used. £270,000) that uses its surroundings
rather than rejects them.

104
A

B C

3 Case study Hedeland Arena, Roskilde, Denmark 105

Human flow and natural change
As stated above, landscape architecture THE MOVEMENT OF THE LAND The character and scale of places change through the
is not purely or even primarily about Everything moves eventually. The seasons and times of the day.
producing a single, fixed design whole of south-east England is sinking A. Steps in London’s Trafalgar Square early in the morning.
‘product’. It is about process far more following the retreat of the glaciers. B. Steps in Trafalgar Square late in the afternoon
than, say, architectural, car or product Further north, where the glaciers were being used as a meeting and resting place.
design. Landscape designs change actually located, the land is rising for C. Seasonal variation of one of the side avenues
and develop over time and as part of the same reason. In areas of drained at Versailles, Paris, winter.
wider systems. This process of change peat, the land sinks due to oxidization D. Seasonal variation of one of the side avenues
at Versailles, Paris, summer.
is most obvious in a garden or forest, of the peat. Shrinkable clays crack and
E. Daily variation at Trafalgar Square, London, early morning.
where plants grow, flower and die. Such subside in the course of dry summers. F. Daily variation at Trafalgar Square, London, afternoon.
change inevitably involves uncertainty. Both earthquake zones and frozen G. Square Jean XXIII, Notre Dame, Paris, late summer.
No site is isolated. Landscapes develop tundra landscapes can experience H. Daily variation at the South Bank, London, early morning.
and change and the way they are sudden changes of level. The lesson I. Daily variation at the South Bank, London, afternoon.
experienced is as moving spatial of all this is that nearly all land is J. Square Jean XXIII, Notre Dame, Paris, autumn.
sequences where the observer shifts moving to a degree and landscape
and the scene changes around them. design should recognize that,
Landscapes connect with both society particularly where paving construction
and the natural world, and are governed is concerned. Rigid construction is
by natural, biological, geological, one reaction, but that involves laying
mechanical and chemical processes a concrete base under paving slabs,
as well as by humankind’s influence. or using cement mortar in brick walls.
This reduces the structure’s flexibility,
Landscape design is about creating making it more exposed to the stresses A

spaces through which people variously of ground movement. Similarly tree

walk, jog and cycle, as well as in which roots can disturb and crack walls and
they sit, play, sun themselves – and buildings and cause paving to rise.
observe other people. A garden path The other response is to lay flexible
can be narrow – a width of 30cm is paving, on sand or hardcore. This
sufficient to accommodate a walker. allows small changes of level,
A city footpath, by comparison, should consequent movement can be
be much broader, providing enough accommodated and the paving
space for people to be able to stop, easily relaid.
chat and window-shop. Paths in parks
may be wider still.
B
Social activity happens spontaneously
when people encounter one another.
It might take the form of greetings
and conversations, children’s play,
communal activities from t’ai chi
to rounders, cycling, shopping,
working or buying a paper from a
newsvendor. Creating spaces where
such activities can happen is the role of
the placemaker. All this social activity
requires space. Streets are likewise
places of theatre as well as transport
routes. The key to successful design for
pedestrian movement lies in avoiding
unnecessary changes of level or the
clutter caused by barriers. As Jan Gehl
proclaimed: ‘First life, then spaces, then
buildings – the other way around
never works.’

106
C D E

G
H

3 The Design Process Human flow and natural change 107

Marketplace and Waterfront, Odda, Norway

Landscape design for a community space

Located at the head of the extremely long Hardanger Fjord, south-east
of Bergen, Odda is a small industrial town of some 7,500 inhabitants best
known for its fertiliser plant and zinc production. The town council wished
to rejuvenate the quayside, provide for a market and link the east and west
sides of town.

Though it’s not a particularly pretty town, A

the views up the fjord, closely embraced

by the Hardangervidda mountains,
are sublime, and in spring fruit trees
blossom along the shore against stirring
background views of the ice of the
Folgefonna Glacier above. These visual
qualities are exploited in Bjørbekk &
Lindheim’s competition-winning design
for a waterfront marketplace.

Bjørbekk & Lindheim have emphasized

the marketplace’s hard landscape
character by focusing on finely detailed
grey granite stonework designed by
project landscape architect Rune Vik.
Planting is limited to a beech (Fagus
sylvatica) hedge and row of alder trees
(Alnus glutinosa), which provide a
windbreak. The main square is at a corner
of the waterside, between two existing
buildings. It is paved in granite marked
by lighter stripes and crossed by a water
runnel fed by a fountain. The runnel leads
down some steps into the fjord. Three
mast-like poles complete the scene. The
eastern section has an oak boardwalk
along the water’s edge, lined by benches
which are protected by timber walls,
also in oak, so that you can sit facing
the setting sun. This is a classic urban
renewal scheme, landscape design acting
as a catalyst and providing a focus for an
economically challenged town.

A. Bjørbekk & Lindheim’s Odda Marketplace: the plan is simple and minimalistic,
with bands of different tones of granite, the detailing is essential to the art. The
marketplace is like a stage setting for the people to animate, bringing light and
colour into the foreground.

108
B C

E F

B. The marketplace looks out over the Hardanger Fjord. The fjord is at the rear
of the scene, the mountains form the backdrop.
C. Superbly detailed granite stonework.
D. The boardwalk with benches backing onto windbreaks which capture the sun.
E. Odda waterfront consists of a marketplace at the centre of town, with granite
paving, a boardwalk, and asphalt surrounds, and constitutes simple and
effective place-making.
F. The quayside marketplace, formerly a car park.

3 Case study Marketplace and Waterfront, Odda, Norway 109

4
Representing the
Landscape Design
Drawing and sketchbooks 112
Case study: School Courtyard, London 116
3D modelling and video 119
Photography 122
Digital design 123
Building Information Modelling (BIM) 124
Mapping, air photography, satellite imagery and
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) 125
Report writing 128
Live presentations 129
Case study: Villa Garden at Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus 130

Simple bent wire ‘Linear experiences’ model

documenting a journey through the city of London.

111
The way you represent your design work has a huge impact on its
development and reception. Learning how to draw well, for instance, helps
you to convey your ideas more effectively to others. This chapter looks at
some of the manual and computerized techniques that landscape architects
use to represent their designs. We also look at digital data handling such as
BIM (Building Information Modelling), and Geographic Information Systems,
as well as map making and end with a few words on report writing, because
landscape architecture can involve much desk study.

Drawing and sketchbooks

Drawing is a fundamental skill in The sketchbook is crucial because:
landscape design: it is how you can
test your ideas, record your thoughts • daily sketching develops discipline.
and observations, and develop them. It forces you to see more. It acts as
Sketching forces you to observe and an inspiration and encourages you
therefore understand. A photograph is to develop your design ideas;
a very different form of record: it can • its chronological form encourages
be fleeting, a snapshot, and does not personal development and gives
necessarily involve analysis (though of you a larger sense of professional
course photography is vital for recording direction;
purposes). If you have spent four or • it permits you to experiment and
five hours drawing an apple tree, on to consider alternatives;
the other hand, you can understand its • it clarifies your thinking and can
structure and properties deeply. For the be used in conversations with
student and the designer, daily sketching other designers in your team;
– whether in the form of long studies or • it can be mined in the future as an
quick visual notes – is a vital discipline. inspiration for other projects, serving
as a treasury of design ideas which
A sketchbook can be complemented by may not be immediately applicable;
a blog and/or digital sketchbook and, • sketching complements (and can
supplemented in this way, become a include) writing. A sketchbook can
kind of visual diary. Christopher Lloyd be a place to record new plant
was one of the great plantsmen of the names, places to visit and
twentieth century and recorded his ideas key phrases;
in magazine articles for over 40 years, • initial sketch ideas can often be
a practice that enriched and developed used in formal presentations because
his planting design. The blog is a modern a quick sketch may communicate
equivalent of the old-fashioned an idea simply and strongly.
daily diary.

112
Sketchbooks are for experiment in techniques,
the resolution of design ideas and the recording
of direct observation.

4 Representing the Landscape Design Drawing and sketchbooks 113

Sketchbook experimentation can include
photography, collage, overlay techniques
and watercolour rendering.

114
4 Representing the Landscape Design Drawing and sketchbooks 115
School Courtyard, London

Landscape design for schoolchildren

A A. Spatial organization of the courtyard design starts with the sequence

of views out onto the court and the approaches through the building.
B. Orientation, sun and shadow are fundamental to the design of any
enclosed space. This sketch identifies the sunny south-facing side and
other areas which will be mostly in shade.
C. The design emerges from analysis of the site. Here the designer has
proposed ‘islands in a sea’ or ‘mountain tops in cloud’ as a metaphor for
the design proposal with an informal, asymmetrical design of planting
‘islands’ emerging from the ground plane, which is the paved circulation
area. Metaphor and allegory can be effective ways of expressing a design.
D. This figure describes and justifies the planting, explaining it in terms of
shade, vertical connections, range of habitat types and seasonal change.
E. Finally a summary of the meaning of the design is presented in terms
of movement (permeability), view from dining room, and ideas of
interaction and quieter places of relative solitude.

B C

D E

116
F–H. A courtyard is a simple, enclosed space with strong spatial definition
(the buildings around), and is introverted. It connects with the sky
above and with rooms in the building rather than the outside world.

G H

4 Case study School Courtyard, London 117

A A. Quick pencil-and-ink sketching techniques.
B. Wet ink on soft paper.
C. Ballpoint pen sketching.
D. Acrylic, mixed media perspective.
E. Cross-hatching used in a traditional
pen-and-ink method.

C D

118
3D modelling and video
Designed landscapes are symphonies of use in landscape architecture. Time-
of space and form. In theatre design, lapse and real-time photography are
automobile design and, indeed, the the most valuable techniques in tracing
laying-out of Disney theme parks, patterns of movement in urban space.
3D models serve as the basic design Perhaps their best-known exponent was
tool. The initial design is produced by William H. Whyte, who used film in the
modelling, first in rough and then in a 1970s to observe patterns of movement
more accurate fashion. Designing in two in corporate spaces in New York –
dimensions is by its nature a more distant something he termed ‘people watching’.
procedure; 3D modelling allows one to
experience a design and begin to travel Nowadays video is being used in
through it. Such models emphasize the conjunction with physical model-
sculptural characteristics of a project: making and digital design programs to
the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who also produce changing three-dimensional
designed gardens and landscapes, representations of sites, which make
made beautiful models. it possible to map the effects of
development. For a discussion of
Film, like model work, allows for three- how digital design can benefit For many designers physical model-making is
dimensional exploration and so can be landscape architecture see page 123. the best method for exploring spatial concepts.

4 Representing the Landscape Design 3D modelling and video 119

Models are used as development and process tools,
to challenge and document the design intention.

120
 Models can be used to explore both scale and
detail in a variety of materials, from early concept
to final resolution.

4 Representing the Landscape Design 3D modelling and video 121

Photography
Photography is an important way of Sometimes detailed resources survive in
establishing a survey record, particularly obscure sources: one of the authors used
in relation to panoramic views and the German Army platoon level packs
permits an easily accessible, up-to-date of maps and street photography taken
office record of a site. Photography in the 1930s when first working on
can be digitally manipulated to produce Moscow projects in 1990.
before-and-after images, a key aspect
in the visualization of the effects of
development on an existing site. More
often Photoshop is used to produce
flat, cut-out representations. But 3D
digital design offers better opportunities
for producing effective and convincing
before-and-after images. Air photography
is also useful as a historical record.
It dates back to the 1920s.
Before-and-after shots showing the insertion
of a new roundabout and road connection for
a proposed development.

122
Digital design
Digital design or Computer-aided both the diurnal and seasonal qualities and the points are joined to produce
Design (CAD), is the standard drawing of the project; it can likewise be used lines, so in printing vector graphics are
technique used in offices in the to model time-based predictions in known as line-work. Examples of vector
development and construction industry growth and establishment. For design, graphics formats include Adobe Illustrator
today. Over the last 30 years it has solid-modelling and animation software (AI), CorelDRAW (CDR), Encapsulated
replaced many of the traditional manual (e.g. 3D Studio Max, Rhino, Maya and PostScript (EPS), Computer Graphics
(analogue) representation techniques SketchUp) is increasingly important. Metafile (CGM), Windows Metafile (WMF),
as the preferred method for producing These programs, by-products of the Drawing Interchange Format (DXF),
diagrams, orthographic plans, sections, computer-games and special-effects AutoCAD, other CAD software and
elevations, projections (axonometric industries, allow the fast representation Shockwave Flash (SWF).
and isometric) and perspectives. of design ideas.
As a technique, it is highly efficient RASTER-BASED SOFTWARE:
and editable. So what is the primary digital design This uses images (e.g. aerial photographs,
software for landscape architecture? satellite photographs and textures) and
However, to use digital tools and The choice includes vector-based, attribute tables. In computer graphics,
techniques creatively, one must first gain raster-based, solid-modelling, video and a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a
an understanding of the fundamentals animation, vector-GIS and raster-GIS data structure representing a generally
of drawing and develop a systematic software. A true digital design enthusiast rectangular grid of pixels or points of
design process. There are many different would master all six types of program – colour. Raster images are stored in image
ways to accomplish the same task using but, on the downside, this might leave files of varying format and are resolution-
different kinds of software. Indeed, many little time to develop expertise in design. dependent, in the same way that any
software programs directly replicate photograph will eventually blur as it is
manual techniques and processes. But VECTOR-BASED SOFTWARE: enlarged. As such, unlike vector images
often it is still quicker and more natural CAD is probably the most widely used they cannot be enlarged without loss of
to use manual rendering and sketching landscape graphic software at the quality. Printers describe raster graphics
techniques at certain stages of a project. present time. AutoCAD, the market as continuous tones or ‘contones’.
There is also the possibility of creating leader in its field, originated as a program
hybrid representations that combine for architectural drafting and has since A bitmap corresponds bit-for-bit with an
manual and digital techniques, giving developed in many directions. There are image displayed on a screen, generally in
the designer innumerable ways to create bolt-on additions tailored for plumbing the same format. A bitmap is technically
non-standard representational forms. designers, circuit designers, structural characterized by the width and height of
engineers – and landscape architects. the image in pixels and by the number
In most offices, the design work follows There is also a GIS bolt-on. of bits per pixel. Pixel stands for pix or
a pattern using two-dimensional layout picture and el or element.
drawings initially and, for presentation, Vector graphics are a scalable format
3D model work subsequently rendered composed of individual objects made Examples of raster-based software
in Photoshop. But digital design offers up of mathematical calculations. Vector include Painter, Adobe Photoshop, MS
much more than that and comes into images can be resized easily without Paint and GIMP. For photo-editing work,
its own when it is three-dimensionally loss of quality, making them an ideal landscape architects use software such
based. A 3D design model can be format for initial design. Vector graphics, as Photoshop and Photopaint.
fully explored by the generation of however, do tend to have an artificial
animations and sequences that show appearance. They are point-based

4 Representing the Landscape Design Digital design 123

Building Information Modelling
(BIM)
Traditionally building design has used construction stages – for instance if a the design team to the contractor to the
two-dimensional drawings (plans, civil engineering version of BIM is used operator or building facilities manager.
elevations, sections, etc.). Building it is easy to adjust the vertical profile BIM-compatible software includes
Information Modelling (BIM) goes beyond of a road and investigate the effect on ArchiCAD, Microstation and Vector
3D (width, height and depth) – it also cost or environmental or road safety Works. The first BIM system was
covers geographic information, spatial consequences. BIM is an ‘intelligent Graphisoft’s ‘Virtual Building’ system
relationships, shade analysis, and measured virtual information model’. introduced in 1987 using ArchiCAD.
quantities and properties of materials
(e.g. manufacturers’ specifications). This BIM can be applied throughout the During the last three decades CAD has
becomes a ‘shared knowledge resource’ lifetime of a facility from design to been ‘paper-centric’, based on producing
or virtual model of a building or other construction, to operational use and even digital versions of design and construction
form of facility. This permits testing of to eventual demolition and recycling or drawings that previously were produced
various options during the design and reuse. The system is handed on from by hand.

3DParametric
3D parametricSmart
smart objectsComponents
Objects/ /
contain Information
Components rich BIM
contain Content from
information-
suppliers and manufacturers
rich BIM content from suppliers and
BIM contentBIM Content manufacturers
Physical data
Physical data
Material Properties
Material properties
Appearance
Appearance Longevity
Maintenance data
Longevity Supply Cost and Lead in Data BIMcontent
BIM content also
also includes:
includes
Geospatial data
MaintenanceManufacturers
data Details GeospatialCoordinate
Geographic data Data
Supply cost and lead-in data Geographic coordinate data
Manufacturers’ details

Data
Data from
fromBIM
BIMcontent
content
objects can be extracted to
objects
form can be specifications
schedules, extracted to
and
formcontract documentation
schedules, specifications
Enables
Enablesfull
fullcollaborative
collaborative
coordination with all design and contract documentation
coordination
and construction with all design
disciplines
Schemes can be tested
and construction and
disciplines
run as simulations
Schemes can be tested and
run as simulations

Visualisations can
Visualizations canbe
be
accurately generated from
accurately generated from
model content
model content

BIM models contain both process and data

content that allows the designer and the software
to deal with an object as a real-world entity.

124
Mapping, air photography, satellite imagery
and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Maps are a key to power. The leading and satellite imagery. Begin by exploring of such satellite-based data is critical
cartographers of the eighteenth century the NASA website, which offers many in areas with poor topographical mapping
were the French, who mapped their views of the world, and also by reviewing coverage such as much of Africa and
territories in the wake of Louis XIV’s great the traditional mapping available in the parts of the Middle East. There is only
victories. Comprehensive mapping in country where you are working. The one other satellite-based global
Britain began after the Jacobite Rebellion latter offers the additional advantage positioning system currently operational,
of 1745 when the Scottish Highlands of allowing you to explore the recent the Russian GLONASS, with others in
were first mapped. This led to the historical layers of a site. For example, development in Europe, China, India
establishment of the British Ordnance most developed areas of Britain were and Japan. GLONASS is more accurate
Survey, which extended mapping already mapped at larger scales of 1:1250 than GPS at high latitudes (i.e. the
activities first to Ireland and then to the by the 1870s. Therefore you can plot the polar regions) and low latitudes
British Empire. George Everest, director development of docks, roads, mines and (i.e. the equator).
of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of quarries and their subsequent use for
India, completed the first triangulation housing, or shopping centres or nature The European Union Galileo system
of that country in the 1850s. This was a reserves over the past two centuries. may eventually offer the possibility of
massive task that took half a century and higher definition and accuracy (to within
involved building towers and clearing Datasets are based on topographical a metre) when it becomes available. This
sightlines through forests. mapping. For instance, in the UK the civilian-based system is designed to be
Ordnance Survey offers datasets such operable with both GPS and GLONASS.
It has been argued that the American as OS Land-Form PROFILE Plus which The European Space Agency launched
Civil War lasted as long as it did in part is based on Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 the first of the initial four Galileo satellites
because comprehensive mapping of scale mapping. Note: 1:10,000 map in October 2011. By 2019 there will be
the country’s vast territories had not contours are at 5m intervals and are 30 satellites in total; the system is planned
previously been undertaken. It has been accurate to ± 1.0m in the countryside to be free for public use.
suggested that if the terrain had been and ± 0.5m in some towns.
better understood, the Confederacy The Chinese regional navigation system,
might have been defeated more quickly. However, it is also possible to use global BeiDou, is scheduled to be extended to
The need for such maps led to the navigation satellite systems or GNSS cover the Pacific and Asian regions as
establishment of the US Geological (sat nav) in mapping and surveying. GPS BeiDou-2 (retitled as Compass) in 2012
Survey in 1879. (Global Positioning Systems) is the best and will have a free ± 1.0m service and a
known and is based on US Department of licensed, more accurate service, planned
All landscape architects should have a Defense satellite data, but be aware that to go global by 2020. In 2012 BeiDou-2
good knowledge of both mapping and such data may only be accurate to a few is operating a free service with a ± 25m
its modern supplements, air photography metres, typically ±10m. Nevertheless, use accuracy, this will become more accurate
as more satellites are launched.

The European Union Galileo global navigation

satellite system will offer superior resolution to the
US GPS by 2020 while the Chinese BeiDou system
is operational now.

4 Representing the Landscape Design Mapping, air photography, satellite imagery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) 125
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION GIS enables interpretation of The resulting visibility plan shows the
SYSTEMS (GIS) topographical data, such as mapping potential maximum area of visibility
GIS is a computerized, topographically or satellite photography data (including based on the terrain and allows
based dataset first developed in the ultraviolet photography), but also census for the screening effect of woods,
1960s in Canada by Dr Roger Tomlinson, and landscape ownership data. It permits existing buildings and walls or indeed
a geographer and geologist, for the a view of the land, and as such is a vital atmospheric conditions such as mist.
federal Department of Forestry and tool for landscape architects as well as ZTVs are part of the Landscape and
Rural Development. This was followed for landowners, planning authorities Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA) which
up from 1965 by work at the Laboratory and most government bodies, allowing is a component of Environmental
for Computer Graphics at the Harvard easy manipulation of information Assessment. A full visual assessment
Graduate School of Design headed about soils, geology, slope analysis, is backed up by a site survey to check
by the architect Howard Fisher. Jack groundwater and hydrology, vegetation, exact visibility on site.
Dangermond, a landscape architect, user preferences, contours, etc. It permits
joined the team in 1967 and aided in digital manipulation in both two and Software for ZVI analysis is currently
developing SYMAP (Synteny Mapping three dimensions of the sort of layer data either AutoCAD with an add-on such
and Analysis Program), which is basically that Ian McHarg’s students produced as Key TERRA_FIRMA or GIS software
a mapping visualization tool. Later by hand in the 1960s at the University such as Global Mapper.
Dangermond set up the GIS software of Pennsylvania on plastic overlay
company Environmental Systems sheets. At the macro level it enables
Research Institute (ESRI) to further landscapes to be interpreted at a regional
develop GIS. As of 2012, ESRI offers: scale; at the micro level it permits
ArcView, an easy-to-use program; trees to be inventorized and landscape
ArcInfo, a more sophisticated program; management operations to be recorded
and ArcGIS, which permits the addition and monitored. It also enables landscape
of additional modules to increase architects to produce their own maps.
functionality. GIS data is expressed as:
ZTV (ZONES OF THEORETICAL
• elevation data, either in raster format VISIBILITY)
or vector form such as contours; Analysis of Zones of Visual Influence (or
• shape layers, which are usually line Impact) (ZVI) or Zones of Theoretical
drawings, for streets, streams, land Visibility (ZTV) is an objective way of
plot sizes, etc; estimating where an object such as a
• coordinate system descriptions; new building will be visible from using
• data which describes the shape computer software with a digital elevation
of the Earth as suggested by the dataset based on topographical contour
coordinates. mapping and spot heights.

A
ANALYSING AVERY HILL PARK, LONDON

Historical vs Current Topographical Analysis

Analysis
(Derived from DTM/TIN,
(Overlaying aerial overlayed with
image with OS OS colour raster,
Historic Map – 1854 hillshade analysis
and site boundary and contours)
shape layer)
Site boundary
Site boundary
Contour_1m
Contour_5m

A. GIS views of Avery Hill Park, London, showing

3D Data (ArcScene) Data Analysis
the selective use of various datasets.
Drape data over (Land-use map derived
B. Example of a 12km-radius, five-point ZTV analysis
elevation raster from OS Master map
by applying spatial
for a new 64m-high hotel development located
Slope queries to provide
degrees additional layers of at the centre of the circle. The mass of the
information)
0-1 Site boundary buildings is most visible from the areas that have
2-2 Trees 25m from buildings the deepest combined colour.
3-4 Coniferous trees
Culverts
C. Example of a 15km-radius, multi-point,
5-8
9-18
Water composite radial line ZTV analysis located at
Trees, scrub the centre of the circle, shown on an Ordnance
Buildings on site
Survey 1:25,000 map base. The turbine is most
visible from the areas that have the deepest
blue colour.

126
 B

4 Representing the Landscape Design Mapping, air photography, satellite imagery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) 127
Report writing
Reports are a staple of the design • table of contents; illustrations, maps, etc.) for
process and report writing is an essential • list of abbreviations and/or glossary; clarification and graphic effect;
skill for landscape architects and, indeed, • executive summary/abstract; • number each page, and usually
all design professionals. A report’s aim • introduction; each clause too, for ease of reference;
is to inform as clearly and as briefly as • body of text; • use consistent and appropriate
possible. As such it should be written in • conclusion; formatting;
an appropriately formal and analytical • recommendations for action; • use formal language.
style, be clearly organized (with an • bibliography;
introduction, main text and conclusion) • appendices. Avoid:
and presented, and have been • the inclusion of careless, inaccurate,
carefully proofread. Presentation and style are important. irrelevant or conflicting data;
First impressions count, so consider • mixing facts and opinions without
A report should generally include the these simple tips: making a clear distinction between
following elements: • ensure that the separate parts of the two;
• letter of transmittance, describing the your report stand out clearly; • unsupported conclusions and
purpose and contents of the report, • use subheadings; recommendations;
and explaining by whom and when • use bullet points or numbered • careless presentation and
it was commissioned; points; proofreading;
• title page; • use tables and figures (graphs, • beginning with negatives.

Landscape
p and Biodiversityy
67

04 Planting Concept 04.2 Planting palette

04.1 Principles 95

SHRUB / HERBACEOUS SCHEDULE

97

Due to the constrictive nature of the site planting has been focused into three
TREE SCHEDULE
main areas: the lockable enclosed sensory-style experiential gardens, the Latin name Latin name
1st
st
Flt imber

deck
terrace
ked

living roof and the third is the Prince George Road frontage. Each of the Acer campestre ‘ Elsrijk’ Acaena buchananii +30.20

Fall

garden areas is located to create a natural backdrop to views out of the Acer ginnala Acer campestre Fall
+29.90

classrooms and to catch available sunlight to ensure successful Alnus glutinosa ‘Laciniata’ Alchemilla mollis 1.40
Fall
+31.00

establishment, and are seen as explorative resources for small supervised Alnus incana ‘Aurea’ Anemone hupehensis Photovoltaics
+30.20

Canopy

groups of pupils. Alnus incana ‘Laciniata’ Astrantia major Canopy

Betula albosinensis ‘ Fascination’ Cercidiphyllum japonicum

RW
Outle
+31.00

Skylight

1sF
1st
1 st
sFtti
Fltimbe
l imbe
i r

81 6
2 0.8
Mecla
eta
ta ldding

decterrace
deck
eck
tkerrace
eed
errdr
rr

Fall

Planting is designed to allow clear sightlines for security and supervision. Betula pendula Cornus alba ‘Kesselringii’ +31.00

16.202
Kitche
ch
hHeU
n

+30.00

44

46

48

Betula pubescens Cornus alba ‘ siberica’

+30.00

Con
npaviours
c vio
our
urs
rs
sun
by
un
nded

Fall

8.303

31.40

The development of the planting palette is guided by the school requirements Betula utilis jacquemontii Cornus sanguinea ‘ Midwinter Fire’ 72
70
68
66
64

74

for species that are non-toxic, whether ingested or handled, ideally where Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’ Corylus avellana
76

78
M etcla
Mecla
M eetc
ttlaalldd
la dding
ddin
dd
din
ing
ng
g

80

82

84

possible non-fruiting, non-thorny and free from sharp leaf or stem edges, Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Stella’ Cotinus coggygria ‘Flame’
resilient to damage and easily maintained. Pinus sylvestris Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’
Quercus robur ‘Fastigiata’ Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’ Area of Living Roof
Plants will be selected so any seasonal foliage or flora effects will happen Sorbus aria ‘Lutescens’ Miscanthus sinensis 67

during term time and contain a high proportion of evergreen plants to give Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Little Spire’
a clear planting structure. Planting will be selected to complement the CLIMBER SCHEDULE Rosmarinus officinalis 95

curriculum requirements including their sensory qualities, their ability to Latin name Rosmarinus prostratus 97

attract wildlife, and provide a range of opportunities for a varied learning Clematis armandii Salix viminalis 1st
sFlt imber

deck
terrace
ked

experience, Clematis vitalba Salvia leucantha +30.20

Fall

Hedera hibernica Santolina chamaecyparissus +29.90

The proposed planting palette is comprised of mainly native tree, shrub, Hydrangea petiolaris Sarcococca confusa Fall

Fall
+31.00

groundcover and grass species with a number of naturalized, ornamental and Jasminum officinale Sarcococca hookeriana ‘Humilis’
1.40

+30.20

Canopy

sensory species proposed to enhance visual amenity. Lonicera henryi Sedum spectabile Photovoltaics

Canopy

Lonicera periclymenum Teucrium fruticans ‘Azureum’ RW

Outle
+31.00

Skylight

Plant material will be sourced locally. Parthenocissus tricuspidata Verbascum nigrum

1sF
1st
1 sFllimbe
Fttim
timbe
im r
8 16
2 0 .8

Mecla
t a ldding

deck
deck
ecterrace
te
ker
e
ed
rra
rdr

Fall

+31.00
16.202

Kitche
che
chHeU
n

‘Veitchii’ Verbena bonariensis 8.303

303
Con
npaviours
c vio
ou
urrs
rs
sun
by
un
nded
+30.00

Fall
+30.00

48
46
44

Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ D

+

31.40

64

66

68

70

72

74

76

78
M et
Met
M eet
etcla
eta
c
ttlaalldd
la dding
ddin
dd
din
ing
ng

80

82

84

Proposed
p Tree Planting
g
67

95

97

1st
sFlt imber

deck
terrace
ked

+30.20

Fall

+29.90

Fall

+31.00

Fall

1.40

+30.20

Canopy

Photovoltaics

Canopy

RW
Outle
+31.00

Skylight

1sF
1st
1 sFllimbe
Ftti
timbe
i r
8 16
2 0 .8

Mecla
ta ldding

decterrace
ker
decterrace
eckerdr
ed
rr

Fall

+31.00
16.202

Kitche
ch
hHeU
n

+30.00

44

46

48

+30.00

Con
npaviours
c vio
ours
urs
roun
sby
un
nded

Fall

8.30
8. 3
303

31.40

64

66

68

70

72

74

76

78
M et
etcla
Mecla
M eetc
ttlaalldd
la dding
ddin
dd
din
ing
ng

80

82

84

Proposed
p Shrub Planting
g

New Horizon SEN School./ Full Planning Application- Landscape and Biodiversity Page 5

128
Live presentations
As a landscape architect, you will is a critical skill: you have to be able • do show full-screen images and ensure
regularly find yourself in the position to speak cogently. This is not a context that they actually mean something;
of having to persuade other people, in which you can simply hide behind • do not use five images when one
such as developers and funders, to pretty drawings. will do;
provide the money to allow you to • do use your spoken presentation to
realize your dreams. This may be as Nowadays most presentations are explain, enlarge upon and emphasize
part of an original competitive bidding PowerPoint-based. This is both a the points shown on the screen;
for a project commission, followed by blessing and a curse, as it can lead • do not read from the screen;
presentations at design reviews and to a condition known colloquially as • do face and look at your audience. If you
amplified by public presentations as ‘bulletpointitis’. The problem with bullet have a lot of listeners, try to catch the
part of community participation and points, by the way, is that they tend eye of five or six individuals distributed
community design workshops. You to encourage oversimplification and through the audience. You will soon
will need to convince boards, planning assertion, and to undermine discourse notice if they begin to fall asleep;
authorities and financiers, not to mention and explanation. A good presentation • don’t talk too quickly and be prepared
whole communities, that what you are planning structure can be abbreviated to pause for dramatic effect;
proposing is the best way forward. This as PEE (Proposition, Explanation, • do practise voice projection – speak,
requires you to have clear, persuasive Evidence). don’t shout – and where possible use
ideas and also the capacity to convey a microphone (and check with the
them. The ability to stand in front of a Therefore (and note that we use audience that they can hear at
committee and argue your case clearly bullet points to offer this advice!): the back).

Public presentation is about confidence, A B

learning how to engage with the audience
and to communicate with inspiring clarity.

A. Gare d’Eaux presentation to local councillors

and Lille planners, February 2011.
B. Models make presentations easier to explain
and easier to understand.
C. Gare St Sauveur Esquisse presentation to
City of Lille planners, February 2010.

4 Representing the Landscape Design Live presentations 129

Villa Garden at Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus

Landscape design for a private garden

This overall plan is for a villa garden A

design on the Aphrodite resort

development in Cyprus. This is the
sort of drawing that will be presented
to a client together with perspective
views and photographs of comparable
features, and might often be coloured.
The swimming pool is to the right of
the villa next to the main terrace. There
was prior discussion with the client
about how they wished to use the
garden, sundeck, cooling pool
and entertainment terrace with
views to a pavilion.

These ideas were developed further

in a more detailed layout plan and the
designs were finally completed with a
series of computer-drawn plans such as
the paving or hardworks plan, showing B
paving types, patterns, levels, changes
of levels, walls and plant beds and any
building outlines. These were supported
by detailed construction drawings, a
planting plan, irrigation and lighting
plans and a written specification. The
photographs of the construction then
show the drawing plan ideas being
carried through to the final form, with
a line on the plan becoming a line on
the ground.

A. Initial felt-pen sketch on tracing paper

overscaled site plan, drawn at a client meeting.
The drawing mixes analysis graphics with
design ideas.
B. Developed initial sketch response for
second client discussion meeting in felt pen
on tracing paper overlay. The sketch adds
composition and form to first ideas but is still
informal and was subsequently amended
after the meeting. Such informal drawings
are quick, involve the client and permit
development and change.

130
C C. First presentation drawing detailing the depth
of the ideas, drawn on tracing paper using
technical wet ink pens and felt and thick
marker pens, with shadow and textures added.
It was hand-coloured with pencil crayons.
Materials and details could be added as notes.
D. Detailed areas begin to be worked up
following final client approval: site levels and
radii have been added in freehand on the
mechanically drawn base and this drawing
forms the basis of the final digitally drawn
construction package.
E. The final hand-drawn bases are scanned,
as black-and-white images, and imported into
the CAD software as a background image
to a digital line trace drawn in AutoCAD.
This forms the basis for hardworks (paving),
softworks (planting), lighting and separate
pool construction drawings.
F. Construction of a pool: the raw,
unfinished freeform concrete structure.
G. The finished pool.
D

4 Case study Villa Garden at Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus 131

5
From Design Team to
Long-term Landscape
Management
The stages of work 134
Case study: London 2012 Olympic Park 136
Multi-disciplinary design teams 138
The programme of work and the design team 140
Costing a project 141
Landscape management 147
Case study: The Parks Trust, Milton Keynes, UK 148
Case study: Dr Jac. P. Thijssepark, Amstelveen, the Netherlands 152

View of the Olympic Park, London, showing the

wetland area.

133
 The stages of work
Nearly all the development professions As it is open to anyone to use other This may be compared with the UK
such as architecture, engineering and professional bodies’ forms of Office of Government Commerce
landscape architecture have what are agreement and as it is usual to work (OGC) guidelines:
termed ‘stages of work’, which follow on projects led by other professions,
broadly similar models. We have we also give the stages of work set 1 Business justification (the
already outlined these in relation to our out in the Royal Institute of British development professions tend
discussion about fees in chapter 2. Architecture (RIBA)’s Outline Plan to call this the business case)
To recap, the Landscape Institute’s of Work of November 2008, which 2 Procurement strategy
stages of work are as follows: usefully describes the stages in five 3A Design brief and concept approval
main sections: 3B Detailed design approval
PRELIMINARY SERVICES 3C Investment decision
A Inception A/B Preparation 4 Readiness for service
B Feasibility C/D/E Design 5 Benefit evaluation
F/G/H Pre-construction
STANDARD SERVICES J/K Construction This gives another take on how a large
C Outline proposals L Use client body (central government) sees
D Scheme proposals the development of any capital project
E Detailed proposals The Outline emphasizes that a project – in terms of service to the client, whether
F/G Production information and bills whether housing development, road that is a large school or a warship.
of quantities or business park – continues after So what does this all mean? Here
H Tender action construction work has been we examine the Landscape Institute’s
J Contract preparation completed. stages of work in detail:
K Construction
L Completion

LANDSCAPE INSTITUTE WORK STAGES AND FEES

D E TA I L E D P RO P O S A L S

BI L L S O F Q UA N T I T IE S
O U T L IN E P RO P O S A L S

S CH E M E P RO P O S A L S

IN F O R M AT IO N A N D

T E N D E R A C T IO N –
INI T I A L C O N TA C T

C O N ST R U C T IO N
IN C E P T IO N -

P RO D U C T IO N

C O M P L E T IO N

A B C D E F G H J K L

1 5% 20% 20% 20% 20% 5%

F EES F EES F EES F EES F EES F EES

134
PRELIMINARY SERVICES and discussion with other consultants who can make priced bids for the work),
to test their feasibility. Cost estimates ensuring they can tender at the right time,
A Inception covers the client’s are developed, along with the building and then inviting them to submit tenders
requirements such as use, timescale and programme. At this stage the client should based on the drawings, specifications
finance are established, and a costed be able to agree the direction of the and schedules and bills of quantity.
consultancy commission is developed: design and the types of materials. There
this is always confirmed in writing at the will be continuing discussion with planning J Contract preparation happens as
time. During this period the landscape authorities leading to a submission of the tenders are submitted. It is based
architect will typically visit the site, an outline planning application. There on an agreed, usually standard, form
obtain from the client information about will also be discussion with public utility of contract. The contract is signed
ownership and any legal restrictions companies and with statutory authorities by both contractor and client and
about access and development. Advice such as conservation bodies to ensure production information (final drawings
regarding other necessary consultants that the design is acceptable. and details) is provided to the contractor.
will be given and advice given on any
specialist contractors or suppliers E Detailed proposals cover development K Construction can be quite a long
advisable (which may require long lead of the designs in sufficient detail to period ranging from months to
times to organize). gain the client’s approval, coordination years. During this time the landscape
of the design with other consultants, architect will attend site meetings with
B Feasibility involves the testing of the and also with suppliers and possible the contractor and other consultants,
client’s requirements, an investigation of specialist contractors. Costs are tested monitor the work, advise on site queries,
alternative solutions to the design, advice by obtaining preliminary quotations, a check and certify contractor’s accounts
on planning applications, and what detailed planning application is submitted. and note any changes to the value of
these may involve. At this stage it will be the works and advise the client
determined exactly how the standard F/G Production information and bills accordingly.
services are delivered. of quantities includes completion of
‘production drawings’ which are final L Completion involves checking that
STANDARD SERVICES layout plans and construction details, the works have been completed as
with preparation of a specification specified and the final account of
C Outline proposals include development (a written document describing the the contractor under the terms
of outline design proposals and meeting work item by item), schedules (such as of the contract.
with other design consultants to develop planting lists) and advice on preparation
the design. Initial meetings with the of a bill of quantities by the quantity Such a set of stages is an ideal and
planning authorities are held to determine surveyor. A bill of quantities is a list of many variations can be made. For
their detailed requirements and those the items in the works with measured example, at stage H a contract could
of the Construction, Design and quantities (meaning numbers, areas or be negotiated with an approved
Management (CDM) Planning Supervisor. linear measurements) of the work which contractor on the basis of an agreed
can then be costed by tenderers. schedule of prices, rather than let by
D Scheme proposals involve tender, but this is more common in
development of the designs prepared H Tender action involves compiling a garden design work than most public
at the outline stage in sketch form list of suitable tenderers (i.e. contractors or commercial work.

Monitoring paving work on site: landscape

architects have to report on whether the
construction has been done to specification.
If it has, the contractor can be paid.

5 From Design Team to Long-term Landscape Management The stages of work 135
London 2012 Olympic Park

Teamwork and international practice

One of the key planks for the London 2012 Olympics bid in 2005 was A. The 2012 Olympics were about architectural
display set in a planted setting; the bridges were
that it would lead to the regeneration of East London. The area along
built extra wide for 2012 and narrowed for the
the Lea Valley proposed for the main Olympics Park was a post-industrial legacy park.
wasteland of old railway yards and factory sites, in one of the eight most
deprived areas in England.

In 2002 a feasibility study by Insignia international design competition in A

Richard Ellis and Arup convinced both 2008 for the 250ha Olympic Park and its
the government of Tony Blair and London legacy which was won by US landscape
Mayor, Ken Livingstone, to support the architects George Hargreaves with
bid. It was the Mayor who pushed for the English firm LDA as executive landscape
choice of the Stratford site in East London architect. However, the execution
as the main location for the Olympics. of all the work involved a significant
proportion of the English landscape
Following the success of the bid in 2005 profession, with garden designer Sarah
landscape architects and economic Price designing the framework of the
planners, EDAW, were appointed as gardens and University of Sheffield
masterplanners for the initial stage. EDAW professors James Hitchmough and
was a large, international environmental Nigel Dunnett designing the meadow
design and planning firm with an HQ and herbaceous planting displays along
in San Francisco. Founded originally the River Lea. Engineers Atkins led the
in 1939 by Garret Eckbo and Edward reclamation and Arup undertook the
Williams, two of the heroes of West river engineering.
Coast Modernism, the firm has been
owned since 2005 by AECOM, a large The Olympic Park housed the main
development consultancy conglomerate. 80,000-seat stadium, tennis and archery,
This is the extreme end of global velodrome, hockey, handball and the
corporate landscape practice. EDAW had swimming centre as well as the Olympic
worked previously on the 1976 Montreal Village. Many of these facilities will be
Olympics and on the Sydney Olympics retained and the Olympics Village will
Village of 2000 and on the Aquatic become permanent apartment housing.
Park for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
In 2006 their President was English The London Legacy Development
landscape architect Jason Prior. EDAW Corporation was set up from 1 April
undertook the initial masterplanning. 2012 by the Mayor of London to develop
Later AECOM were to win the project for the permanent park of 226ha as well
the masterplanning of the 120ha Rio de as the Thames Gateway and their in-
Janeiro 2016 Olympics Park in Barra house landscape architect is Phil Askew.
de Tijuca. In August 2012 Land Use Consultants
were commissioned to design the
In 2006 the Olympics Development northern section and James Corner
Authority was set up to oversee the Field Operations of New York to design
commissioning of the design and the southern section. The Olympic Park
construction contracts for the Olympics. reopened to the public as a permanent
Their head landscape architect was park for East London as the Queen
John Hopkins and he oversaw the Elizabeth II Park in July 2013.

136
B B. The waterways were bordered by
planted promenades.
C. The Olympic Stadium viewed from the planted
Greenway.
D. The wetland meadow, planted with fast-growing
tree species, begins to create an informal
parkland structure.
E. The stadium to the left, Anish Kapoor’s red
Orbit viewing tower and, across Waterworks
River, the Water Polo Arena.

C D

5 Case Study London 2012 Olympic Park 137

Multi-disciplinary design teams
An individual commission may require plan, organize and direct the overall consultants, forestry or agricultural advisors,
the creation of a team with each member resources of the project – especially soils or geotechnical consultants and
or practice representing a different but the design resources. economic planners.
necessary skill: for example, in competition
submissions, when an architect or engineer Development surveyors advise on Project management requires clear lines
needs the help of a landscape designer. assembling land and its subsequent of communication and structure of
The landscape architect would join the development, usually with the support responsibilities. The following questions
team for that specific commission. For of letting agents. Letting agents deal need to be addressed from the outset:
competitions, this will usually be on a specifically with the marketing and
speculative basis. If a firm commission is letting of a speculative commercial • When? Phases and milestones.
forthcoming, it is important to negotiate a project such as an office block or • How much? Capital costs, fees and
fee and working agreement that properly business park. ongoing revenue and management costs.
cover your input. To do this, you need • Why? Goals and objectives.
to forecast the workload in terms of Planning consultants may well • What? Outcomes and deliverables.
deliverables, e.g. drawings and the time be required at the pre-planning • How? Processes and tasks.
it will take to produce them. A quick rule permission stage. Teams might • Who? Roles, responsibilities and
of thumb is to calculate the estimated also include other specialists such deliverables.
number of days per formal drawing: it as archaeological or ecological • With what risk? Risks and trade-offs.
can take ten days to produce a drawing
(if you include the meetings and time to
attend design meetings and liaise with
other consultants). This then allows you
to calculate an appropriate time fee.
Alternatively a percentage fee might be
calculated, based on the estimated capital
CLIEN T
cost of the work.
TEAM
For collaboration with other professions
to be effective, areas of competence
and ways of working have to be clearly P ROJ EC T MANAG E R
established. The most common members
of an engineering or architectural STA K E H O L D E R S
development project design team
include the following:
EX TERNAL
Engineers may be structural engineers
STA K E H O L D E R S
(responsible for the structural design
of buildings or bridges), civil engineers
(responsible for roads), or mechanical and
electrical engineers (electricity, GOVERNMEN T
S P E C I A L I ST S
water and other services). Specialist P ROJ EC T
engineers may also be required for
high-voltage overhead electrical
lines or underground work. CDM ADVISOR

The quantity surveyor (or QS) is a type

of cost advisor found specifically in
M U LT I-D I S C I P L I N A R Y P L ANNING ADVIS OR
the UK and Commonwealth countries.
P ROJ EC T TEAM
Other territories have cost engineers, but
sometimes costing and measurement are LANDSCAPE QUAN TIT Y
undertaken in-house by the designers. ENGINEE R ARCHITEC T ARCHITEC T S U R V E YO R

Project managers (often quantity surveyors)

are a fairly recent development and

138
 CLIEN T

P ROJ EC T MANAG E R
P L ANNING ADVIS OR
M E C H A N I C A L A N D E L E C T R I C A L (M + E) E N G I N E E R
ST R U C T U R A L E N G I N E E R
A R B O R I C U LT U R I ST
S OILS
DEVELOPER
S P E C I A L I ST S
P ROJ EC T

ECOLOGY

CDM ADVISOR

Q UAN T IT Y S U R VE YOR

L AND SCAP E ARCHITEC T

ARCHITEC T

LANDSCAPE MANAG ERS

CLIEN T

L AND SCAP E ARCHITEC T

A R B O R I C U LT U R I ST

E C O L O G I ST

LANDSCAPE MANAG ER

S OILS
P R I VAT E S P E C I A L I ST S
P ROJ EC T
I R R I G AT I O N

ENGINEE R

P L ANNING ADVIS OR
Q UAN T IT Y S U R VE YOR

ARCHITEC T

5 From Design Team to Long-term Landscape Management Multi-disciplinary design teams 139
The programme of work and the design team
Initially it will be necessary to determine Design team meetings might be
how the design team is to operate, There attended by the client or their
should be a lead consultant – perhaps representative. But there may be
the consultant who is responsible for the additional project meetings with
in the outline programme
biggest cost element of the work: e.g. the cost advisors, letting agents and
tasks are represented in
dam engineer for a reservoir project, the outside funders (often banks or chronological order
architect for a building – or a specialist charities) as well as the client.
project manager.
In an ideal world, the brief should fix
The overall programme of design the extent of the project at the outset
production work should be established, but this is rarely what actually happens.
TASK
usually in bar-chart form showing delivery Project team meetings should record 1) CONSULTANTS APPOINTMENT
dates for each consultant. There will be any changes made to the original brief 2) WORK STAGE A- INCEPTION
3) WORK STAGE B- FEASIBILITY
formal design team meetings, typically in the form of change orders.
4) STAGE B CLIENT PRESENTATION
weekly or fortnightly, at which progress is 5) WORK STAGE C- CONCEPT DESIGN
reviewed, current designs are presented A change order is an agreed 6) STAGE C- CLIENT PRESENTATION
7) WORK STAGE D- DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
to the whole team, and design issues are description of work to be added to 8) STAGE D CLIENT PRESENTATION AND APPROVAL
discussed and decided. It is vital that these (or removed from) the original scope 9) PLANNING APPLICATION SUBMITTAL

be quickly and clearly minuted. of work set out in the design contract, 10) WORK STAGE E- TECHNICAL DESIGN
11) STAGE E CLIENT APPROVAL
and which therefore amends the 12) WORK STAGES F/G- PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Sometimes the design team might be led original contract value or completion 13) WORK STAGE H- TENDER ACTION
14) WORK STAGE J- MOBILIZATION
by a planner in the early stages leading up date. Cuts in the capital value of a 15) START ON SITE
to the submission of a successful planning project invariably involve additional 16) WORK STAGE K- CONSTRUCTION ON SITE

application. Afterwards, the lead project expenditure on design fees since 17) PRACTICAL COMPLETION
18) WORK STAGE L- POST PRACTICAL COMPLETION
consultant will take over for the detailed designs have to be redesigned and 19) HANDOVER
design stage and the production drawings. drawings have to be redrawn. 20) MAINTENANCE PERIOD

Effort Year 1 Year 2

CONSULTANTS APPOINTMENT
2w Gantt chart is usually
overlaid on a calendar
3w
background
STAGE B CLIENT PRESENTATION
6w
STAGE C CLIENT PRESENTATION
7w dependency lines
STAGE D CLIENT PRESENTATION AND APPROVAL connect follow-on
PLANNING APPLICATION SUBMITTAL and related tasks
12w
milestones are individual
STAGE E CLIENT APPROVAL
completion dates
6w
4w
task bars show duration
2w
START ON SITE
24w
PRACTICAL COMPLETION
4w
HANDOVER
52w

Predicted time it will take

to complete the tasks, in
working weeks BASIC GANTT CHART PROGRAMME

140
Costing a project
Adequate cost planning is critical to any In this section we discuss in particular Parks should be integrated into transport
project and should be discussed from the costs of public parks because they and real-estate developments. The
the outset. This is especially so in the are the ‘purest’ kind of project a mantra should be: transport + parks
case of landscape architecture, where landscape architect is likely to be + sound long-term management
costing by cost planners or quantity responsible for, in the sense that their = successful long-term real-estate
surveyors is often not comprehensive main raison d’être is the designed investment = good community
and may prove inadequate. There are landscape. However, the sorts of cost development. Enhanced land values
two aspects of costing: capital costs and analysis necessary in planning a public can be equated with good community
ongoing maintenance and management. park can be applied to all built projects. and ecological development,
Many landscape architects tend to avoid fundamental desiderata of most
thinking about maintenance costs but Four interrelated questions should be forms of urban development. The
it’s an essential consideration to ensure asked at the inception of any park project, Emscher Park is an illustration of this
that proposals prove fit for purpose in which are (in no particular order): on a grand scale (see p.44).
the long run. The reason why so many
public fountains are dry is that the cost of • What is the capital cost? On page 144 is a survey of landscape
maintaining them was not considered in • What is the ongoing maintenance capital costs for various West European
the initial planning stage and the financial cost? parks, which illustrates how to undertake
arrangements to support those costs • How are the capital and maintenance initial cost estimating based on the
were not set up. costs to be funded? land area and type or complexity (and
• What is the park for? therefore cost) of a project. Outline
Main considerations to establish costing should be based on precedent.
early on are: There is no point in embarking on the
large capital investment that a park The private-sector benefits consequent
• an adequate cost estimate and requires without considering its future on transport and environmental
design programme – the timetable management and its finance. One way improvements should be tapped in
for the production of the designs and to fund maintenance and support a park order to fund public parks. Alternatively
drawings, for costing purposes and is to tap into the increase in the value park developers should keep control
then for a planning application and of the adjacent land consequent on of the freehold of development land
finally for production information (e.g. the project. This has been a historically around a new park so that profits and
working drawings) so that contractors successful model, illustrated by the service charges go into the public purse
can tender for the work; example of Regent’s Park in London, and help to fund the park. This is not a
• tender programme – the timetable for which is part of the Regent Street new concept: it is common practice in
competitive tendering – this requires development by John Nash and belongs business-park development.
the selection of suitable companies, a to the Crown Estate. Service charges
reasonable time period for tendering on the buildings fund maintenance
and then time to consider and check and management. Compare Victoria
the tenders and appoint a successful Park in East London, where finding
contractor; adequate funding for its maintenance
• site programme – the programme is a continuing challenge.
of works with effective and realistic
timescales attached covering all work
up to completion;
• maintenance programme and
responsibilities and financing.

Transport + parks = Successful long-term = Good community

+ sound, long-term real-estate investment development
investment

5 From Design Team to Long-term Landscape Management Costing a project 141

PROJECT COSTS
Project costs diagram for a typical park development, including design time
and fees can equate to up to 10 per cent of the development programme.
The ongoing annual maintenance and management costs should be
identified at the project inception.

10% 90%

C O N ST R U C T I O N P H A S E

P R O J E C T C A P I TA L
C O ST S (I N C L U D E S
F E E S) 1 0 0 %

PA R K
D ESIG N F EES £2 . 0 M I L L I O N /
U P TO 1 0 % O F U S $3 . 0 M I L L I O N /H A ONG OING AN N UAL
C A P I TA L C O ST MAIN TENANCE +
M A N A G E M E N T C O ST S

1%

CONTRACT DOCUMENTS

DRAWING S
-ELEMEN TS
-O B J E C T S
WHERE - L O C AT I O N S
*P L ANS
*SE C TIONS
* D E TA I L S
CON T RAC T
(F O R M O F A G R E E M E N T)
BE TWEEN CLIEN T &
C O N T R A C TO R

S P E C I F I C AT I O N
BIL L S O F HOW - M AT E R I A L S
W H AT
QUAN TIT Y MANY -M E TH OD O L O G Y
(B O F Q ’ S) -WO RK M AN S HIP

SOME TIMES THESE ARE

C O M BIN E D IN O N E D O C U M EN T

142
COMPARATIVE LANDSCAPE COSTS
NB 2012 UK guide prices.

AMENIT Y
GRASS
> £ 5/
U S$8/M2

GROUND G R AV E L
COVER S U R FA C I N G L AWN

> £2 5/ > £1 5/ > £1 0/

N AT U R A L U S $3 8 /M 2 U S $2 3/M 2 U S $1 5/M 2

STO N E
PAV I N G P R E- C A ST
SH RUB CONCRE TE
P L AN TING PAV I N G
> £1 2 0/ > £ 3 0/
> £ 4 5/
U S $1 8 0/M 2 U S $ 6 8/M 2
U S $ 4 5/M 2

BR ICK
PAV I N G
PA R K > £6 0/
U S $ 9 1/M 2

£20 0/
U S $3 0 2 /M 2

5 From Design Team to Long-term Landscape Management Costing a project 143

The finance required for landscaping a Successful and effective parks vary of intensive horticulture requiring high-
park depends on the sort of park that is greatly in finance and cost structure. quality management: e.g. Paris parks or
being created. If it’s an intensive urban Generally the French and US examples the two Chicago examples, the Millennium
city centre park, then that would equate cost more than recent British examples. Park and Lakeshore East.
to over £300/m2. If it’s a parkland effect, For instance, the Thames Barrier Park
along the lines of the Riemer Park in including remediation at £151 per m2 was B £100–200/m2
Munich or the Thames Barrier Park in just above one-third of the costs per m2 Medium-cost parks such as the Thames
London, then around £100–200/m2 of the Citröen-Cévennes in Paris at €651/ Barrier Park in London, the Bordeaux
(allowing for remediation to a certain m2. Both were developed on former Botanic Garden or the Westergasfabriek
standard) might be reasonable. A cheaper industrial sites, using the same designer, Park in Amsterdam, involving intensive-use
approach, like that adopted at Duisburg Allain Provost. The difference in cost is spaces and high-level maintenance but
Nord near Essen or the Centre for reflected in the intensity of facilities which tending to be less ambitious than the parks
Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales, is subsequently seen in the different in group A.
might employ natural regeneration or intensities of use: if you pay more, you
forestry techniques with limited areas tend to get more. C £50–100/m2
of intensive use. Low-cost parks of various types, with
Lower-cost parks are possible, but either forestry and parkland developments usually
Parks require functions that attract users. offer less intensity of use and/or require involving extensive grassland. Examples
This was one reason for the success an approach to remediation that aims include the Parc Diagonal Mar, Barcelona,
of the Parc de la Villette in Paris, where to control rather than to remove on-site or Rotten Row Gardens, Glasgow.
the presence of the national science toxicity. The German practice is to allow
museum ensures about five million vegetation to develop over time, naturally, D <£50/m2
visitors per annum. Lack of a sufficient which can require the exclusion of the Very low-cost parks, with forestry and
attraction led to the failure of the Earth public for decades; it also requires an simple designs, phased developments,
Centre near Doncaster, UK. The Parc de acceptance of low-intensity use (because developments involving ruderal growth
Bercy in Paris works well because it is there will be less paving or expensive (natural regeneration) such as Duisburg
in the centre of a redevelopment area features) once the park is opened linked Nord Landschaftspark and some involving
(Zone d’Aménagement Concerté or with active management as at Duisburg volunteer or low-cost labour such as CAT
ZAC). It thus draws in the local residential Nord and the other large German post- in Wales.
population as well as attracting a wider industrial parks.
range of visitors owing to the presence E Garden festivals
of upmarket shopping and cafés and What is the cost of a city park? Asking In Britain, garden festivals were developed
a related entertainment centre. It has this question begs the further question: at two-yearly intervals from 1984 to 1992
also fostered good community and What is a city park? The projects surveyed and were intensively developed large parks
school relations: local primary schools by cost at end of 2011 prices per m2 can which opened for six months with millions
have vegetable plots. A park is not be grouped as follows: of visitors, They were developed on derelict
automatically an attraction per se – land and given the lack of large-scale park
many suburban parks are underutilized A >£200/m2 design in Britain in the last 60 years they
because of lack of investment in their High-cost, intensive-use urban parks with are comparable to large parks. They ranged
care and management. A successful a high proportion of paving, structures in cost from £78/m2 at Liverpool to £350/m2
park can always become unsuccessful if and water features, large numbers of at Glasgow (at inflation updated
management strategies are poor. buildings and high levels 2011 prices).

A. Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), a post-industrial site,

developed by a charity on a long-term, low-cost basis at £30/m2.
B. Earth Centre, Doncaster, the phase 1 costs worked out very low, at
£35/m2, but this development ultimately failed because it
could not attract planned further capital funding and National
Lottery grants.
C. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark, also on an industrial site,
was low cost at £24/m2 because the fundamental idea was
to encourage natural regeneration of vegetation.
D&E. Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), Machynlleth,
Wales succeeded because it grew incrementally on a
low-cost basis.
F. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark.
G. Green roof at CAT, built with low-cost, on-site materials
not expensive proprietary systems.

144
B C

D E

F G

5 From Design Team to Long-term Landscape Management Costing a project 145

A B

C D E

A. Thames Barrier Park, a development on derelict land.

Remediation costs tend to be high, but overall costs
here were low at £151/m2.
B. Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth,
Wales: Walter Segal-inspired buildings based on
minimum cutting of standard building materials such
as timber or panels and the use of compost from the
site to raise soil productivity.
C. Plan of the Earth Centre, Doncaster.
D. Earth Centre, Doncaster, here the old coal colliery
site had been reclaimed before the development
began and so everything had to be built from scratch.
E&F. Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark, largely a
conservation project, it was low cost, involving
managed access to the steelworks structure but
leaving old railway yards to vegetate naturally.

146
Landscape management
All landscape architects should have The source of future financing should funding. The first was held in Hanover in
an understanding of landscape be determined as early as possible. A 1951; the site is now the 21ha Stadtpark.
management, which relates to what good example of how not to do this One of the latest garden festivals is that
happens to a site after the initial was provided by the London Docklands in Koblenz in 2011 which was 48ha and
development work has been completed. Development Corporation (LDDC) in drew over 3.5 million visitors.
Much more so than, say, in architecture, the period 1980–97. In the first place, The 102ha Queen Elizabeth II Park,
where the architect hands over work it ignored the critical importance of site of the 2012 Olympics, is being
that is essentially finished. In landscape both good infrastructure development, developed by the London Legacy
architecture handover (technically especially public transport, and open Development Corporation. It aims for
‘practical completion’) is a crucial – and space in leading environmental and then nine million visitors per annum (slightly
open-ended – stage of any landscape economic urban development. It also more than the Parc de la Villette’s seven
architecture project and should be refused to consider what would happen million annual visitors). Contracts are
planned and costed accordingly. For when the Development Corporation was to be let for landscape maintenance.
instance, it does not make sense to disbanded – hence not only the saga of However, it remains to be seen whether
spend, say, £2,000 on a large street tree the Thames Barrier Park (see p.74) but the long-term management will remain
and then not put in place an arrangement the more general problem of how to with the Mayor of London or become
whereby the stakes are checked regularly fund public-realm maintenance including the responsibility of the Royal Parks,
to ensure that they are not rubbing roads, parks and open spaces. a central government agency with
against the side of the tree so that the By contrast German Garden Festivals public-sector funding.
bark is wounded and fungal rot sets in. (Bundesgartenschauen) have always
Too often the result is a dead tree within included planning for their long-term
a few years. after-use, generally using public sector

LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT

R E STO R AT I O N
PA R K S GARD ENS BIODIVE R SIT Y

AMENIT Y L ANDSCAPE C O N S E R VAT I O N / H A B I TAT

MANAG EMEN T MANAG EMEN T

P L ANNING CARE
P U BLIC OP EN S P E C I E S + H A B I TAT
S PA C E P RO TE C TION
L A N D S PA C E
MANAG EMEN T
W I L D L I F E I N I T I AT I V E S RESOU RCES
I M P L E M E N TAT I O N
E N V I R O N M E N TA L
A G R I C U LT U R E
MANAG EMEN T

D I V E R S I F I C AT I O N S U STA I N A B I L I T Y
R E C L A M AT I O N W A ST E

5 From Design Team to Long-term Landscape Management Landscape management 147

The Parks Trust, Milton Keynes, UK

Long-term management by a community charity

Milton Keynes, ‘last and largest of the English New Towns’, has a population
of 195,000 and covers 2,119,900ha including 190km of cycleways, a
120km-long highway system with generous roadside planting, 1,800ha of
linear parks, and the 20 million trees of what was intended to be a ‘forest
city’. Set up in 1992, the Parks Trust was endowed with a portfolio of
commercial properties (offices, shops and industrial property, pubs, hotels
and a watersports club) in order to fund the open-space management.

The Trust’s key role is stewardship. There are This 2011 statement of the Trust’s key
325ha of parkland pasture grazed by sheep values is worth quoting.
and cattle, 57 horse paddocks, 121 ponds,
three ancient woodlands – one an SSSI (Site 1. Excellence
of Special Scientific Interest) – and 160ha of We demonstrate a commitment
lakes. The Trust spends £4 million annually to high standards in all that we
on public open-space management and do, provide leadership in our field
plants around 100 trees and shrubs daily and strive for success by being
(tens of thousands every year to achieve its professional, innovative and creative.
aim of producing a forest city). It also has a
school and pre-school and adult education 2. Integrity
programmes run by four coordinators. We believe in being open, forthright
and honest in our dealings with
The original planting was at high densities to people and organizations and in
give early effect and a continuing programme adopting behaviour consistent with
of thinning and total removal of fast-growing our values.
poplar and willow trees was always planned.
There is limited use of herbicides and a 3. Collaboration
regular programme of stream and river We work with others for the greater
dredging to prevent them becoming clogged good of the community, cultivate
with vegetation. long-term relationships and
partnerships, and respond to the
The maintenance work is overseen by a small needs of local people
operations team, who supervise landscape and organisations.
maintenance contracts and improvement
works – landscape contractors carry out 4. Valuing people
most of the maintenance operations. This We aim to treat everyone with
work includes grass cutting, weed control, respect. We are committed to the
shrub pruning, hedge cutting, coppicing and development of all our people,
treework, leisure route resurfacing and litter paid and volunteers, including
collection. The Parks Trust has established a the fulfilment of potential and the
horticultural apprentice scheme and in 2010 recognition and celebration
employed 35 local landscape contractors, of achievement.
who in turn employ a further 200 people.
5. Responsibility
All this activity continues at no cost to Milton Our stewardship involves:
Keynes City Council, the revenue for the safeguarding the environment for
charitable trust comes from their property future generations; being accountable
and investment assets. for all that we do, including the
consequences of any decisions we
take; and making the best use of all
our resources.

148
A B

A. Milton Keynes main distributor road.

B. Milton Keynes is a sea of single species block
planting, here cotoneaster and laurel surround
the Willen’s Lake car park.
C. Willen’s Lake, Milton Keynes, a successful
balancing of a stormwater and a recreational
facility. It was created in 1972–74.

5 Case Study The Parks Trust, Milton Keynes, UK 149

In London’s Docklands it was the private Park and garden maintenance A

sector that believed in masterplanning requires planning. The location of the

and a quality environment in the short maintenance depot should ideally
and long term. So the Reichmann be central. The tendency of some
Brothers’ development of Canary Wharf landscape architects is either to forget
included a costing for maintenance from the maintenance depot until late in
the very beginning. The service charge the masterplanning process or to
required to provide an adequate public- initially hide it away on the periphery.
realm maintenance regime amounts to If propagation of plants is to be on-site
only a few pence per square metre. The then the greenhouses and holding areas
challenge for public-sector planners should also be designed and of course
is to ensure such a revenue stream is there should be secure buildings to
established from the beginning. This can store machinery and chemicals. Security
be done by planning process and often concerns, though important, need not
long-term developers (as opposed to mean that the maintenance depot and
speculative developers) will wish to do so greenhouses are hidden away. The
from the beginning. The large London nurseries and greenhouses of many
landed estates such as the Grosvenor National Trust properties, for instance,
Estate (which owns much of Mayfair), the are accessible to the public.
Bedford Estate (Bloomsbury), the Crown
Estate (Regent Street and Regent’s Park) Many privately owned ‘public spaces’
and the Eton Estate (Primrose Hill) are in London are high-pressure hose-
examples of long-term urban developers. treated on a daily basis in order to
keep the paving pristine and remove
Two sectors of the economy where chewing gum. While it is admirable that
B
land-management costs are provided the necessary finance has been put in
for from the start are forestry (where a place, it is questionable on sustainability
50–100-year timescale is not unusual) grounds whether this is a wise way to
and agriculture, but both make a tangible use drinking water – London only has
financial return on their investments. the one potable (drinking) water supply
The equivalent in the private sector is system. In Paris, by contrast, irrigation
the business park, where an enhanced water in parks is taken from a separate
environment leads to a sustainable non-potable water supply.
economic return in the form of rental
value being maintained or increased. The Netherlands has led the way in
That is also why many private-sector not using pesticides in public parks
housing-estate developers stress the and open spaces. The scheme began
enhanced value that a maintained in Arnhem in 1984 in perhaps difficult
environment can produce. circumstances since the decision to go
over to a non-pesticide maintenance
One good precedent for financing system was made more or less
of long-term management and overnight on political grounds. Non-
maintenance is provided by the pesticide-based management requires
National Trust of England and Wales. a workforce trained in such techniques
C
This is a charity that exists to maintain and also requires public acceptance
the historical and natural heritage ‘in of the difference in results: one man’s
perpetuity’; in consequence, when Taraxacum officinale is another man’s
accepting new land, it always requires weed (Taraxacum is dandelion).
an endowment (often in the form
of surrounding agricultural land but
sometimes in the form of a fund) to
continue to support that heritage. The
National Trust is now one of the largest
landowners in the UK.

A. Canary Wharf,
B. High-pressure hose treatment using drinking
water is wasteful of a scarce resource,
example at Canary Wharf, London.
C. Wageningen, the Netherlands: meadow grass
on roadside verges, managed without pesticides.

150
THE LANDSCAPE PLANNING PROCESS

P R O B L E M A N D/O R
O P P OR TU NIT Y ID EN T IF IE D

E STA B L I S H M E N T O F
P L AN NING G OALS

RE GIONAL L AND S CAP E

A N A LY S I S

LOCAL LANDSCAPE
A N A LY S I S

D E TA I L E D P L A N N I N G
ST U D I E S

P L AN NIN G C O N CEP T S,
O P T IONS & CHOICES

LANDSCAPE PLAN

E D U C AT I O N A N D C O M M U N I T Y
PA R T I C I PAT I O N

D E S I G N E X P L O R AT I O N S

P L AN + D ESIG N
I M P L E M E N TAT I O N

P L A N A D M I N I ST R AT I O N
AND MANAG EMEN T

5 From Design Team to Long-term Landscape Management Landscape management 151

Dr Jac. P. Thijssepark, Amstelveen, the Netherlands

A public park intensively maintained

Amstelveen, a relatively small suburban town on the edge of Amsterdam,
has a policy of integrating green areas with housing, and has 16 such
heemparken or heemgroenen n (there are about 170 in the Netherlands as
a whole). Management is key to the ongoing success of these parks. Their
design today is largely the product of evolving plant communities based
on management practices.

Jacobus Pieter Thijsse (1865–1945) The layout is in a free, Romantic style, There are five staff for a 5ha garden and
was a Dutch schoolteacher and nature with a series of interconnected spaces the management is intensive. In fact, the
conservationist who wrote many books of varying size interspersed with pools gardeners and managers drive the design:
including both floral and ornithological and channels; the composition is formed for instance, the head gardener has a ‘no
guides. He was instrumental in setting up by the plants. Paths wind sinuously and hoe’ policy. There is a small mess hut and
several nature conservation organizations create different views; the trees and enclosed storage area and notes about
and was the ‘father of the Dutch higher shrubs form screens allowing plants for the month are placed under
ecological movement’. In 1925 Thijsse unfolding views as one walks through an overhang of this hut. Naturally no
established a 2ha public demonstration woodland from one space to the next. chemicals (herbicides and pesticides) are
garden in Bloemendaal, Thijsse Hof, Because of the composition of spaces used, and weeding and plant removal
representing the habitat types of the and the planting design, the park appears are done by hand. Pruning and thinning
Kennemerland dunes. This was designed much more extensive than it actually is ensure light levels penetrate to the
by the park architect Leonard Springer (the area is only 5.3ha, with a width of ground layer, always crucial in layered
(1855–1940). just 50–100m for the most part). Playing plantings. The effect is natural, but in
with space in this way is a characteristic fact this is a highly maintained and
Begun in 1940, the Thijssepark was the garden effect. artificially gardened area.
first larger park designed according to the
principle of representing a natural habitat Paths are laid in gravel over a bound
flora by planting in easily identifiable base with no visible edging and a
groups of plants. The Thijssepark was the small-diameter topping course. Precast
first heempark in the Netherlands – C.P. concrete stepping stones, 400 x
Broerse (1902–95), the park’s landscape 400mm, are used with a large, exposed
architect, coined the term in 1946. aggregate. Pools are edged in the east
with timber planks and in the west with
The design consists of a series of spaces large-diameter tree trunks. The water is
enclosed by tree and taller shrub planting standing water, as is usual in a polder (so
with views from one to another, and it no liners), with a high nitrogen content.
runs alongside the Hoornsloot polder Consequently, the pools are dark and
(a wide polder canal). The skill in the the bottoms are not clearly visible.
planting design and its maintenance is Bridges are mostly single planks with no
in the selection of indigenous plants. handrails, which add a delightful sense of
The planting species are characteristic adventure when crossing the channels.
of native peat vegetation and organized Moorhens feed in the larger pools. The
for educational display, so there is one- water level is higher than the Hoornsloot
species block planting. Trees are thinned with simple timber dams, which are
from time to time to ensure that light netted to exclude leaves and driftwood
reaches the ground layer of vegetation. at times of high water levels.

152
A B

A. The Thijssepark represents Dutch peat bog vegetation.

B. The gardeners are the heroines and heroes. Nearly all the garden
maintenance is done by hand and of course no pesticides are used.
C. Tree growth is carefully controlled to allow light to reach the ground.
The walks pass through a series of darker more enclosed areas which
then open out into lighter areas.
D. One of the more open areas to the west of the heempark.
E. The water is black and the land is boggy. The channels are lightly dredged
by hand annually with major dredging using machines every 30 years,
most recently in 2012. Bridges are modest, narrow plank structures.

5 Case study Dr. Jac. P. Thijssepark, Amstelveen, the Netherlands 153

6
Education and Employment
Applying for a university course 156
Internships and jobs 163
Setting up your own business 164
Marketing 165
Case study: Thames Landscape Strategy 166
A note on professional status: the way the
profession is seen worldwide 168
Case study: Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, India 170

Plant identification instruction at Hadlow College, Kent, UK

155
This chapter looks at the route to becoming a practising landscape
architect, beginning with what you need to do while you are in
preparatory education and then looking at different university
courses and paths into full-time employment.

Applying for a university course

A

Landscape architecture is a discipline that in 3D space – for example, a kitchen

straddles the sciences and arts. As such table with cups and saucers on it –
it is good to have studied art, geography because spatial design is crucial to
and/or biology to a high level at school. landscape design. Note that admissions
Some schools may not offer art to final tutors are not necessarily expecting
exam standard or to science students, technical drawing competence, whether
in which case you should develop your digital or manual, because that is
drawing skills independently by taking normally taught on the university
evening classes or summer courses. course. However, they will expect
general computer literacy.
You can apply to study landscape
architecture at university on leaving Applicants should be able to demonstrate
school but in many countries you can their interest in landscape architecture
also apply after doing an undergraduate by reference to their reading and visits
degree in something else. An earlier made to landscape architecture and
degree may range from the sciences garden design projects. It’s also a
to the arts, from geography and good idea to have done some work
environmental sciences to fine art experience in a landscape architect’s
and fashion design. office. You should also attend public
lectures and seminars given by
When applying to university, use your professional landscape architecture
portfolio to demonstrate your full range associations. Remember: most
of artistic and design abilities. Some admissions tutors are looking for
applicants make the mistake of thinking evidence of an enquiring intelligence.
B
an admissions tutor is only looking for
professional-standard planting plans or The nature of university courses varies
construction drawings. This is not the from country to country but typically
case. In fact, most are on the lookout they will be:
for more general evidence of design
potential, which might include school • 50 per cent design-based, taught
art projects, photography, clothes in a design studio;
designed and made by the applicants, • 25 per cent theoretical: the history
photographs of gardens they have of architecture and gardens, ecology,
created or worked in, flower arranging, earth sciences;
graphic work, etc. As admissions tutors • 25 per cent technical: technical
at Greenwich, we ask applicants to show drawing, digital design, horticulture, C
us freehand line drawings of 3D forms and construction.

Field trips and study tours enable students to understand

the concepts of landscape architecture.

A. Field trip to temporary garden Union Street, London.

B. Visit to Grebbeberg overlooking the plain of the River
Rhine in the Netherlands.
C. Paris field trip viewing the Parc Citroën-Cévennes.

156
Developing a portfolio of work examples is part
of professional life and starts with the putting
together of a range of skills for your interview.

EXAMP LES OF F REEHAND

EXAMPLES OF D R A W I N G S , ST I L L L I F E S O R
OR THOGR AP HIC DR AWING S, L A N D S C A P E S , I N VA R I O U S M E D I A
H A N D - D R A W N A N D D I G I TA L

EXAMPLES OF
D I G I TA L W O R K M O U N T E D P H O TO S O F
3D MOD ELS +
EXAMPLES OF
I N STA L L AT I O N P I E C E S
C R E AT I V E W O R K

C R E AT I N G A
POR TFOLIO

• U N D E R STA N D W H Y Y O U N E E D • ORGANIZE YO U R WORK IN R IG ORO US P OR TFO LIO

A POR TFOLIO A S E Q U EN CE YO U C AN RE QUIREMEN T S FOR
TA L K T H R O U G H AP P LICAN T S. S OME
• W O R K S H O U L D B E S I M P LY R E Q U I R E D I G I TA L
MOUN TED AND TITLED • AV O I D P U T T I N G Y O U R W O R K S U BMISSIONS.
I N P L A ST I C S L E E V E S
• O N LY I N C L U D E W O R K T H AT
YO U ARE P RO U D OF • S O M E I N ST I T U T I O N S H AV E

A TYPICAL LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PROGRAMME

Design programmes are usually 50 per cent design studio
taught, supported by technical and theoretical teaching.

TE CH NIC AL
TEACHING
D ESIG N
TEACHING

THEORY
TEACHING

6 Education and Employment Applying for a university course 157

Before landscape architecture was firmly year degree programmes are also to very scientifically based (many Polish
established as a profession, individuals be found at the Fachhochschulen, also and Russian courses are like this) to
had to build up an educational framework known as the Hochschulen für Wirtschaft design-based schools often in art or
themselves. For example, Bodfan und Umwelt (Universities of Applied architecture schools, to places where
Gruff ydd in the 1930s began a gardening Sciences), in Germany. One interesting horticulture forms the basis. Russian
course at the Royal Horticultural Society variation is that of the Akademie voor schools emphasize forestry, of course,
at Wisley, Surrey, UK before going to Bouwkunst in Amsterdam, which offers one of the Moscow schools is in the
New Zealand to work as secretary of the a four-year part-time Master’s degree Forestry University.
New Zealand Town Planning Institute. He (the staff work on it on a voluntary basis).
then returned to Britain and completed There is also a more conventional two- It is also worth seeing whether any
a horticulture course at Bangor in Wales. year International Master’s (or IMLA) run research is conducted at a school
He applied to become a member of by the Hochschule für Wirtschaft und because this may benefit the teaching,
the Institute of Landscape Architects Umwelt Nürtingen-Geislingen (HfWU) in for instance, in Europe, Wageningen,
during World War II and built up a private Baden-Württemberg and the Hochschule Sheffield and Zurich ETH are known for
practice in landscape architecture, first Weihenstephan-Triesdorf (HSWT) south their research as are Harvard, MIT and
in Wales and then in London. In the early of Munich in Bavaria. Berkeley in the US. It is best to talk to
1950s he became landscape architect current students when you visit. Guides
for Crawley New Town and in 1961 was As mentioned earlier, graduates can also to university education are available from
involved in establishing the landscape change to landscape architecture by many national associations of landscape
architecture course at Cheltenham. Later means of a two- or three-year Master’s architecture. Details of these national
he became president of the Institute of ‘conversion’ course, though this is more associations are listed on the website of
Landscape Architects and masterplanned typical of the US and UK than elsewhere. the International Federation of Landscape
Telford New Town. Such ‘learning on In the US these conversion Master’s are Architects (IFLA): www.iflaonline.org/.
the job’, usually with a horticultural known as MLAs (Master’s of Landscape There are also fairly comprehensive
or architectural base, was typical of Architecture). There are only a few listings of European Schools on the
landscape architects in England in the such conversion courses in continental website of the European Council of
1940s and 1950s. Europe, such as at the Hochschule Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS)
Anhalt in Köthen in Saxony-Anhalt (with http://www.eclas.org/universities.php
Nowadays there are specific courses in English and German language teaching). and there is a list of North American
landscape architecture in many countries. There is also a one-year Master’s at the schools on the website of the American
These typically last five years, a model Zurich ETH, the Swiss Federal Institute Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)
established at US Ivy League universities of Technology, which is limited to http://www.asla.org/schools.aspx
at the beginning of the twentieth century graduates in architecture and landscape covering the US and Canada (linked).
and consisting of a three-year Bachelor’s architecture. The University of Florence in The nearest to a worldwide listing of
degree followed by a two-year Master’s. Italy likewise offers a two-year conversion schools, though by no means complete,
This is now the standard model in Master’s to architecture graduates. is on the Le Notre website (a European-
most countries. based network of schools) http://www.
What course to choose? The best advice le-notre.org/public/member-schools-
The model is slightly different in the UK, is to look at the work of graduates (as on universities.php
where three-year Bachelor’s degree websites and any annual exhibition), to
courses are followed by a single-year visit the school, and to check university Otherwise go to each national
professional Diploma or Master’s. Four- listings. Courses vary from those that are association for advice.

Digital design is nowadays taught both formally

and as an outcome to other design units.

158
THE FACILITIES OF AN IDEAL LANDSCAPE SCHOOL

I N S P I R AT I O N A L STA F F &
M E N TO R S

A R T ST U D I O S & M O D E L
P R E S E N TAT I O N
WORKSHOP S
G A L L E R Y S PA C E S

LEC TURE ST U D E N T V O I C E
T H E AT R E S &
E- C O N F E R E N C I N G
RESEARCH LIBRARY

TE CH NIC AL &
M AT E R I A L S COMP U TE R L ABS
LIBRARY

H O R T I C U LT U R A L
COL L E C TION D E S I G N ST U D I O S

D E M O N ST R AT I O N A N D
E X P E R I M E N TAT I O N A R E A S

SKILLS YOU WILL NEED TO DEVELOP

SEE READ

REF LEC T BEING CAP TURE

A B L E TO. . .

DEVELOP
C O M M U N I C AT E

6 Education and Employment Applying for a university course 159

AFRICA: East, there are now a number of schools, their national association. However,
Landscape architecture education in including the well-established American the website of the European Council
Africa is relatively undeveloped outside University of Beirut, a number in Saudi of Landscape Architecture Schools
South Africa. Indeed, there are no Arabia and one at Birzeit University in (ECLAS) lists the majority of landscape
landscape architecture schools in the Ramallah, Palestine. The Israel Institute architecture programmes and schools in
whole of North Africa, including Egypt, of Technology is in Haifa. Western Europe (www.eclas.org/study-
that we know of (there are schools programmes-courses.php), although
elsewhere in the Middle East such as Generally first approach the national its coverage of Russia and the former
in Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Saudi association for up-to-date advice. Soviet bloc countries (the CIS states) is
Arabia). In South Africa there are currently not complete. The ECLAS listing also
three universities accredited by the state AUSTRALASIA: includes research institutes, so do check
registration body, the South African There are comprehensive listings of with the individual school as not every
Council for the Landscape Architectural schools in Australia and New Zealand, school mentioned offers undergraduate
Profession (SACLAP), and a further where the profession has been well education. A more comprehensive survey
two awaiting accreditation. That at the established since at least the 1970s. conducted by one of the authors for IFLA
University of Cape Town is a two-year The Australian Institute of Landscape Europe in 2008 listed 125 schools across
conversion MLA. North of the Zambezi Architects (www.aila.org.au/) has the continent.
there appears to be the two established accredited eight university programmes;
courses at Jomo Kenyatta University of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape NORTH AMERICA:
Agriculture and Technology in Nairobi Architects equivalent has accredited three The American Society of Landscape
and a Master of Landscape Architecture (www.nzila.co.nz/become-a-landscape- Architects (ASLA) website’s education
(M.Land.Arch.) at Uganda Martyrs architect/how-can-i-become-a-la.aspx). area (http://www.asla.org/schools.aspx)
University in Kampala which follows a lists landscape architecture schools
Bachelor of Environmental Design. There CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA: in the US. Most states have at least
are national associations in Kenya (a Brazil is the biggest country in South one. Schools are accredited by the
chapter of the Association of Architects), America. Unfortunately the national professional association, ASLA, via the
Morocco, Malawi and Nigeria as well as professional body, the Associação Landscape Architectural Accreditation
in South Africa. Brasileira de Arquitetos Paisagistas (ABAP), Board (LAAB), a body run by the US
http://www.abap.org.br/index.htm professional association which also vets
ASIA: does not currently appear to list them, the five schools accredited in Canada
In Asia many of the national associations but courses in landscape architecture by the Canadian Society of Landscape
list schools. The biggest increase in the exist at the University of São Paulo. In Architects, including that at the Université
past two decades has been in China, Argentina there are four undergraduate de Montréal which is, of course, French-
where there are now large numbers of programmes and eight postgraduate speaking. Note licensure (registration)
landscape architecture schools: contact programmes listed on the website of the is a separate state-based system. The
the Chinese Society of Landscape Argentine professional body, the Centro Council of Educators in Landscape
Architects for further details (www.chsla. Argentino de Arquitectos Paisajistas Architecture (CELA) also publishes a
org.cn/english.htm). There are separate (CAAP), http://www.caapaisajistas.org. list of schools which covers the North
associations in Taiwan (www.clasit.org. ar/ . In Chile the Instituto Chileno de American schools as well as a few in
tw/) and Hong Kong (http://www.hkila. Arquitectos del Paisaje (ICHAP) http:// other continents http://www.thecela.
com/v2/) where there is a conversion www.ichap.cl/links.php lists seven org/school-list.php?alpha=u.
MLA at the University of Hong Kong. schools. While the Sociedad Colombiana
In the People’s Republic, the English- de Arquitectos Paisajistas (SAP) in
language site to start searching for Colombia lists seven undergraduate
landscape architecture schools is the level and one Master’s programme.
website of the Chinese College and
Admissions System (CUCAS), www.cucas. EUROPE:
edu.cn/, which is aimed at international IFLA Europe operates a school
students, as well as approaching the recognition system in conjunction with
Chinese Society of Landscape Architects the national associations and has a
for further details. CUCAS lists about 70 country-by-country listing including a
landscape architecture programmes, total of 50 schools – for instance, seven
but this is only selective. By contrast, the of the nineteen German schools and
Indian Society of Landscape Architects four of the fifteen Landscape Institute-
(established in 2003) lists only four accredited schools in the UK. The IFLA
schools (www.isola.org.in/site/about). Europe recognition is not comprehensive
In South-East Asia there is landscape because applications are on a voluntary
architecture education in Thailand, Korea, basis. There is as yet no totally
Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. comprehensive pan-European listing,
Further west, in Iran and in the Middle so students are advised to approach

160
A

B C

Different institutions have diverse studio spaces; many are

multi-use transitional spaces rather than dedicated studios.

A. Charette studio at Lille School of Architecture and Landscape:

working all day and all night in groups in a one-week urban
planning study with students from Lille and Greenwich.
B. Technical drawing class using drawing boards.
C. First-year design studio, Istanbul Technical University

6 Education and Employment Applying for a university course 161

A B

Developing a passion for plants and horticulture starts with guided

plant identifications and nursery visits, and is reinforced with field trips
to construction sites and specialist gardens.

A. Students inspecting the Hilliers Tree Nursery that supplied the large
stock of clipped hedge plants for the London 2012 Olympic Park.
B. Plant ‘idents’ introduce students to both Latin nomenclature and
physical forms of the plant, and are backed up by regular plant
identification exams.
C. Inspecting semi-mature tree stock, and discussing how to select trees.
D. Horticulturist lecturers give students a clear insight to design and
management issues.

162
Internships and jobs
In North America, government JOBS The university year in many countries
agencies such as the US National Park Potential employers prefer to receive runs from September to June. So a good
Service operate a well-established a postal application. Whether you’re time to apply for a job is in September or
programme of internships. This applying for a job or an unpaid, short- October (August tends to be quiet) or at
system is also emulated by some term internship, send a covering letter, the beginning of the year, from January
private practitioners: SWA and EDSA a short, two-page curriculum vitae and until April, when graduating students
internships (both landscape architecture some drawing work (say, six or seven will not be applying. If you are about to
firms) have a good reputation, for examples) on A4 paper. Send CDs only graduate it can be a good tactic to take
instance. Structured systems providing as back-up. Note: do not email material a summer-long internship, then look
internships are less common elsewhere, in the first place: landscape architects for a permanent post as a graduate of
though the Dutch State Forestry are busy people and it takes time to landscape architecture in the autumn.
Service, the Staatsbosbeheer, offers download attachments. Indeed, many
them in its landscape architecture email hosts block large attachments Different practices specialize in different
section. Otherwise work experience from unknown senders. Address letters forms of work, from a garden-scale
is more usually gained by individuals personally to a named individual in to environmental assessment and
approaching particular practices directly. a practice, preferably a principal; if environmental consultancy. Often it
A general international internship going for an interview, research the is good to aim to follow a project from
guide is published on the IFLA Europe practice beforehand. Do not expect an the beginning through to the end so you
website (http://europe.iflaonline. acknowledgement for applications – can see the full range of work
org/?ck=2012-6-5-15-49-2). though it is always nice to receive one. from inception to work on site.

THE POSITION OF THE INTERN D I R E C TO R S

WITHIN A PRACTICE STRUCTURE

A S S O C I AT E D I R E C TO R S

P ROJ E C T OR SENIOR
L AND S CAP E ARCHITEC T S

TE CH NIC AL
LANDSCAPE
S P E C I A L I ST S
ARCHITEC T S &
D ESIG N E R S

G R A D U AT E
LANDSCAPE
ARCHITEC T S

IN TE RNS

6 Education and Employment Internships and jobs 163

Setting up your own business
Not everyone wants to work for someone design or sustainable development. is planned for the future include high-
else. In particular, graduate conversion Recessions are good times to set up speed railways and, in Scotland and
students are making a career change and your own practice supported perhaps Wales, the reopening of closed railways –
may wish to establish their own practice. by freelance or teaching work, while environmental impact assessment is
And landscape architecture is particularly working on public design competitions critical in such projects. It might therefore
suitable for starter businesses because to establish a reputation. And as the make sense to establish a market niche in
many practices are just one or two people. population grows, there will be inevitably visual assessment or noise limitation so
an increase in the new housing building that you can find work as a subconsultant
How do you get started? Strategic market when the economy recovers from to bigger firms.
planning is fundamental to any marketing the post-2008 downturn. In the US the
effort and to branding and positioning a Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that The economies of China, India and
practice. To do this, you need to have a the already mature profession of land Brazil are still growing. Part of the
clear view of the market and also what architecture will need to grow by 16 per challenge in these economies is to
you can offer. For example, at the time cent in the decade 2010–20 (www.bls. convince the market that landscape
of writing, new housing construction gov/ooh/Architecture-and-Engineering/ architecture and the related advice the
is depressed in the UK, but there is a Landscape-architects.htm). Market profession can offer on sustainability
market for projects related to the estates research is thus vital to the survival and issues and the like are important for
of the very rich, Russian and Middle growth of your practice. Have a clear developers, whether in the private or
Eastern plutocrats, particularly if one idea of what markets exist and what state sector. In China the other challenge
has a special reputation for work on markets might be opening up in the is to ensure consultancy services are
historic gardens, conservation, planting future. Areas in the UK where investment valued for themselves.

‘START-UP’ COMPACT OFFICE

S K E TC H B O O K A N D A 3
DRAWING MEDIA

D I G I TA L C A M E R A

H I G H -S P E C L A P TO P
WITH IN TE RNE T SMAR T PHONE
CONNE C TION CABL ES
& CHARG E R PENCIL CASE &
COL OU RING P ENS

C O M PA S S

U S B B A C K- U P D R I V E A4 USB COLOUR
SCANNER

B O TA N I C A L F I E L D
I D E N T I F I C AT I O N
U LT R A L I G H T W E I G H T, G UID ES
A 3-S I Z E, H A R D -
WEARING HAND
LUGGAG E CASE

164
Marketing
Until the late twentieth century, marketing will probably be much railway and transport organizations,
active marketing was not considered more than a brochure or a website – museums, historic buildings, the
appropriate for any profession in most it requires a brand identity, a way of education sector, etc.
countries. Commissions were obtained projecting what is particular about a
by making submissions in competitions, private practice: the values, ideas, design Giving a paper at a conference or trade
being listed on professional registers, knowledge, experience and philosophy show is often a more effective way of
networking, such as joining local business that distinguishes a practice. High-quality advertising your skills than paying for a
organizations, chambers of commerce branding, though, will not compensate stand. Similarly, editorial articles are a
and charities, and via the telephone for an inability to work to schedule and preferable form of publicity to adverts or
directory. This situation changed in the budget or to get along with clients. If you appearances in listings, since they allow
1980s in response to fresh free-market agree a budget and a timescale, then you – whether as the writer or subject of
thinking and a general wish to promote work to it. But before doing that, ensure a piece – to explain what you do in detail.
competition. Now all professions first that the budget is adequate and the
can advertise in many countries, and timescale workable. It is good practice for the principals of a
competitive consultancy fee tendering practice to spend some time annually in
is the rule – though the downside of Networking is as important as it has a retreat or away from the office with an
this is that often the cheapest wins. always been. Informal contact with outside mentor to review progress and
Cheapest is not necessarily best or most potential clients should be pursued, plans for the future.
appropriate. Marketing accounts for so attend conferences organized by
a significant proportion of landscape bodies serving potential clients such as
architects’ annual expenditure. Such government agencies, developers,

Olin is a medium-sized landscape architecture

practice based in Philadelphia and Los Angeles,
with 87 staff. Set up by Professor Laurie Olin they
have overseen projects such as Bryant Park, New
York, and the Washington Monument landscape
Washington, D.C. They appointed their first
Director of Technology, Chris Hanley, in 2005.
Now they have their own practice-based wiki,
called KnowledgeBase, which might be opened to
subscription. Olin holds regular in-house tutorial
new design tool sessions, and because often the
software is based on architectural practice (because
it is the industry standard) they change the software
to suit landscape architecture. ‘We’re not going to let
the tool dictate our design,’ says Chris Hanley. The
Olin crew takes on developer languages like Python
and Rhinoscript and adapts the design software.
Laurie Olin also sits on the the board of the Gehry
Technologies US building industry-wide initiative,
set up in late 2011, aiming to develop further BIM
(Building Information Modelling) and Integrated
Project Delivery, which so aims to ‘transform the
building industry and the practice of design’.

6 Education and Employment Marketing 165

Thames Landscape Strategy

Cultural landscapes and a long-term vision

Kim Wilkie studied modern history at Oxford and then environmental
design at the University of California, Berkeley, before returning to
England to set up his own landscape practice in 1989. An interest in
cultural landscapes led him to put together ‘a 100-year blueprint’ for the
Thames, a proposal to provide public access along the River Thames from
Hampton to Kew that would give added value to the river’s landscape
as a cultural entity, a distinct area with historic and aesthetic value. This
he describes as an ‘Arcadian landscape… of palaces, villas, and parks’
interspersed with ‘workmanlike sections of boat yards’.

The choice of the Thames between works with the Thames Waterways Plan A. Bird’s-eye analysis of the landscape character
Hampton and Kew was based on its and the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Network. on the Isleworth stretch of the river, with
role as what Wilkie calls ‘the cradle of The work has continued over three vistas (in red) from the King’s Observatory
and along the river.
the English Landscape Movement’, decades and the Thames Landscape
B. Pastoral Arcadia aims to conserve and
particularly in the views from Richmond Strategy is a ‘live planning forum’
enhance the views from Richmond Hill.
Hill (see opposite). There is also a range supported by five local councils, C. The pattern of the landscape along and
of significant sites along this part of the and at a national level. centred on the Thames, so often an
river: the botanic gardens at Kew, the administrative divide, Kim Wilkie’s study
expansive Richmond and Bushey Parks, Wilkie describes the Thames as an sees it as cultural whole, as he says ‘Only
the palaces of Richmond and Hampton ‘extraordinary landscape’ and he began by trying to understand how these elements
Court, along with historic buildings at to plot views. Sometimes the work interact with the memory or myths of past
Syon Park, Marble Hill Park, Ham House is very simple, very soft and gentle settlement, can one begin to tease out
Pope’s genius locii – the spirit of the place.’
and other important buildings such as such as bringing willow edges to
D&E. Before-and-after view of walks across
Garrick‘s Villa at Hampton and Pope’s the margins and fighting Japanese
Richmond Hill. Sometimes the changes are
Strawberry Hill. knotweed, sometimes interventions small: simplifying, rustifying and removing
such as mile-long avenues, sometimes municipal clutter.
The proposal was first presented as an stopping planning permission for new
exhibition, Thames Connections, for the buildings, sometimes encouraging new
Royal Fine Art Commission in 1991. This development and realizing the ‘rhythm
led to a commission by another central of built and unbuilt’. This is also about
government agency, the Countryside ‘taking the environment rather seriously
Commission (now Natural England), as a flood alleviation corridor’.
which in turn gave rise to the Thames
Landscape Strategy, developed in It has also led to further projects in
1991–94 and covering nearly 20km of the twenty-first century, including the
riverside from Hampton to Kew, and Pastoral Arcadia aimed at conserving,
focusing particularly on historic views, interpreting and restoring the views
avenues and vistas. Published in 1994 it from Richmond Hill and Floodscape
was adopted by the Secretary of State for in Richmond, which is working to restore
the Environment, the central government the ancient flood meadows by the
minister, as a framework for planning Thames. As Kim Wilkie advises,
policies along the Thames. Indeed it ‘the accessibility of the study and the
has been extended eastwards through support and continued involvement
London to the mouth of the River of the local community means that
Thames. It is described as a ‘100-year the landscape character for once is
vision’ (which is also really a landscape the basis for planning decisions and
architect’s minimum timeframe). It also funding investment’.

166
A B

C D

Thames Landscape Strategy 167

A note on professional status: the way
the profession is seen worldwide
There are two models for establishment landscape architects, the Associazione
of the profession found internationally: Italiana di Architettura del Paesaggio
state registration or licensure (US usage) (AIAPP), cannot register with the national
and no state registration, no protection Consiglio – however, graduates of Master’s
of title, but recognized and accepted by programmes in architecture can.
government and other professions.
Title protection restricts the right to Elsewhere, in Hong Kong there is a
use the term ‘Landscape Architect’ to Landscape Architects Registration Board,
state-registered landscape architects. set up by the Hong Kong Landscape
Architects Registration Ordinance of 1997
In the US, state licensure is found in for the Special Administrative Zone of Hong
49 states of the Union, and is required Kong (http://www.larb.com.hk/First_Page.
in order to be able to practise in htm) and in South Africa professional
those states. There are two forms of membership is with the South African
state licensure: in the majority of the Council for the Landscape Architectural
states the act is a Practice Act which Profession (www.saclap.org.za).
prohibits unlicensed people from calling
themselves landscape architects or from The other model may be termed the
practising the profession. In a minority – Scandinavian or North-west European
the exceptions are Massachusetts, Maine one, where there is no state register but
and Illinois – there is a Title Act whereby the profession is well established. There
unlicensed individuals may not use the are landscape architects represented
title of landscape architect but may still in government commissions and on
do the work. The Practice Act is the advisory boards. This is the position in
stronger protecton. Licensure requires Scandinavia, the UK, some countries in
education and also work experience and Central Europe and Australia and New
the passing of the Landscape Architect Zealand. Some would argue that in the
Registration Examination (L.A.R.E.), based UK the Royal Charter protects the title
on the Council of Landscape Architectural ‘Chartered Landscape Architect’, but this
Registration Board’s guidelines. is a technicality, and you don’t have to be
a member of the Landscape Institute to
In several European countries (Germany, practise as a landscape architect and call
the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Czech yourself a landscape architect: in the UK
Republic, Slovakia and nominally in Italy) there is no protection of the title
there is also state registration. In most, ‘landscape architect’.
there is a national register based purely
on education. In Germany the system is In a few countries the title ‘landscape
based at the Länder (federal state) level via architect’ cannot be used at all because
registration with the Architektenkammer of legislation protecting the status of
or chamber of architects. In Hungary architects and therefore the use of that
there is also a work experience word. As a result, landscape architects in
requirement. The ‘nominal’ status in Spain may not call themselves arquitecto
Italy is because of an invidious position paesajista (though the term is commonly
in that a Master’s degree is required to used in South America); instead they call
become a member of the Consiglio themselves paesajistas. In France there is a
Nazionale degli Architetti, Pianificatori, parallel situation: landscape architects call
Paesaggisti e Conservatori (CNAPPC) and themselves paysagistes and are not allowed
yet a full undergraduate course leading to use the title architecte paysagiste as
to Master’s-level education in landscape their colleagues in Francophone Canada,
architecture was only introduced in Switzerland and Belgium do. However,
the 1990s. In consequence many in France the profession of paysagiste is
members of the national association of otherwise well established.

168
A B

A. The profession at international level,

EFLA 2008 General Assembly, Brussels.
B. IFLA General Assembly, Apeldoorn, the
Netherlands, 2008.
C. ECLAS conference, Genoa, Italy, 2009.

6 Education and Employment A note on professional status 169

Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, India

Sustainable building in a hostile environment

Druk White Lotus School (DWLS) is a school for 750 pupils from nursery
age to 18. The school is surrounded by mountains of the Zanskar and
Ladakh ranges, rising to over 6,000m high in the Himalaya range.
First planned in 1997, it was designed by Arup Associates with staff
seconded on an unpaid basis and is supported by the Drukpa Trust,
a UK-registered charity.

Two monasteries, Shey and Thikse, Buddhism remains a strong influence in A. The granite-clad classroooms of the school,
overlook the school site and it lies near the region and the DWLS was initiated by beyond are the white walls and golden roofs
the River Indus, with its lush vegetation. His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa. His of the Naro Phodrang (Naropa Palace) and the
mountain setting. The site is to the east of the
Ladakh is on a similar latitude to Egypt wish is to conserve Buddhist traditions
fertile flood plain of the River Indus.
and is classified as a cold desert. Where while also learning from the modern
B. In summer temperatures are relatively mild
irrigation water is available, growing world. This is reflected in the landscape and the outdoor spaces can become gardens
conditions are excellent for half the year. design. Arup’s layout for the school for teaching.
Everything is then frozen for the other buildings was based on a mandala. The C. Construction work in 2012, after all traces of
half of the year with temperatures falling school landscape design draws on other the 2010 mudslide had been removed.
to -30°C. Buddhist symbols and on the landscape
types that characterize Ladakh: they
The first phase, the nursery and infant include meadows, orchards, vegetable
school, opened in September 2001 with gardens, small woodlands and native
a junior school in 2005. The buildings habitats of various kinds.
then suffered severe damage from a
mudslide in 2010. The site had been Work on the landscape plan began on
chosen without landscape advice and site in 2012 with the involvement of
much of the site was buried in mud to a Sheffield and Greenwich universities.
depth of one metre. The area is also in Typical is the work of landscape
an earthquake zone. This dramatizes the architecture student Simon Brown from
need for a sustainable landscape plan and Greenwich, who has helped set up an
has led to the involvement of landscape on-site plant nursery and worked with
architecture staff and students from the local construction team under the
a number of British universities. construction manager Sonam Angdus
and his Nepali labourers, and with
Ladakh is regarded as the ‘canary in Madov Shresth, the head gardener, on
the coal mine’ for global warming. The clearing mudslide damage inside the
glaciers are retreating and the volume new mudslide wall, the construction
of meltwater is decreasing. In response, of new earthworks, installing irrigation,
the school is a model of sustainable sorting out and manuring the soil and
development, water supply is from planting through the summer of 2012.
boreholes supplied by solar-powered He has also helped on workshops with
pumps and the building materials are the schoolchildren.
local. Traditional dry latrines are improved
and fly-free. The building is constructed
of willow timber frame (from local
monastic plantations), the inner walls
are of mud bricks and the outer cladding
is of local granite. Water is pumped
from 30m below ground level to a
16,000-gallon tank at the top of the
site to supply the school with water
and to irrigate the gardens.

170
A

6 Case study Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, India 171

7
The Future
A changing environment 174
Some challenges 177
Case study: The Dutch National Water Plan 178
Case study: Floating Gardens, Shad Thames, London 182
Case study: Korail, Dhaka, Bangladesh 186
Case study: North Holland coastline, the Netherlands 190
Recycling and everyday practice 192
Final thoughts 194

The Iberian peninsula at night, 4 December 2011,

NASA astronaut photograph, with Portugal in the
foreground, Spain in the middle centred on Madrid,
Africa to the right, and France top and left (with the
Bay of Biscay in black) with its lights subdued by
cloud. The image opposite shows energy emissions
in the form of light, across a sizeable portion of
south-west Europe. Could these lights indicate
a species, homo sapiens, which is overreaching
its dominance?

173
‘A sense of crisis has brought us together. What is merely offensive or
disturbing today threatens life itself tomorrow. We are concerned over
misuse of the environment and development which has lost all contact
with the basic processes of nature. Lake Erie is becoming septic, New York
City is short of water, the Delaware River is infused with salt, the Potomac
River with sewage and silt. Air is polluted in major cities and their citizens
breathe and see with difficulty. Most urban Americans are being separated
from visual and physical contact with nature in any form. All too soon life
in such polluted environments will be the national human experience.’
Declaration of founding members of the US Landscape Architecture Foundation,
June 1966, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, US, Campbell Miller, Grady
Clay, Ian L. McHarg, Charles R. Hammond, George E. Patton, John O. Simonds

A changing environment
As this book is being written, nearly 50 However, the long-term trends are for In the twentieth century this mission
years after the Philadelphia Declaration a threefold increase in world population, was overlain with an interest in nature
above, the world economy is passing in demand for raw materials and in urban conservation and ecology. In the twenty-
through what might euphemistically populations as a proportion of total first century anxieties about ecological
be called ‘interesting times’. There is population. In consequence Planet health have given rise to a concern for
expansion in Asia and South America Earth is under pressure from a variety the whole landscape, and to a focus on
and growth in China, India, Indonesia, of factors, including: sustainability. In the future landscape
Brazil and Australasia. With demand for architects’ primary task promises to be
raw resources fed by growth rates of • loss of biodiversity; related to finding ways of sustainable
up to 10 per cent, there is a worldwide • net increase in the human living for a predominantly urbanized
rise in commodity prices and Africa is ecological footprint; world (human) population.
increasingly seen not only as a source • climate change and in consequence
of such materials but also as providing fluctuations in extreme weather
fresh land for agricultural production. conditions as well as sea level rise
Meanwhile much of the Western world and flooding, and a threat to the
– Europe and North America, but also water supply;
Japan – is experiencing little or no • shortage of raw materials.
economic growth, and the future of
the Eurozone is being questioned. Landscape architects have a contribution
to make in tackling all of these issues.
In the greater scheme of history, the
Western world’s relative economic Let us recapitulate briefly the
downturn can be viewed as a passing development of landscape architecture.
phase in the mid term (though hopefully Its precursor, landscape gardening, was
one that will lead to more effective a visual and scenic profession, primarily
regulation of the banking industry) and serving a private market of kings and
clearly there is a rebalancing of the landed gentry. Landscape architecture
economies between East and West and thus began in the nineteenth century
North and South. Western economic as a visual profession, based on an
dominance is recent – only 300–400 inheritance from garden and park
years at most – for most of the past 2,000 design but now reorientated to serve
years the leading centres of sophisticated communities in the new industrial
technology and cultural development towns and to realize ideas of wilderness
were centred on China and India. protection and agricultural development
for society as a whole.

174
LANDSCAPE MISSION
The focus of landscape architecture has evolved over the last two
centuries, gradually widening its influence over the design process.

NABLE
S U S TA I
L
UA
VIS L
ICA
L OG
E CO

1 9 TH C E N T U R Y

Y 2 1 ST C E N T U R Y
TUR
TH CEN
20

A B

New sustainable technologies have an

increasing impact on the environment.

A. Demonstration installation of a planted

biofiltration wall.
B. Wind turbines line a Dutch motorway.
C. Solar panels providing power for isolated
restaurant on Ilha Deserta in the Parque Natural
da Ria Formosa, Faro, Portugal.

7 The Future A changing environment 175

A

A. View across Sangam Nagar slum towards

Antop Hill in Mumbai.
B. A home to 200,000+ people and one of the
largest slums in Mumbai with an estimated
population density of 3000/ha.
C. Downtown New Orleans after floods caused by
Hurricane Katrina in 2005: 53 levee breaches,
80 per cent of the city flooded, over 700 people
dead and about $81 billion of property damage.

176
Some challenges
WATER and increasingly a permeable landscape which aims to move water from the
Water is a key resource. Already has been overlain by an impermeable Yangtze River to the Yellow River and
desalination plants dot the Mediterranean townscape. European cities have the Hai River.
littoral, while in London, Thames Water expanded in area by 79 per cent
opened the £250 million Beckton since the 1950s. Everywhere industry, farming and the
desalination plant in 2010: south-east growing population are competing
England is a water deficit area in most WATER SUPPLY AND FLOODING for a finite supply of water. As a result,
summers. A restructuring of infrastructure In China (as elsewhere) growth is groundwater levels are falling as
is following: national trunk water threatened by limits to the water supply. artesian water (that held in aquifers) is
networks, solar power farms, wind farms, Water is fed by the glaciers in the drained, and the remaining supplies
retro-fitting of existing buildings with Himalayas: the result of their retreat will are threatened by contamination from
insulation and solar power, wind farms, be both flooding and drought. Flooding agriculture and industry. The nitrification
and nuclear fission (or maybe nuclear is a consequence of winter snows no of groundwater due to run-off of
fusion in the light of the Three Mile Island, longer being held in the mountains as agricultural fertilizer is increasing
Chernobyl and Fukishima disasters), glacier ice but instead draining quickly across the world.
biomass as a fuel for power stations into China’s rivers. Drought will be
(and development of ethanol fuels) and the consequence of reduction in the One response is to create a national
densification of development to minimize waterflow of rivers in summer as the water policy like that in the Netherlands,
energy use. Denmark has achieved glacier supply of summer meltwater which relates and connects water
figures of 25 per cent of energy from reduces. Drought is not only a supply with both river flooding and
sustainable sources. consequence of climate warming but sea level rises.
also due to the extraction of river water
Urbanization increases river flow and by industry and agriculture and the
storms overwhelm a river basin, hence consequent diminution of downstream
the Rhine floods of 1995 and 2007. For supplies. The north is short of water
example, the watershed of the Rhine has whereas the south has a greater
lost 80 per cent of its flood plains and supply. One response has been the
the Elbe 85 per cent in the past century: South–North Water Transfer Project,

7 The Future Some challenges 177

The Dutch National Water Plan

A national flood and water quality policy

The Dutch National Water Plan as fertilizer and pollution controls, but proposal for a new series of islands,
was adopted in 2009, following also at a transnational level as its rivers the Happy Isles, off the Dutch and
also run through Germany, Belgium Belgian coasts as an extension of the
nearly ten years of consultation
and France. The European Union policy of offshore sandfill; the largest,
and discussion. It focuses on European Water Framework Directive of Hollandsoog, was to be over 150,000ha
prevention and management 2000 aimed to address river and water in size. Both Dirk Sijmons, the first Dutch
of sea and river-related flooding. pollution issues. Coastal flood defences state landscape advisor, appointed in
are also being strengthened against sea 2004, and Yttje Feddes, his successor
flooding by measures that include adding in 2008, have been heavily involved in
In 2000 the Dutch adopted a new to offshore sand sea defences with sand these proposals.
approach to flooding. Rather than a replenishment. Some 12 million m3 of
policy aiming at total prevention, they sand are being placed annually on the In 2005, the Dutch used their experience
switched to a policy of accommodation, beaches off the coastline to strengthen to advise the US on the river-flooding
giving rivers space to flood. River water current sea defences. challenges in New Orleans, highlighted
is diverted into auxiliary channels and by Hurricane Katrina.
wetlands or river marshland. This is less Of course, these policies are national in
expensive and minimizes the adverse scope and many professions contributed
effects of flooding. to the discussion that finally led to their
formulation: Dutch landscape architects,
The Dutch State National Water Plan also for instance, developed scenarios for
aims to ensure access to clean water. both river flooding and sea defences.
In part this requires local action such The most dramatic was the West 8

A B

26

178
C

5.3 IJsselmeer area

164

30

A. Key Water Tasks vary from control of salination

along the North Sea coastline, soil subsidence
in the north to summer groundwater shortage
in the east.
B. National Flood Risk Map: the blues are areas of
maximum water depth, with the darkest blue
greater than 5m.
C. Ijsselmeer area: the largest freshwater lakes
in NW Europe, used for water supply.
D. Target Situation: protection from sea level rise
is by the dune system shown in yellow, the red
lines show the dyke system; the blue of the
Ijsselmeer forms the strategic water reserve;
to the east are areas that would be used as a
‘sponge’ effect and more natural streams; the
seas would provide renewable energy (wind
farms), shipping lanes and sub-seabed CO2
storage in depleted gas fields.

7 Case study The Dutch National Water Plan 179

LOSS OF FORESTS and oxygen. All plants need symbiotic accompanied by burgeoning material
The UN Food and Agricultural cyanobacteria (chloroplasts) to do their expectations. Ninety per cent of the
Organization (FAO) reports that primary photosynthesis. Without plants and planet’s people live on 10 per cent of the
forests are being lost or modified at the photosynthesis atmospheric oxygen land, and about 90 per cent of people
rate of 6 million ha per annum. There has levels will fall. Without oxygen we die. live north of the equator. Dealing with this
been widespread loss of forest cover in ever-increasing urban population requires
Indonesia, Africa and South America. This What does this mean for landscape densification to minimize loss of finite
process contributes to global warming, architecture? First, it should influence resources and a move to a low-carbon
sometimes dramatically, for example, in specification of materials, including economy to reduce global warming.
the forest fires of recent years in South- timber, ensuring that they come from Land management and planning are
East Asia such as in Indonesia in 1997–98 sustainable sources, so primary forest is key in achieving both of these.
or the 2005 Malaysian Haze. Such not felled; second, it should influence
forest fires caused by slash-and-burn the nature of any development in tropical The European Protection Agency has
forest-clearance techniques also affect forest areas. In both North America identified urban sprawl as a major
air quality and health, not to mention and Europe, landscape architects problem. Elsewhere, the movement of
causing a major loss of natural habitat advise on forestry development; in people from the countryside to towns has
and, in consequence, of biodiversity. Russia, landscape architects graduate in led to the creation of megacities, cities or
forestry schools and are known as green conurbations with populations of more
Vegetation is necessary for the engineers; in China, where landscape than ten million. There are currently over
production of oxygen. Homo sapiens architects are also taught in forestry 26 of them, including Tokyo (34 million
is dependent on oxygen, an element schools, major efforts have been made people), Guangzhou (25 million) and
that reacts very readily, combining with to increase forestry. This expertise can be New York (22 million).
other elements to form compounds: used to protect surviving virgin or primary
for instance, with iron to make rust forest and to extend forestry planting in Randstad – the Rotterdam, Den Haag,
(ferrous oxide). It is therefore a fugitive the form of secondary forests, particularly Amsterdam and Utrecht conurbation
gas and easily disappears. Some 2.8 in the Tropics. At a masterplan scale which forms a linear city around Green
billion years ago, in what is known as always plant trees, and in towns plant Heart Holland– offers an interesting
the Great Oxidation Event, the levels of street trees. contrast to many of these conurbations.
oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere rose Although its population is only 7,100,000,
sufficiently to be able to support life as POPULATION GROWTH AND it offers a model for an extended multi-
we know it. Oxygen was and is produced URBANIZATION centred settlement which enables citizens
by cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. The global population is likely to grow to cycle out into the countryside in under
These microbes perform photosynthesis from 6.9 billion in 2010 to 8.8 billion half an hour.
using energy from sunshine, water and by 2040, according to UN figures, with
carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates many enjoying increasing prosperity

A. Living walls help to remediate air quality,

temperature and provide acoustic baffling:
La Défense, Paris.
B. Sustainable drainage for water conservation,
Dresden: re-using site construction materials.
C. Plane street trees in Alma Grove, the result
of street beautification policies of the 1920s
in Bermondsey, London.

180
THE VALUE OF TREES
Phytoremediation means the improvement of an
environment due to plant growth. The term is used P R O D U C E >1 2, 0 0 0 K G
particularly in reference to the mitigation of metal, pesticide OX YG EN
and oil pollution in soil and water. Specific plants achieve
this by accumulating toxins in their own cells, or by
degrading them or otherwise rendering them harmless.

R E M O V E 5 0 0 K G O F C O 2 + 5 0 0 K G TO X I C
P O L L U TA N T S

1 0 0 M AT U R E B R O A D L E A F
T REES IN A YEAR

A B S O R B 9 5 0, 0 0 0 L I T R E S O F
STO R M W AT E R R U N - O F F

A L S O P R O V I D E P H Y TO R E M E D I AT I O N

NEEDS 300KG
OX YG EN A Y EAR

B C

7 The Future Some challenges 181

Floating Gardens, Shad Thames, London

Greening affordable housing

in the city centre
Since 1999, Floating Gardens have grown up on more than thirty
houseboats linked by walkways and bridges just a stone’s throw from A
Tower Bridge in central London. Originally set up by architect Nicholas
Lacey in the 1980s the houseboats have occupied the historic Downing
Roads commercial moorings just downstream of the bridge. The
gardens were created by residents initially led by Elaine Hughes,
a former Greenwich landscape architecture graduate.

About 70 people live in the Downings The gardens attract waterfowl. But
Road moorings, at the foot of luxurious despite the introduction of stacks of
and expensive loft-style apartments in rotting logs to attract bugs, this remains
a floating community. The moorings something of an unbalanced ecosystem,
have existed since the first half of the because of its isolated island nature.
nineteenth century and are one of the
Thames’s oldest in continuous use. Many of the boats on the moorings are
historically significant, and they include
The plants grow in 40cm-deep metal barges, lighters, commercial tugs,
planters with a growing medium of Humber Keels, freight carriers,
50 per cent topsoil and 50 per cent and both sail and motor barges from
compost. Nearly all kitchen waste is all over Europe.
composted in bins on the barges. The
drainage on the barges is so good that The community practises ‘time banking’,
they need a daily soaking in summer. a concept developed by the New
The dry soil means that trees, including Economics Foundation thinktank, which
Robinia pseudoacacia, false acacias, seeks to ‘inspire and demonstrate real B

do not reach their full potential. During economic well-being’. People can earn
droughts, water is pumped straight from and spend time credits. For instance, if a
the Thames, yet the salty tidal water has neighbour gives you an hour of her time
no obvious detrimental effects. – say, teaching you to knit – she earns a
credit which she can ‘spend’ on someone
The plants include seaside and roof- else’s time. In other words, the residents
garden planting which tolerate the help each other out. It helps them get to
desiccating winds on the Thames: waxy, know each other and establish a culture
silver-leafed and evergreen plants such of trust.
as Stipa tenuissima and lavender and
Euphorbia amygdaloides robbiae and
ferns complemented by apple trees
and low box.

182
 A. Garden barge Scrip: seven of Nicholas Lacey’s barges D
are garden barges.
B. Affordable housing in the centre of London.
C. The boats include Thames barges, Thames lighters,
old commercial tugs, Humber keels, European river
barges, and both sail and motor barges.
D. Top left, the communal stage, here used for dining.
E-G. A cheap and pleasant place to live in the centre of
the city, a barge can cost from £100,000 and mooring
costs can be £5–6,000 annually.

7 Case study Floating Gardens, Shad Thames, London 183

BIODIVERSITY LOSS in London, due to urban habitat change. wish to remove because inhabitants are
The growth of urban areas, the increasing Internationally, there is widespread squatters and lack land tenure; while the
rate of consumption of resources and concern about the decline in the bee land can be developed for commercial
anthropogenic (human-made) climate population because of the critical and high-priced housing. Those arguing
change are combining to threaten function it performs as a plant pollinator. for the survival of the Dharavi slum
biodiversity. There is concern about in Mumbai in India (where Slumdog
major extinction of life forms. The ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT Millionaire was filmed) or Korail in Dhaka in
IUCN (the Internation Union for the One consequence of the growth of the Bangladesh quote the rebuilding of Tokyo
Conservation of Nature) reports 1 in human population is an increase in net after 1945 or the rebuilding of Kobe after
8 birds, 1 in 4 mammals and 1 in 3 of ecological footprint. The latter term is the the 1985 earthquake as models for self-
amphibian species are under threat. measure of demand for natural capital build redevelopment. In the Korail slum,
This threat can be addressed in cities expressed as global hectares per person. city authorities wish to remove housing
by fostering vegetation, including roof (gha). Natural capital is the stock of for 100,000 people and replace it with
gardens (German and Swiss legislation natural ecosystems yielding a continuing Western-style apartment blocks for 40,000.
has required all buildings with flat roofs flow of valuable ecosystem goods or In Japan the local authorities provided
to be greened (i.e. vegetated) since the services. For example, a population of infrastructure and the inhabitants put the
1980s for new-build and renovation). trees yields a flow of new trees, a flow buildings up themselves. Following this
And also by the development of public that is indefinitely sustainable. Since the argument the critical thing for slums is
gardens and open space. Other simple flow of services from ecosystems requires to grant land tenure and provide basic
measures include preventing the paving that they function as whole systems, the services – water, sewerage, and power
over of front gardens to create car- resilience and diversity of the system supply. Improve slums: don’t demolish
parking areas, or if this is to be permitted are important components of natural them.
then prescribing (as in Denmark) capital. One obvious example of loss
the laying of two-track paving to of natural capital was the failure of the CLIMATE CHANGE
accommodate car wheels with Newfoundland cod fishing grounds in Climate change is a trigger for all sorts of
planting between. the early 1990s due to overfishing and stresses we place on the Earth’s resources
the ending of what had been the richest, and ecosystems. Growth of population,
Maintenance techniques in public areas most productive cod fishery in the world. urbanization and humans’ overall effect on
can avoid the use of both insecticides It has still not recovered. the land are unbalancing. Global warming
and herbicides; a policy switch from fundamentally impacts on our landscape
cutting grass short to the cultivation The global average productive area per and its ecosystems in ways we may judge
of long meadow grass soon leads to person was 1.8gha. In 2007, according as benign or adverse. For instance, northern
benefits in terms of burgeoning insect to the Global Footprint Network’s Living Europe will see increased crop production
populations. Woodland development, Planet Report (2010), the US footprint due to the increase in temperatures,
changes in agricultural practice and was 8.0gha/person, Switzerland was 7.51 but there will be increased storms with
the re-creation of wetland areas can gha/person, and the Chinese footprint consequent flash flooding. On current
also promote biodiversity. Planning for was 2.12 gha/person. China was just Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change
ecological corridors can permit the then moving into deficit. Overall human (IPCC) estimates, if there is a more than
movement of flora and fauna across population with its current demands 2°C rise in average temperatures, southern
the landscape as they respond to is exceeding the carrying capacity of Europe will experience lower rainfall and
climate change. the planet. suffer desertification (two-thirds of Spain
would become desert) and generally there
Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs) are One challenge is that of reorganising the are increasing sea level rises. There are
a formal way of representing such way developed countries consume the vegetation changes and increased human
action. BAPs are a response to the UN Earth’s resources. The other is to find death rates due to high temperature stress
Convention on Biological Diversity of ways in which the growing populations for the old, the ill and the young and the
1992. They involve a survey of the existing of the world’s megacities can be housed malaria-carrying Aedes mosquito will
biological diversity, assessment of the sustainably. But what has all of this got to spread across Europe.
conservation status of species and setting do with landscape architecture? After all,
targets for conservation and finally setting it is only a small profession and can hardly NATURAL CATASTROPHE COSTS
in place the budgets and management determine population growth or seriously Two industries take climate change very
which will achieve them. reduce our economic dependence on very seriously: the insurance market and
hydrocarbons on its own. Nonetheless, tourism: fiscal safety and sun are both
The fostering of habitat is key to the it can play its part in helping societies things we crave. For example, look at
survival of many species. The area of adjust to a low-carbon economy. the world’s largest reinsurance group’s
wildflower meadow and unimproved Münchener Rück AG website www.
grassland in the United Kingdom New models for sustainable urban munichre.com on the rise in insurance
has fallen to 2 per cent of its level development need to be explored losses between 1980–2007 caused by
in the 1930s, with a consequent for growing Asian, African and South natural catastrophe, due to, for instance,
loss of butterfly-rich habitats. There American megacities; one answer might loss of coastal homes caused by sea
have been collapses in bird species lie in the barridas, bidonvilles or slums flood and river flood disasters. Natural
populations, such as the house sparrow that most planners and city authorities catastrophes are of concern.

184
To quote Münchener Rück:

Economic losses
due to natural
human-made increase of human- Increased
catastrophes rose
climatic changes made disasters and globalization and Rising demand for
faster than economic + + =
+ and development development of interdependency non-life insurance.
activity (e.g. due to
of new risk new risk of risk
population growth,
globalization)

So for the insurance market, climate change ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT

is both a problem and an opportunity. Ecological footprint, global hectares (gha) per person
However, for those no longer able to insure is a measure of demand for natural capital. The Earth’s
their home against loss due to coastal biocapacity is 2.1 gha/ person.
retreat these changes can be a financial
disaster. Insurers measure the effects of
climate change and charge a price on it.
A price we cannot afford according to
the Stern Review.

The Stern Review on the Economics of

Climate Change of 2006 by economist U A E=1 0. 6 8 G H A / P E R S
Lord Stern (and former chief economic
advisor to the Treasury) for the British
government discusses the effect of climate
change and global warming on the world
economy. It argues that 1 per cent of global
gross domestic product (GDP) per annum
is required in order to avoid the worst
effects of climate change. U S A =8 . 0 0 G H A / P E R S

It concludes that we cannot afford not to

tackle climate change. The military also
take climate change seriously: for
instance the British Ministry of Defence’s
Development, Concepts and Doctrine
Centre (DCDC) think tank’s ‘horizon- U NITE D K IN G D O M=4.89 G HA/P E R S
scanning’ Strategic Trends Programme
which forecasts world trends to 2040
‘gives a detailed consideration of how
climate change, global inequality, C H I N A =2 . 2 1 G H A / P E R S
population growth, resource scarcity and
the shifting balance of global power will
transform the strategic context and create
persistent, complex, global challenges’.
I N D I A = 0.9 G H A / P E R S

7 The Future Some challenges 185

Korail, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Transforming a slum into a paradise

Landscape architect Khondaker Hasibul Kabir lives in Korail, a 49ha slum with
a population of 120,000 people on the Banani Lake in the centre of Dhaka,
the capital of Bangladesh. Dhaka had a population of over 16 million in 2011
of whom upwards of 3 million lived in slums. Dhaka is said to be the world’s
fastest-growing megacity. Bamboo structures built over the water line the
shore between Gulshan Lake and Banani Lake.

Kabir studied landscape architecture try to turn a slum into the beginnings As we write the evictions have been
at the University of Sheffield and on of a sustainable urban paradise. On temporarily halted by court order.
graduation in 2005 returned to Dhaka. 9 April 2012, with one day’s notice,
He began work at BRAC University the Dhaka City Corporation authorities
in the Department of Architecture. began forced evictions of this vibrant
Seeking affordable accommodation in community, who were living on state-
central Dhaka and being professionally owned land. They began clearing homes
interested in flood-prone rural areas, he on Gulshan Lake where some of the
looked for a home in Korail and moved capital’s poorest people lived, homes
in with Fourkan and Nasima Pevez that face wealthy, Western-style housing
in 2007. He helped the family plant all around. The city authorities plan to
trees and herbage in the surrounding build apartments on the sides of the
area and created an open-air meeting lake. There are major concerns about A. This bamboo platform serves as a community
meeting place.
place for local residents on a bamboo this – the demolition of sustainable,
B. View across the lake showing the stilted
platform over the water. The Pevez low-impact homes for 100,000 people
construction over the water.
family recycle their kitchen waste for which work with the lakes, and the C. The Pevez family home.
compost and encourage other locals to building of unsustainable, Western-style, D. Across the lake is more expensive housing.
plant their yards. They spread seeds on high-rise apartments for 40,000 E. A place for children to learn.
lakeside margins and have inspired their middle-class inhabitants in this city F. Paradise but without security.
neighbours to do the same in order to of flooding. G. A bare and bleak environment transformed.

186
B C

D E

F G

7 Case study Korail, Dhaka, Bangladesh 187

Climate change involves a rise in average We referred above to urban heat island HOW LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS CAN
temperatures and extreme weather effect and how street tree shade in CONTRIBUTE TO THE AMELIORATION
conditions as well as sea level increases cities can reduce air temperature in OF THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
and flooding, and threats to the water the summer. Tree planting has wider
supply. The response involves switching environmental benefits, however. It A current checklist is:
to a low-carbon economy and addressing can reduce air pollution by removing
energy production by harnessing wind, particulates, small solid particles that • ecological corridors to promote
water and tidal power. Landscape affect lung function and make it difficult migration of flora and fauna;
architects in many Western European to breathe. Trees also absorb gases such • water conservation;
countries, led by the Danish, have as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide • use of drought-tolerant, genetically
advised on both onshore and offshore and sulphur dioxide which can cause diverse plants and changes in
windpower generation and the location respiratory problems and increase asthma cultivation;
of wind farms through environmental problems. Views of urban greenery have • shade structures (e.g. roadside trees)
assessment studies. Tidal barrages or also been shown to improve mental to promote human comfort, and
surge barriers are on the agenda in some well-being, not to mention encouraging ameliorate the urban heat island effect;
locations, including the Thames estuary exercise. In short, urban tree planting – • urban tree planting to capture
in the UK; such a major change will affect at its most direct in the form of avenue atmospheric dust;
the coastal landscape to protect against tree planting – provides a healthier urban • green roofs to slow surface water
flooding but can result in loss of marine environment for humans as well as run-off and promote biodiversity;
habitat and marshland. promoting biodiversity and a habitat • management of coastal retreat policies
for birds and other creatures. due to rising sea levels;
A low-carbon economy also involves • agricultural and landscape restructuring
a reduction in the use of private cars in as the tree line moves upwards;
favour of public transport, cycling and • afforestation (the planting of
walking. In the West, efforts to remodel new forests);
the city around the motor car have • promotion of recycling and
proved dangerous and destructive. Cities composting;
should be for people to walk, trade, meet • river basin management to cope
and mingle in, and the centrality of the with the loss of flood plains;
automobile should be diminished. Most • soil conservation and soil carbon
city streets are currently dominated by sink policy;
the car. Landscape architects can play • promotion of cycling and walking in
a part in moving urban spaces away cities and elsewhere;
from car-based transport planning. The • promotion of wind farms and solar
example of Copenhagen since the 1960s, and hydroelectric energy, and network
where planning has favoured people environmental assessment of energy
over cars, shows a way to reverse this distribution;
trend. Both Paris and London have seen • environmental assessment and design
increases in cycling and public transport of public transport including road, rail
use in the past 20 years, but at the same and bus transport;
time cities in China have been moving in • increase in the albedo of urban surface
the opposite direction. area (e.g. roofs and roads to improve
reflectivity).
Efforts to ameliorate the effects of
climate change need not be high-tech. The last requires a little explanation: albedo
Take the heat island effect in cities. Street is a measure of reflectivity on a low to
tree planting provides shade and is a high scale of 0–10 with 0 as black and
way of reducing high temperatures in 10 as white. Urbanization changes areas
the summer – high temperatures lead from vegetated green fields (about 5) to
to both increased geriatric and perinatal black roads and roofs. Avoidance of black
death rates. Similarly SUDS (Sustainable asphalt, by planting roadside tree planting
Drainage Systems) are a way of dealing and green or vegetated roofs, are ways of
with threats of falling groundwater levels raising the albedo of a city, increasing the
(necessary for vegetation growth) as reflectivity of the Earth’s surface, reducing
well as reducing flood risk. the absorption of solar heat, and thus
reducing global warming.

188
A B

C D

A. Newly planted living wall showing

supporting structure, Venlo
Floriade 2012, the Netherlands.
B. Established vertical green wall
planting, London.
C. Biodiverse brown roof at the
Centre for Alternative Technology,
Machynlleth, Wales: a brown roof
using local subsoil or rubble which
seeds itself naturally and promotes
a rich diversity of habitat.
D. Extensive green roof, Horniman
Museum, London.

7 The Future Some challenges 189

North Holland coastline, the Netherlands

Development in coastal dyke defences

Coastal protection in Holland is changing, and one project showing
current ideas in flood protection is the work of the multi-disciplinary
practice Arcadis in Province North Holland, to the north-west of Alkmaar.
This is a study of options for strengthening 6km of coastline, between
Hondsbossche and Pettemer Zeewering; behind the coastline are nature
reserves and 400-year-old polders.

This stretch of coastal dyke is a weak link recreation and tourism, liveability and As landscape architect at Arcadis Gertjan
in the North Holland flood defences, nature development. Visualizations were Jobse says, this is part of the response
and there is a national programme to key to communicating the plans. The to how climate change affects Dutch
strengthen these weak stretches with conclusion has been that an integrated sea defences, ‘landscape is intrinsically
the aim of upgrading flood protection approach is the preferred solution, dynamic, constantly in motion.’ Here he
and improving the environment. One strengthening the defences using sand is creating a new coastal seascape which
plank of the programme is community nourishment on the shoreline because responds to change.
involvement in the designs. it offers a flexible approach to coastal
protection. It gives benefits in the long
Arcadis developed alternative solutions, term as well, with possibilities for nature
based on an analysis of the landscape, conservation, improved accessibility and
ranging from raising dykes to sand new beaches for recreation and tourism,
nourishment and allowing for more while protecting the heritage of the
overspill. Along with these alternatives, polders behind. This sustainable solution
they developed design proposals for is in keeping with the current strategies
improving spatial quality with an emphasis with dealing with Dutch coast defences
on landscape and cultural heritage, and can count on community support.

190
B A. After-view, coast with sand nourishment
and beach creation.
B. Bird’s-eye view of present situation with
engineering dyke and low, wide groynes.
C. Bird’s-eye view of dyke raised higher and wider
using conventional engineering response and
groynes maintained.
D. Flood response using overspill techniques
with groynes retained and reinforcement
with rock structures.
E. Dyke reinforced by sand nourishment.
Bird’s-eye view high tide.
F. Coastal dyke and present situation.

7 Case study North Holland coastline, the Netherlands 191

Recycling and everyday practice
There are increases in the costs of raw Landscape architects need to consider the
materials – timber, stone, metals, plastics environmental implications of all their design
– in view of world demand. Timber decisions and to explore sustainable alternatives.
can be twice as expensive as plastic or
polymer substitutes, but polymers use
more energy in production and are based
on hydrocarbon feedstocks. Recycling
of materials is one way forward: reuse REUSE
what you have, don’t waste it. This is
already common practice with metals,
RE C YC L E
such as steel and aluminium, but is good
practice with all materials. Century-old
road kerbs can easily be reused, as can
paving slabs in both stone and pre-cast
concrete. There is a long tradition of
reusing brickwork, but this is based on
lime mortar being easy to remove. The
switch to much stronger cement mortar
since the early twentieth century has
made this more difficult – so why not
just switch back to lime mortar?

Half of the world’s population are said to

RECLAIM
live in earth buldings (meaning mud brick
and adobe); such traditional construction R E M A N U FA C T U R E
is low in embodied carbon and low in
embodied energy compared with fired
clay or sand bricks.

In the UK it is normal practice to bed

unit paving, whether stone slabs or
brick blocks, on 150mm of concrete
foundations. Such construction is high
in embodied carbon, high in embodied
A B
energy, expensive and cracks easily. It is
rigid and wrong. By contrast, it is normal
in many continental European countries
to bed brick and stone paving on sand.
The UK should adopt a similar practice.
Landscape architects should always
question what they do.

Avoid use of peat-based composts; peat

is a valuable carbon sink. Instead promote
soil fertility and water retention by making
compost on site. Recycling is not just
C
important in the initial capital works of a
project, it should be built into the ongoing
development. The opportunities for
embedding recycling and sustainability
into landscape architecture practice are
endless. The above examples may seem
trivial but cumulatively they can have
a dramatic effect.

192
D E

G H I

A. Granite 75mm thick being laid on a deep concrete base, London. Rigid, and expensive
in embodied carbon and embodied energy, and, economically, it costs more.
B. Often when poorly detailed the concrete base will lead to cracking in the decorative
surface, Paris.
C. Reclaimed concrete foundations broken up and reused as stepping stones, Venlo Floriade
2012, the Netherlands.
D. Pre-cast concrete paving prior to laying, Paris.
E. In situ concrete is prone to cracking even on high profile projects, UNESCO Noguchi
Garden, Paris.
F. Large-scale pre-cast concrete paving units laid in a simple grid form, Venlo Floriade
2012, the Netherlands.
G. Bridge of recycled scaffolding planks, Wilde Weelde (Wild World) garden designed
by Jasper Helmantel, Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands.
H. In the urban public realm coordination of below-ground services is crucial to avoid
this situation in Belfast.
I. Simple, coordinated detailing using pre-cast concrete walls and paving units all loose
laid on a compacted sub-base.

7 The Future Recycling and everyday practice 193

Final thoughts
These challenges are all opportunities for ‘There is no “single solution” but groups
the future of landscape architecture. We
need to change the way we live, to realize
of solutions carefully related one to
that the free market has its limits, that another. There is no one-shot cure, nor
commons in its economic sense should single-purpose panacea, but the need for
be valued. We need to act as stewards for
our world which increasingly is formed and
collaborative solutions. A key to solving the
dominated by human activity: we need environmental crisis comes from the field
to treat our planet with care. It is for the of landscape architecture, a profession
landscape architects of the next 50 years,
for whom this book was written, to seize
dealing with the interdependence of
them. Let us end with a further quotation environmental processes.’
from the Philadelphia Declaration of 1966
with which we began this chapter:

C D E

194
F G

Landscape architecture needs to respond to climate

change, and its effects ameliorated, by for instance:

A. Boulevard Henri IV, Paris, street trees lower

temperature in hot weather, promote wildlife
and trees trap particulates in the air.
B. Extensive planted roofs slow water run-off and
contribute to a sustainable drainage system
(SUDS), so avoiding flooding.
C. Lime tree-lined Royal Avenue in Chelsea,
London with light gravel paving, which raises
the albedo (or reflectivity) of the city.
D. Trees growing out of Johnson’s Draw Dock
Millwall, London.
E. Green roofs raise albedo, provide habitat for
wildlife and slow water run-off.
F. Living walls are all the rage, like this one in
Trafalgar Square, London. They provide habitat
but at a huge cost of constant irrigation and care.
A couple of self-clinging climbing plants can
cover a wall equally well.
G. Vertical gardens, like these in Barcelona, create
green where otherwise there is no life.
H. Vegetated swale (basically a wide, permeable
ditch, which is dry when it is not raining), part
of a SUDS, Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands.

7 The Future Final thoughts 195

 Cost benefit evaluation Systematic process for comparing benefits and

Glossary costs of a project, by estimating the costs of each option and comparing
them with the forecast benefits to determine whether it is suitable for
investment. Also known as cost benefit analysis.

Cost estimate A forecast of the cost of a project calculated on the basis

Autobahn German, ‘motorway’. of the current project information (such as floor area of building or extent
of site) and precedent costs.
Beaux-Arts Late nineteenth-century style characterized by symmetry,
axial planning, rich ornamentation, and a grand scale. From the Ecole Cost estimator See Quantity surveyor.
des Beaux Arts, the chief architecture and art school in Paris of the time.
Cost planning Cost planning predicts or estimates how much a project
Bill of quantities A documented list describing the measurement of will cost to build, the variables are the quality, the quantities, time scale
each item of a construction contract – e.g. length, area, volume or and embodied carbon or other aspects of sustainability.
weight – so that it may be priced as a part of the tender process.
Cultural landscape A landscape modified by humans.
Biodiversity The variety of plant and animal life, in the world or in
a particular habitat. Dataset A collection of related but discrete sets of information open
to manipulation as a unit by a computer.
Biome A complex of ecosystems that relate to a particular climate,
and environment – for example, a tropical forest, grassland, or a coral reef. Detail proposals Describe materials, techniques, and standards of
workmanship sufficient to submit for statutory approvals (e.g. building
Biotope An area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living regulations) and to obtain the client’s approval for the next stage of work.
place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. The subject of
a biotope is an ecological community. Development surveyor Responsible for planning and development,
including assessment of land and property use requirements and
Brutalism From French béton brut, ‘rough concrete’. A form of development and regeneration appraisal and related planning
Modernist architecture during the 1950s to the ’70s typified by raw implementation processes. Also known as planning and
concrete structures. development surveyor.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) A virtual or digital resource that Ecological footprint The impact of a person or community on the
includes information of width, height and length (traditionally represented environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain their
by plan, section, and elevation) in addition to specification, cost, time use of natural resources, measured in global hectares per person.
and other information.
Ecology The study of plant, animal and human communities and their
Bundesgartenschau A German garden festival. Half a year in duration relationships with each other and with the environment.
and years in preparation.
Ecosystem A community of organisms that interact with each other and
Capital value The worth of the land and buildings of a development. with their physical and chemical environment.

Civil engineering Field of structural design that includes geotechnical, EIA Environmental Impact Assessment.
water resources, structural, marine, and materials engineering specialisms.
Embodied carbon i) the sum of all the energy required to manufacture
Climate change ‘A change of climate which is attributed directly or goods or services, ii) the sum of all the energy required to deliver a
indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global product, including the energy used in maintaining it, demolishing and
atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed recycling it. It can be expressed as carbon kg CO2 per kg.
over comparable time periods.’ – United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 1992. Embodied energy The energy required to extract, process, transport,
install, maintain and dispose of a product or component; expressed in
Common goods Or Commons. In economics one of the four main types millijoules per kg (MJ/kg).
of goods. Examples include fish stocks in non-controlled, international
waters, coal resources or forests, the atmosphere, seas and rivers, and Environmental assessment A procedure to ensure the environmental
climate change. implications of decisions are taken into account before the decisions for
a development project, plan or policy are made.
Competitive tendering A process through which contracts are awarded
on the basis of competitive (usually secret) bidding by a number of bidders. European directive European Union legislation that determines particular
results for member states to achieve, but does not determine the means
Completion Process at the end of a construction contract. It involves of achieving those results. A framework directive establishes aims over
‘practical completion’ (when the works are sufficiently complete to be a broader field but, again, does not specify the means by which they
used by the client but not necessarily complete in all the works); ‘defects should be achieved.
completion’ at the end of the defects liability period during which the
contractor is responsible for making good defects; ‘legal completion’ Freehold Permanent and absolute ownership of land or property, with
is when the final account is paid, legally this means that all parties to freedom to dispose of it.
the contract have fulfilled their obligations.
Functionalism A principle of Modernism that the form of the building
Conservation Protection, preservation, management, or restoration should be dictated by its function. The phrase ‘Form ever follows function’
of historical, cultural, wildlife and natural resources such as urban areas, was used by the Chicago skyscraper architect Louis Sullivan in 1896.
countryside, forests, soil, and water.
Gaia theory Hypothesis proposed by scientist James Lovelock that the
Conurbation Group of towns, villages and other urban areas that biosphere contributes to the stability of the planet’s physical processes,
grow together to merge into one continuous urban area. such as temperature, ocean water salt levels, etc., allowing life to flourish.

196
Garden festival An exhibition of garden design and horticulture for Modernism Early twentieth-century artistic movement marked by
a season (usually six months) based on the example of the German a rejection of ornament and the figurative, using simple forms and
Bundesgartenschauen. In the Netherlands they are held every ten symmetrical layout. It was also a response to technological and functional
years and are known as Floriade. change and embraced new materials and structures. In landscape
architecture the stylistic markers are an asymmetrical layout and
Genplan Masterplan, or general plan, an abbreviation of the Russian simple architectural form, whether of structures, paving or planting,
for ’General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow‘. together with biomorphic pools.

Geomorphology The study of landforms and the processes that Municipal park Open space, or park for public use maintained
shape them. by a town council.

Green belt The designation of land around certain cities and large built- National park A reserve or protected area of natural, semi-natural,
up areas, which aims to keep it permanently open or largely undeveloped. or developed land.

Green wedges Greenways or open space of wedge form which radiate Natural capital Includes i) the stock of natural assets in their role
from a city centre, as in the Copenhagen Finger Plan of 1947 or Moscow’s of providing natural resource inputs and environmental services for
Genplan of 1935. Also open land separating settlements. economic production; ii) the renewable and non-renewable resources
that enter the production process and satisfy consumption needs; iii)
Habitat The natural home or environment where an organism or a environmental assets that have amenity and productive use; and iv)
community of organisms lives, including all living and non-living factors natural features, such as the ozone layer, that are essential for
and conditions. supporting life.

Heempark A Dutch park that includes native vegetation types and New Town Particularly one of 28 new towns in the UK built to
species, used in the teaching of natural history. accommodate those displaced by slum clearance in the 1950s. Japan
also built 30 new towns from the 1960s. In the Netherlands new towns
Historicist In reference to landscape architecture, using historical were associated with polder reclamation.
styles or motifs.
New Urbanism A current in urban design since the 1980s that promotes
Irrigation Watering by artificial means, as by sprinkler, drip, or basin mixed-use, walkable neighbourhoods. The movement has been active in
flooding or other form of surface or sub-surface irrigation. the US as a reaction to car-based, post-war development that has single-
use zoning, suburban housing and out-of-town shopping centres.
Land consolidation Re-arrangement of land plots and their ownership.
usually undertaken to form larger and more productive land holdings. NGO Non-governmental organization.

Landscape garden A garden laid out to suggest the effect of natural Orthogonal Ninety-degree plan form.
scenery.
Particulates Fine airborne particles with a diameter of 10 micrometres
Landscape planning ‘… an activity concerned with reconciling competing or less. They are formed by natural (volcanoes, forest fires, dust storms,
land uses while protecting natural processes and significant cultural and salt water spray, etc.) and human-made sources (vehicles, fossil fuels,
natural resources’ – Ervin H. Zube. industrial processes, etc.). Their effects are reduced by vegetation.

Landscape urbanism A theory of planning and design for urbanism Plant community Group of plant species in a defined area that
proposing that landscape, rather than architecture, is capable of constitutes a uniform patch compared with adjacent vegetation.
organizing the city and developing urban living.
Plot layout Layout plan that shows the main features, such as roads,
Landscape Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA) See Visual Impact building and building parcels or plots.
Assessment.
Polder Area of land enclosed by a dyke or raised embankment by which
Licensure The granting of a license for a profession to practice, water from river or sea flooding is excluded and drained artificially,
especially in the US, where it is granted at state level with examinations characteristic of the Netherlands and other low-lying coastal and river
supervised by the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards delta areas.
(CLARB). Elsewhere the equivalent is registration, although frequently this
is on the basis of education. Polder reclamation The process of winning agricultural land or land
for other purposes by creating a polder. In the Netherlands this involves
Linear park Parks that follow a linear route through the city, e.g. the building an enclosing dyke, a drainage system of canals, pumping water
Emerald Necklace in Boston. to a set level, establishing a soil structure by planting Juncus reed for
some years, and then farming the land. Pumping is maintained for the life
Locus The position or place where something occurs or is situated. of the polder and permits accurate control of the groundwater table.

Low-carbon economy An economy that minimizes output of Post-industrial Refers to projects on former industrial sites that do not
greenhouse gas emissions, and specifically refers to carbon dioxide eradicate traces of industry but rather incorporate them.
as a marker for all greenhouse gases.
Postmodern Movement that developed playful, decorated, symbolic and
Mechanical and electrical engineer (M & E engineer) Role with a wide allegorical designs and formed a reaction to Modernism. In landscape
range of engineering responsibilities including the analysis, design, and design it dates from the late 1970s.
fabrication, supply and maintenance of mechanical systems. In relation
to construction and building services their responsibilities include Precast Refers to concrete that has been manufactured or formed at
the design of the mechanical, electrical and public health system, a site away from the final construction location.
including underground services and electrical systems. Also known
as Building Services Engineering. Primary forest A forest largely undisturbed by human activity. Also
known as virgin forest, first-growth forest.
Megacity A city typically with a population of more than ten
million inhabitants.

Glossary 197
Private sector The part of the economy that is not state-owned, and Speculative developer Developer of a building or real estate who works
is operated by companies for profit. without a pre-let lease or buyer arranged beforehand. Typically the
ambition of a speculative developer might be short-term return with
Production information Documentation in the form of drawings, the aim of selling on the site.
specifications, schedules and quantities that describes a proposed
construction project. Increasingly it is communicated and coordinated Stormwater Excess rainfall or other precipitation (e.g. snow or ice melt),
using Building Information Modelling (BIM). which, unable to soak into saturated land, runs off along the surface.

Professional fees Payment for consultancy work done by a professional; Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) A form of Environmental
they do not include expenses. Assessment aiming to assess and guide policy, such as economic policy,
promoted by the European Union Strategic Environmental Assessment
Propagation Reproduction of plants by seeds, cuttings, grafting, layering, Directive (2001).
micropropagation, etc. Seed propagation involves sexual reproduction
with consequent genetic variation, while vegetative reproduction such Strategic planning Overall spatial plan for an area, showing the main
as cuttings and grafting, produces a genetically identical clone of the lines or areas of development, change or conservation proposed. Also
parent plant. known as a vision plan.

Prospect An extensive sight or view; the view of the landscape from Structural engineer Engineer who analyzes and designs structures that
any given position. support or resist loads; these may include buildings and roads.

Public open space (POS) Open space accessible to the public, both Succession Process of change in an ecosystem as one community
land and water areas providing for sport and outdoor recreation including establishes, modifies the habitat, and is replaced by another community
public parks and gardens, squares and civic spaces, nature reserves until a stable climax is established, e.g. open water to fen or swamp, to
and green corridors, sports fields, playgrounds, allotments, marshland, to alder or willow carr, to oak-ash woodland.
cemeteries and churchyards.
Surveyor Professional who measures land in three dimensions and is
Quantity surveyor (QS) Quantity surveyors estimate the construction fundamental to most planning, construction and development.
cost and offer advice on project management, procurement and
contract management. Sustainability The conservation of ecological balance by avoiding the
depletion of natural resources.
Redevelopment area Areas where existing structures and buildings are
largely demolished because they are out of use or inappropriately used Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) Sustainable urban drainage
(in the view of the planners) and therefore demolished to make way for systems – including green roofs, detention basins and swales – used to
new transport links and building development. slow run-off from a built-up area in order to avoid flooding. Necessary
because building development renders soil impermeable and increases
Registration The granting of professional status and the right to practise surface water run-off.
by means of enlisting on a state register. An international equivalent
of the American licensure. Tender An offer to supply a service or product, or to carry out work for
a contract; can also apply to an offer for professional services.
Ribbon development Linear development of houses and settlements
alongside main roads or tramways, radiating from an urban centre. Theme park A commercial amusement park with rides orchestrated
A cause of urban sprawl. around themes or stories and with coordinated landscape, scene-setting,
and ownership.
Rigid paving A type of paving made on site using a rigid or relatively
inflexible material, or made of units laid on an inflexible foundation, Urban design The design of towns and villages, including disposition
such as in situ concrete. and design of groups of buildings, of streets and public spaces,
neighbourhoods and districts, and entire cities, to produce functional,
Romanticism Cultural movement that emerged in the mid eighteenth attractive and sustainable urban areas.
century linked with a democratization of ideas and power, belief in liberty
and the power of the imagination, and in contrast to the rationalism of Urban heat island Built-up areas that have higher average temperatures
the Enlightenment. Romanticism in landscape gardening was typified than surrounding undeveloped land. These occur because the materials
by the picturesque English landscape garden, its attempted re-creation in built-up areas are darker and retain more heat than vegetated
of wild or ‘natural’ features and the use of gothic, rustic, and classical countryside, and because of waste heat produced in developed areas.
references and motifs.
Urban sprawl Pejorative term referring to the spreading of a city in
SEA Strategic Environmental Assessment. uncontrolled, low-density development, often with cars as the main
mode of transport.
Secondary forest Forests that regenerate largely through natural
processes after significant removal or disturbance of the original Visual Impact Assessment The measurement and appraisal of the effects
forest vegetation by human or natural causes at a single point in time of a proposed development on the landscape and visual resource of the
or over an extended period. Their structure and/or canopy species area. Also known as LVIA (Landscape Visual Impact Assessment).
composition are majorly different from primary forests. Also known
as second-growth forest. Zone Of Theoretical Visibility (ZTV) The determination of the theoretical
visibility of a development in the landscape measured by an analysis of
Sieve mapping A constraints and opportunities process in landscape the topography or contours of the area, theoretical because it does not
planning that builds up a number of geographical layers to produce a allow for the restriction of views by trees, buildings, etc. ZTV identifies
visual representation of areas that show potential for development. areas where a development cannot be seen, but not necessarily all of the
extent of the non visibility. Also known as Zone of Visual Influence (ZVI).
Sketch scheme proposals Early design development proposals, for
spatial arrangements, materials and appearance sufficient to obtain
client’s approval to proceed to the next stage of work.

198
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AVA Publishing, 2009 Architectural History, Harry N. Abrams, 2001
• Waterman, Tim & Wall, Ed, Basics Landscape Architecture 01: • Goode, Patrick, Lancaster, Michael, & Jellicoe, Susan and Geoffrey,
Urban Design, AVA Publishing, 2009 The Oxford Companion to Gardens, Oxford University Press, 2001
Biographies • Jellicoe, Geoffrey and Susan, Landscape of Man: Shaping the
• McHarg, Ian, Quest for Life: An Autobiography, John Wiley Environment From Prehistory to the Present Day, Thames &
& Sons, 1996 Hudson, 1995
• Stinson, Kathy, A Love Every Leaf: The Life of Landscape Architect • Turner, Tom, European Gardens: History, Philosophy and Design,
Cornelia Hahn, Oberlander, Tundra Books, 2008 Routledge, 2011
• Thompson, Ian, Ecology, Ecology, Community and Delight: • — Asian Gardens: History, Beliefs and Design, Routledge, 2010
An Inquiry into Values in Landscape Architecture: Sources Garden design
of Value in Landscape Architecture, Routledge, 1999 • Buchan, Ursula, The English Garden, Frances Lincoln, 2006
Magazines • Dixon-Hunt, John, The Picturesque Garden in Europe, Thames &
• ASLA Landscape Architecture Magazine http:// Hudson, 2004
landscapearchitecturemagazine.org/ • Keswick, Maggie, Chinese Garden, Frances Lincoln, 2003
• Bund der Deutscher Landschaftsarchitekten (BDLA) Garten • Richardson, Tim, The Arcadian Friends, Inventing the English
+ Landschaft http://www.garten-landschaft.de/ Landscape Garden, Bantam Press, 2007
• Landscape Institute’s Landscape http://www.landscapeinstitute. • Siren, Osvald, Gardens of China, Dumbarton Oaks, 1990
org/publications/landscapejournal.php • Woodbridge, Kenneth, Princely Gardens: Origins and Development
• Topos (http://www.toposmagazine.com/) of the French Formal Style, Thames & Hudson, 1986
• ‘Scape http://www.scapemagazine.com/about.html The growth of landscape architecture as a profession
• Greenplaces http://www.green-places.co.uk/ • Aldous, Tony, Clouston, Brian & Alexander, Rosemary Landscape by
• Landscape Architecture Foundation LandscapeOnline Weekly. Design, Heinemann, 1979
http://www.landscapeonline.com/products/listing.php?id=11024 • Beveridge, Charles, Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American
Monographs Landscape, Universe, 2005
• de Jong, Erik & Bertram, Christian, Michael Van Gessel: Landscape • Brown, Jane, The Modern Garden, Thames & Hudson, 2000
Architect, NAI Publishers, 2008 • Hauxner, Malene, Open to the Sky, Arkitektens Forlag, 2003
• Saunder, William, Designed Ecologies: the Landscape Architecture • Landscape Architecture Europe Foundation, Fieldwork, Birkhaüser,
of Kingjian Yu, Birkhaüser, 2012 2006
Practice websites — On Site, Birkhaüser, 2009
• AECOM: http://www.aecom.com/What+We+Do/ — In Touch, Birkhaüser, 2012
Design+and+Planning/Practice+Areas/Landscape+Architecture+an • Lund, Annemarie, Guide to Danish Landscape Architecture 1000-
d+Urban+Design 2003, Arkitektens Forlag, 1997
• Belt Collins: http://www.beltcollins.com/#/home • Newton, Norman T., Design on the Land: the Development of
• Building Design Partnership: http://www.bdp.com/en/Services/ Landscape Architecture, Belknap Press, 1971
Landscape-Architecture/ • Racine, Michel (ed.), Createurs de Jardins et de Paysages en France
• Atelier Dreiseitl: http://www.dreiseitl.net/ du XIXe siècle au XXIe Siècle, Actes Sud, 2002
• Field Operations: http://www.fieldoperations.net/ • Reh, Wouter & Steenbergen, Clemens, Metropolitan Landscape
• Michael van Gessel: http://www.michaelvangessel.com/ Architecture – Urban Parks And Landscapes, Thoth, 2012
• George Hargreaves: http://www.hargreaves.com/ • Uekoetter, Frank, The Green and the Brown, a History of
• Land Use Consultants: http://www.landuse.co.uk/ Conservation in Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, 2006
• SWA: http://www.swagroup.com/
• Agence Ter: http://www.agenceter.com/ • http://www.FrederickLawOlmsted.com/
• Turenscape: http://www.turenscape.com/english/ • http://www.olmsted.org/home
• West 8: http://www.west8.nl/ Changing priorities: ecology, biodiversity and sustainability
• Kim Wilkie: http://www.kimwilkie.com/ • Dinep, Claudia & Schwab, Kristin, Sustainable Site Design: Criteria,
General landscape architecture websites Process, and Case Studies for Integrating Site and Region in
• www.gardenvisit.com/ Landscape Design, John Wiley & Sons, 2010
• The Field http://thefield.asla.org/ • Gillett, M., Ecosystems, Hodder Education, 2005
• http://www.land8lounge.com/ • Rottle, Nancy & Yocom, Ken, Basics Landscape Architecture 02:
• The Dirt http://dirt.asla.org/ Ecological Design, AVA Publishing, 2011
Salary surveys • Schulze, Ernst-Detlef, Beck, Erwin & Müller-Hohenstein, Klaus, Plant
• http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Architecture-and-Engineering/Landscape- Ecology, Springer, 2005
architects.htm • Turner, Monica G., Gardner, Robert H. & O’Neil, Robert V., Landscape
• http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes171012.htm#nat Ecology in Theory and Practice: Pattern and Process, Springer, 2001
• http://asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=11346

Bibliography 199
• American Society of Landscape Architects, Sustainable Design • Central Park, New York City
Resource Guides and Toolkit, which range from Green Infrastructure Barlow Rogers, E., Cramer, E.M., Heintz, J. L., Kelly, B., Winslow, P. N.
to Maximising the Benefits of Plants or to Climate Change. Each & Berendt, J., Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and
has recommended reading and online resources, Restoration Plan, MIT Press, 1987
see http://www.asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=29222 http://www.centralparknyc.org/
Chapter 1 case studies • Thames Barrier Park, London
• Painshill Park, Surrey, UK http://www.arup.com/_assets/_download/download17.pdf
http://www.painshill.co.uk/ Holden, Robert, ‘Park and Pride’, Architects’ Journal 12/7/2001 pp.
• Emscher Park IBA, Ruhr Valley, Germany 24-33 http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/park-and-
http://en.landschaftspark.de/the-park/evolution/iba pride/182988.article
http://www.iba.nrw.de/main.htm Racine, Michel, Allain Provost – Landscape Architect / Paysagiste:
• Ijsselmeerpolders, the Netherlands Invented Landscapes / Paysages Inventés - ‘64–‘04, Ulmer Eugen
http://www.flevoland.nl/english/ Verlag, 2005

Chapter 2 Beginning a Project Chapter 3 The Design Process

The brief, types of client and fees Revealing the site

• Clamp, Hugh, Landscape Professional Practice, Gower Publishing, • Book, Norman K., Basic Elements of Landscape Architecture
1999 Design, Elsevier, 1983
• Knox, Paul and Ozolins, Peter (ed.) The Design Professionals and the • Lynch, Kevin & Hack, Gary, Site Planning, MIT, 1984
Built Environment, an Introduction, John Wiley & Sons, 2000 The principles of design
• Tennant, Rachel, Garmony, N. & Winsch, C., Professional Practice for • Bachelard, Gaston, Poetics of Space, Beacon Press, 1994
Landscape Architects, Architectural Press, 2002 • Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, Penguin, 1972
• Critchlow, Keith & Allen, Jon, Drawing Geometry: A Primer of Basic
• Landscape Institute guidelines http://www.landscapeinstitute. Forms for Artists, Designers and Architects, Floris Books, 2007
org/publications/downloads.php. Among them is Landscape • Holtzschue, Linda, Understanding Colour, John Wiley & Sons, 2002
Architecture: Elements and Areas of Practice – an Educational • Itten, Johannes, The Elements of Color, John Wiley & Sons, 1970
Framework, 2012. • Olsen, Scott, The Golden Section, Wooden Books, 2009
Appointing a Chartered Landscape Architect: Guidelines for • Porter, Tom, & Goodman, Sue, Design Primer for Architects, Graphic
Best Value, 2003 is a guideline for clients. Engaging a Landscape Designers and Artists, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1989
Consultant: Guidance for Clients on Fees, 2002 describes the • Pye, David, The Nature & Aesthetics of Design, A & C Black Ltd,
various fee arrangements possible in some detail. 2000
Landscape Institute, Pathway to Chartership http://www. • Ryan, Mark, Geometry for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, 2008
pathwaytochartership.org/login • de Sausmarez, Maurice & Kepes, G., Basic Design: The Dynamics
Landscape Institute Guidebook to the Pathway to Chartership, 2010 of Visual Form, McGraw-Hill, 1990
http://www.landscapeinstitute.org.uk/PDF/Contribute/LI_Pathway_ Environmental design
Handbook.pdf http://fidic.org/bookshop • Beck, Travis, Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, Island Press,
• A useful introduction to common goods is http://dlc.dlib.indiana. 2012
edu/dlc/ • Ching, Francis, Architecture, Form, Space and Order, John Wiley &
• American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) professional Sons, 2007
practice website area, http://www.asla.org/ResourceLanding.aspx • Hough, Michael, City Form and Natural Process, Routledge,
equally aimed at supporting those in practice. 1989
• ASLA, Standard Form Contracts for Professional Services http:// • McHarg, Ian L., Design with Nature, John Wiley & Sons, 1995
www.asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=14888 • Spirn, Anne W., The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human
• Bund Deutscher Landschaftsarchitekten (BDLA) has fee guidance Design, Basic Books, 1985
and professional service guidance for its members on http://www. • Yeang, Ken, Designing with Nature: Ecological Basis for Architectural
bdla.de/seite95.htm Design, McGraw-Hill, 1994
• Nederlanse Vereniging voor Tuin en Landschaparchitectur (NVTL) — Ecodesign: A Manual for Ecological Design, John Wiley & Sons,
website http://www.nvtl.nl/service/beroepsondersteuning hosts 2008
the DNR or De Nieuwe Regeling: 2011, (literally the new rules) the – Ecomimicry: Ecological Design By Imitating Ecosystems,
standard Dutch form of professional agreement course in Dutch and Routledge, 2013
English. Chapter 3 case studies
• The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) refers its • Aphrodite Hill Resort, Cyprus
members, see http://www.aila.org.au/practicenotes/ to AS4122- http://www.aphroditehillsresortholidays.com/
2010, General Conditions of Contract for Engagement of • Hedeland Arena, nr Roskilde, Denmark
Consultants published by Standards Australia (ref. http://infostore. www.hedeland.dk/
saiglobal.com/store/details.aspx?ProductID=143930 • Waterfront and Market Place, Odda, Norway
• A consultancy agreement based on engineering practice is the www.blark.no/
Client-Consultant Agreement (White Book), fourth edition 2006, of
the International Federation of Civil Engineers (FIDIC)
Site survey Chapter 4 Representing the Landscape Design
• Beer, Anne R. & Higgins, Catherine, Environmental Planning for Site
Development, A Manual for Sustainable Local Planning and Design, Drawing and sketchbooks
E and FN Spon, 2000 • Campanario, Gabriel, The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing
• Ormsbee Simonds, John & Starke, Barry, Landscape Architecture: on Location Around the World, Quarry Books, 2012
A Manual for Land Planning and Design, McGraw-Hill, 2006 • King, Francis F.D., Drawing: A Creative Process, John Wiley
• Rubenstein, Harvey M., A Guide to Site Planning and Landscape & Sons, 1989
Construction, John Wiley & Sons, 1996 • Hutchison, Edward, Drawing for Landscape Architecture,
Chapter 2 case studies Sketch to Screen to Site, Thames & Hudson, 2011
• Westergasfabriek Park, Amsterdam, the Netherlands • Reid, Grant, Landscape Graphics, Watson-Guptill, 2002
http://www.westergasfabriek.nl/en/westergasfabriek-en/park • Sullivan, Chip, Drawing the Landscape John Wiley &
http://courses.umass.edu/latour/Netherlands/varro/index.html Sons, 2004

200
• Wang, Thomas C., Plan and Section Drawing, John Wiley How to Reach Any Audience Through Focussed Preparation,
& Sons, 1996 Inspired Delivery, and Smart Use of Technology, Wiley-Blackwell,
– Pencil Sketching, John Wiley & Sons, 2001 2003
• Weinschenk, Susan, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know
• http://gonzogardens.com/ About People: What Makes Them Tick?, New Riders, 2012
• http://www.urbansketchers.org
3-D modelling and video .
• Dunn, Nick, Architectural Modelmaking, Laurence King, 2010 Chapter 5 From Design Team to Long-term
• Speranza, Olivia, The Moviemaking with Your Camera Field Guide: Landscape Management
The Essential Guide to Shooting Video with HDSLRs and Digital
Cameras, Ilex, 2012 The stages of work
• The Landscape Institute stages of work are described in Landscape
• Chicago Architecture Today Institute Engaging a Landscape Consultant, Guidance for Clients on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47lD_XQ5ID8 Fees: 2002 available on
Photography http://www.landscapeinstitute.org/publications/download/Guidance
• Farrell, Ian, A Complete Guide to Digital Photography, Quercus, 2011 %20for%20Clients%20on%20Fees.pdf
• Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography, Lonely Planet • RIBA listing of stages is the Plan of Work (2007) downloadable from
Publications, 2012 http://www.architecture.com/UseAnArchitect/
GuidanceAndPublications/WorkWithAnArchitect.aspx
• http://photo.net/ includes Bob Atkins Digital Cameras – a Simple http://www.architecture.com/Files/
Beginner’s Guide, 2003 RIBAProfessionalServices/Practice/FrontlineLetters/
Digital design RIBAPlanofWork2013ConsultationDocument.pdf
• Bishop, Ian & Lange, Eckhart, Visualisation in Landscape and • http://www.ribabookshops.com/item/riba-outline-plan-of-work-
Environmental Planning: Technology & Environment, Taylor & 2007-including-corrigenda-issued-january-2009/100004/
Francis, 2005 Multi-disciplinary design teams, contracts
• Cantrell, Bradley & Michaels, Wes, Digital Drawing for Landscape • Chappel, David & Willis, Andrew, Architect in Practice, Wiley-
Architecture: Contemporary Techniques and Tools for Digital Blackwell, 2010
Representation in Site Design, John Wiley & Sons, 2010 (raster and • Lupton, Sarah, Cox, Stanley & Clamp, Hugh, Which Contract?,
vector images and Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat) RIBA Publishing, 2007
• Evening, Martin, Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers, a Costing a project
Professional Image Editor’s Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop • ASLA has resources on sources of finance for landscape projects,
for the Macintosh and PC, Focal Press, 2010 see Economic Models: Project Financing Resources ref. http://www.
• Tal, Daniel, Google SketchUp for Site Design: A Guide to Modeling asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=31832
Site Plans, Terrain and Architecture, John Wiley & Sons, 2009 • Davis Langdon Spon’s External Works and Landscape Price Guide
• — Rendering in SketchUp: From Modeling to Presentation for 2013 with similar guides on civil engineering and highways, on
Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Interior Design, John mechanical and electrical engineering and on architecture and
Wiley & Sons, 2013 building. The annual publication is supplemented by quarterly
updates available via their website.
• http://www.cadtutor.net/ (AutoCAD, 3ds Max, Photoshop and Bryce) • Estimating guides, for estimation in the initial stages of a project, for
Building Information Modelling (BIM) instance:
• Crotty, Ray, The Impact of Building Information Modelling: Spain, Bryan, Spon’s Estimating Costs Guide to Small Groundworks,
Transforming Construction, Routledge, 2011 Landscaping and Gardening, 2007
• The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) publishes the
• http://www.buildingsmart.org/ Building Cost Information Service (BICS) available at http://www.
Mapping, air photography, satellite imagery, GIS bcis.co.uk/site/scripts/home_info.aspx?homepageID=37
• Corner, James & MacLean, Alex S., Taking Measures Across the • CABE Space cost studies of parks include Making the Invisible
American Landscape, Yale University Press, 2000 Visible: the Real Value of Park Assets, 2009 available at http://
• Cosgrove, Denis, Mappings, Reaktion Books, 1999 webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110118095356/http:/www.
• Fawcett-Tang, Roger, Mapping: An Illustrated Guide to Graphic cabe.org.uk/publications/making-the-invisible-visible
Navigational Systems, Rotovision, 2005 Landscape management
• Barber, Alan, A Guide to Management Plans for Parks and Open
• The Professional Aerial Photographers Association (PAPA) has a brief Spaces (plus supplement), Institute of Leisure and Amenity
useful history and introduction on http://www.papainternational.org/ Management, 1991
• NASA websites: a general introduction http://earthobservatory.nasa. • Van Der Zanden, Ann-Marie, Sustainable Landscape Management:
gov/ Design, Construction, and Maintenance, John Wiley & Sons, 2011
• NASA crew observations http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov • Watkins, John & Wright, Thomas, The Management and
• Specialist NASA collections include the Cities Collection, Volcanoes Maintenance of Historic Parks, Gardens and Landscapes: The
and Glaciers and one on the Terra satellite, which monitors the English Heritage Handbook, Frances Lincoln, 2007.
Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, land, snow and ice, and energy budget
http://terra.nasa.gov/ • CABE Space A Guide to Producing Park and Green Space
• http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth Management Plans: 2004 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.
Report writing gov.uk/20110118095356/http:/www.cabe.org.uk/publications/
• Shaughnessy, Adrian, Graphic Design: A User’s Manual, Laurence producing-parks-and-green-space-management-plans
King, 2009 • A general introduction to cultural landscapes is http://www.english-
• Williams, Robin, Non-Designer’s Design Book, Peachpit Press, 2008 heritage.org.uk/professional/research/landscapes-and-areas/
protected-landscapes/
• The UK Design Council lists basic introductions to graphic design at • The US National Parks Service http://www.nps.gov/history/
http://www.yourcreativefuture.org.uk/graphic_design/graphic10. Chapter 5 case studies
htm# • London 2012 Olympic Park
Live presentations Hopkins, John C. & Neal, Peter, The Making of the Queen Elizabeth
• Burden, Ernet, Design Presentation: Techniques for Marketing and Olympic Park, John Wiley & Sons, 2012
Project Proposals, McGraw-Hill Inc., 1992 Olympic Delivery Authority (the archived website)
• Reimold, Cheryl & Peter, The Short Road to Great Presentations: http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/2012_olympic_games_

Bibliography 201
 and_paralympic_games/6467.aspx • United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Global
• The Parks Trust, Milton Keynes, UK Environment Forecast 5 (2012) http://www.unep.org/geo/geo5.asp
www.theparkstrust.com/ • International Monetary Fund (IMF) databases, include the World
• Dr Jac. P. Thijssepark, Amstelveen, the Netherlands Economic Outlook Database available by countries at
www.thijssepark.nl/ http://www.imf.org/external/
IMF eLibrary on http://elibrary-data.imf.org/

Chapter 6 Education and Employment Some challenges

Education websites The environment generally

• An introduction to landscape architecture as a career on the ASLA • US Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/
website: http://www.asla.org/CareerDiscovery.aspx Urban heat island effect: http://www.epa.gov/heatisld/
• Links to a whole series of chatrooms and blogs with public access. Water efficiency: http://www.epa.gov/watersense/outdoor/
http://www.asla.org/sustainablelandscapes/ landscaping_tips.html
• Promotion of landscape architecture generally • The European Union’s European Environment Agency website
http://www.asla.org/design/ http://www.eea.europa.eu/
• US schools of landscape architecture is less a basic introduction and more about policy implementation,
http://www.asla.org/Schools.aspx e.g. EEA climate change, see http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes
• Canadian, Australian and New Zealand schools Population growth
http://www.thecela.org/school-list.php • UN world population figures: http://www.un.org/esa/population/
• The (British) Landscape Institute’s website Includes future forecasts. figures on urbanization, and migration.
http://www.landscapeinstitute.org/careers/index.php • United Nations Human Settlements Programme, overview of
• http://www.iwanttobealandscapearchitect.com/ settlement figures:
• Dutch landscape architecture schools and the professional http://www.unhabitat.org/categories.asp?catid=9
body http://www.dutchschooloflandscapearchitecture.nl/en/ • Regarding unplanned and slums, refer to the film Dharavi, Slum for
• Links to other national European associations and their approved Sale (2010) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188984/
landscape architecture programmes • Slum Dwellers International http://www.sdinet.org/
http://europe.iflaonline.org/ • US-based international think tank:
• European Council of Landscape Schools (ECLAS) http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/
http://www.eclas.org/ • Largely governmental think tank which argues for slum upgrading:
• A list of national associations worldwide http://www.citiesalliance.org
http://www.iflaonline.org/ under Member Associations. • User network dealing with city living generally:
Internships http://urbz.net/about/
• http://europe.iflaonline.org/images/PDF/120715_landscape_ • City think tank with an insight into world-wide ideas about large city
internshipguide_rh.pdf management world-wide: http://www.citymayors.com
Setting up your own business Climate change
• Rogers, Walter, The Professional Practice of Landscape Architecture: • Helm, Dieter, The Carbon Crunch: How We’re Getting Climate
A Complete Guide to Starting and Running Your Own Firm, John Change Wrong – and How to Fix It, Yale University Press, 2012
Wiley & Sons, 2010 • Kemp, Martin (ed.), Zero Carbon Britain 2030, Centre for Alternative
Technology, 2010 supplemented by their website http://www.
• http://www.architecture-student.com/professional-practice/things- zerocarbonbritain.com/
to-do-before-setting-up-practice-in-architecture/ • Stern, Nicholas, A Blueprint for a Safer Planet: How to Manage
Chapter 6 case studies Climate Change and Create a New Era of Progress and Prosperity,
• Thames Landscape Strategy, UK Bodley Head, 2009.
Wilkie, Kim, Led by the Land: Landscapes by Kim Wilkie, Frances • Sullivan, Chip, Garden and Climate: Old World Techniques for
Lincoln, 2012 Landscape Design, McGraw-Hill, 2002
http://www.thames-landscape-strategy.org.uk/
http://www.londons-arcadia.org.uk/ • Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, H.M. Treasury,
http://www.kimwilkie.com/ 2006 was a study of climate change by the British economist
• Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, India Nicholas Stern, available in 12 languages apart from English and
The school website: http://www.dwls.org/ online at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.
Arup website: http://www.arup.com/Projects/Druk_White_Lotus_ hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_
School.aspx climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm
Podcast about the school: http://www.youtube.com/ • The Landscape Institute position statement is Landscape
watch?v=fPjaAcvqmpw Architecture and the Challenge of Climate Change: 2008 and
GardenVisit website page on the school with further hyperlinks to is downloadable from their website from
blogs and videos: http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/dragon_ http://www.landscapeinstitute.org/policy/ClimateChange.php
garden_dwls_druk_white_lotus_school • The ASLA web page on climate change has links to many other
websites and resources:
http://www.asla.org/climatechange.aspx
Chapter 7 The Future Resources and raw materials, sustainability, recycling and
everyday practice
A changing environment and forecasting • Berge, Bjørn, The Ecology of Building Materials, Architectural Press,
• British Ministry of Defence Global Strategic Trends out to 2040 2009
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/MicroSite/DCDC/ • Holden, Robert & Liversedge, Jamie, Construction for Landscape
OurPublications/StrategicTrends+Programme/ Architecture, Laurence King, 2012
• Dynkun, Alexander A. (ed), Strategic Global Outlook: 2030 Institute • Thompson, J. William & Sorvig, Kim, Sustainable Landscape
for World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) of the Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors, Island
Russian Academy of Sciences: 2011 Press, 2008
http://www.imemo.ru/en/publ/2011/forecasts/11001.pdf
• The US National Intelligence Council Global Trends 2030: An • The ASLA sustainability toolkit places such sustainability ideas
Alternative Future (2012) available at www.dni.gov/nic/globaltrends in a wider context, see http://www.asla.org/ContentDetail.
aspx?id=26992

202
Air: Natural Heritage Landscape Character Assessment Guidance,
• Calthorpe, Peter, Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change, Guidance for England and Wales: 2002.
Island Press, 2011 • There has, however, been much more interest among
• Gehl, Jan, Life Between Buildings, Using Public Space, Island landscape architecture in urban agriculture for instance the
Press, 2011 ASLA introduction The Edible City http://www.asla.org/
• Lombardi, D. Rachel, Leach, Joanne & Rogers, Chris, sustainablelandscapes/Vid_UrbanAg.html
Designing Resilient Cities: A Guide to Good Practice, IHS BRE • There is a page on urban forestry on the ASLA website
Press, 2012 http://www.asla.org/sustainablelandscapes/Vid_UrbanForests.
html
• Armour, Tom, Job, Mark & Canavan, Rory The Benefits of Biodiversity
Large Species Trees in Urban Landscapes: a Costing, Design • http://www.wwf.org/
and Management Guide C712 CIRIA: 2012 available at http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_
http://www.ciria.org/service/Web_Site/AM/ planet_report/
ContentManagerNet/ContentDisplay.aspx?Section=Web_ • http://www.oneplanetliving.org/index.html
Site&ContentID=22853 link doesn’t work • The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
• British Urban Futures research project offers conservation databases and action tools.
https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/urban-futures http://www.iucn.org/
Water • Most countries have their own specialist agencies and NGOs as
• Dreiseitl, Herbert, Recent Waterscapes: Planning, Building and well, such as:
Designing with Water, Birkhäuser GmbH, 2009 Natural England http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/
US Nature Conservancy http://www.nature.org/
• Dutch State National Water Plan 2009 Chapter 7 case studies
http://english.verkeerenwaterstaat.nl/english/topics/water/water_ • Dutch National Water Plan
and_the_future/national_water_plan/ http://english.verkeerenwaterstaat.nl/english/topics/water/water_
• The English Environment Agency website http://www. and_the_future/national_water_plan/
environment-agency.gov.uk/ has flood maps and publications This study was initiated by the Delta Commission of 2007–8
and case studies on coastal retreat (aka managed retreat). set up to report on the impact of sea level rise, so it is worth
• US Department of Agriculture, National Water Program, reviewing its advice http://www.deltacommissie.com/en/advies
http://www.usawaterquality.org/themes/watershed/research/ • Downing Roads Mooring, Shad Thames, London, UK
default.html http://www.savethemoorings.org.uk/
• The Construction Industry Research and Information Association Elaine Hughes’s own website is
(www.ciria.org ) publishes practical guides on issues such as http://elainehughes.co.uk/?page_id=647
SUDS (sustainable drainage systems) • Korail, Dhaka, Banglasdesh
http://www.ciria.org/service/content_by_themes/AM/ The Bangladeshi television ATN news report on the work of
ContentManagerNet/Default.aspx?Section=content_by_ landscape architect Khondaker Hasibul Kabir in the Korail
themes&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM7eSOJLJ1g
cfm&TPLID=19&ContentID=10559 Alex Davies Creating Public Green Space on a Lake in One of
Energy the World’s Densest Slums, 2012 at http://www.treehugger.com/
• Glasson, John, Therivel, Riki, & Chadwick, Andrew, A., urban-design/community-garden-lake-bangladesh-improves-
Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment, slum.html
Routledge, 2011
• North Holland Coastline Study, the Netherlands
• Landscape Institute & Institute of Environmental Management
http://www.arcadis.com/index.aspx
and Assessment, Guidelines for Landscape and Visual Impact
http://www.arcadis.nl/Pers/publicaties/Documents/10-1710%20
Assessment, Taylor & Francis, 2002
Flood%20protection%20and%20risk%20management%20
• MacKay, David J.C., Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air,
low%20res.pdf
UIT, 2009
Giardino, Alessio, Santinelli, Giorgio & Bruens, Ankie The State
of the Coast (Toestand van de kust) Case Study: North Holland,
• For an introduction to what current energy thinking involves for
Deltares, 2012 1206171-003 at
landscape planning scale refer to the Scottish Government site
http://repository.tudelft.nl/ downable from http://discover.
http://www.snh.gov.uk/protecting-scotlands-nature/looking-after-
tudelft.nl:8888/recordview/view?recordId=HYDRO%3Ao
landscapes/landscape-policy-and-guidance/landscape-planning-
ai%3Atudelft.nl%3Auuid%3A74695605-a373-4667-8942-
and-development/landscape-and-energy/
796251e955d7&language=en
Food and greening
• Warren, John, Lawson, Clare & Belcher, Kenneth, The
Agri-Environment: Theory and Practice of Managing the
Environmental Impacts of Agriculture, Cambridge University The World Wide Web changes and websites go out of use. You may
Press, 2007 find some websites that are no longer directly accessible by looking
• Westmacott, Richard & Worthington, Tom, Agricultural on the Wayback Archive http://web.archive.org/
Landscapes: A Third Look, Countryside Agency, 1997
A longer version of this bibliography appears online.
• The Desert Restoration Hub initiated by Greenwich-based
landscape architect, Dr Benz Kotzen, addresses the issues of
arid lands and combating desertification
http://desertrestorationhub.com/
• For a world-wide overview refer to the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation http://www.fao.org/index_en.htm

• One area where landscape architects have taken an interest, is

the relatively passive process of Landscape Character Assessment
and the UK government agency Natural England has a useful
webpage on this at http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/
landscape/englands/character/assessment/default.aspx where
one can download the Countryside Agency and Scottish

Bibliography 203
 Columbian World Exposition, Chicago, USA (1893, Olmsted) 26, 27

Index the commons 65, 98

Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK 99
computer-aided design (CAD) 96, 123, 124, 130, 131
concrete 44, 52, 74, 103, 104, 106, 143, 152, 192, 193
conservation 12, 13, 28, 32, 34, 166
Conwentz, Hugo 32
Page references in italics refer to captions Copley Square, Boston, USA (Sasaki, Dawson and DeMay) 94
Corajoud, Michel 40, 41
Acropolis, Athens, Greece 20 Córdoba, Spain 78, 89, 99
AECOM 27, 136 Corner, James 40
Africa 29, 160, 168, 173, 174, 180, 184 Cornwall Historic Landscape Character Zones Map 34
air photography 122, 123, 125 corporate clients 10, 64, 65
Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain 20, 81 courtyards 20, 78, 81, 116–17
Alma Grove, London 181 cultural landscapes 9, 15, 16, 32, 40, 166
Almas Tower, Dubai 10
Alphand, Jean-Charles-Adolphe 24, 25 D. Paysage offices, Paris 13
American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) 15, 26, 158, 160 Daisen-in Temple, Kyoto, Japan 101
Aphrodite Hills Resort, Cyprus 9, 14, 86–7, 130–1 Demars, Vernon 27
Arad, Michael 17 Denmark 36, 85, 177, 184, 188
Arcadis 190 design principles
Arlington Business Park, Theale, UK 93 colour 14, 59, 62, 101, 102, 103
Asia 20, 52, 160, 174, 180, 184 form 82, 83, 94, 101, 102
Asplund, Erik Gunnar 38 hierarchy of elements 91–2, 93
Australasia 29, 160, 168, 174 horizontal structures 88, 89, 96 see also paving; roads
Avery Hill Park, London 126 human flow 9, 106
Aztec West business park, Bristol 92, 93 human scale 91, 94
landforms 73, 82, 88, 90, 104 see also earthworks and mounds
Bank of China, Hong Kong 57, 60 linearity 38, 40, 91, 96, 97
Barcelona Botanic Gardens, Spain (Figueras) 14, 38 masterplanning 27, 30, 52, 70, 88, 93, 99, 136, 180
Barth, Edwin 28 natural change 50, 52, 59, 101, 103, 106, 116
Bijhouwer, Professor Jan T.P. 28 organisational structures 85, 88, 91, 92, 93, 116
biodiversity conservation 50–3, 83, 128, 147, 174, 180, 184, 188 site planning 78, 78–83, 84, 86, 88
biomorphism 27, 96, 101 symmetry/asymmetry 20, 23, 27, 38, 91–2, 99, 104
Birkenhead Park, Liverpool, UK (Paxton) 24, 25 texture 101, 102, 103
Bjørbekk & Lindheim 108–9 vegetation 72, 78, 88, 89, 90, 91 see also plants and planting
Boulevard Henri IV, Paris 195 vertical structures 88, 89, 91, 96, 99, 116 see also bridges; walls
Bridgeman, Charles 19 water bodies 88, 89, 90 see also water features
bridges 30, 31, 43, 66, 86, 88, 136, 152, 153, 193 design process
the brief 17, 58, 60, 66, 69, 78, 134, 140 approaches 80, 84, 85
Broerse, C.P. 152 development 78–85
Brown, Simon 170 inspiration 78, 83, 85, 112, 116
Building Information Modelling (BIM) 124, 165 pre-design work 58–64
Bund Deutscher Landschaftsarchitekten (BDLA) 16, 28 skills required 12, 13, 14, 15, 59, 62, 83
The Bur Juman Centre, Dubai 12 design representation
Burford, Janie 30 blogs 112
Burj Khalifa, Dubai 94 digital design 83, 96, 119, 123–4, 126, 130, 131
Burnham, Daniel Hudson 26 drawing 83, 96, 112–15, 116, 118, 123, 130–1
business parks 44, 45, 68, 77, 78, 92, 93, 141, 150 mapping 35, 53, 125–6, 127, 179
photography 112, 114, 119, 122, 125
Cadair Idris, Snowdonia National Park, Wales 33 presentations 112, 123, 129, 130, 131
Calouste Gulbenkian Trust park, Lisbon report writing 13, 128
(Ribeiro Telles and Viana Barreiro) 65 sketching and sketchbooks 88, 112–15
Canada 158, 160, 168 3D models 83, 111, 119–21, 123, 124, 129
Canary Wharf, Docklands, London 65, 150 video 119, 123
Canberra masterplan, Australia (Griffin) 99 Dobson, John 96
cars and car use 78, 86, 92, 94, 188 Donnell Garden, Sonoma County, California, USA (Church and Halprin) 96
Central Park, New York (Olmsted and Vaux) 24, 25, 65, 70–1 Douro Valley, Portugal 34
Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), Machynlleth, Wales 144, 146, 189 Dr Jac. P. Thijsseepark, Amstelveen, the Netherlands (Broerse) 14, 16, 28,
The Centurion golf course, St. Albans, UK 90 152–3
change orders 69, 140 drainage 12, 54, 60, 66, 72, 180, 182, 188, 195
charities as clients 10, 30, 65, 70, 144, 148, 170 Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, India 170–1
Château de Villandry, Loire, France 22 Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark, Germany (Latz + Partner) 40, 43, 44, 45,
China 78, 144, 146
environmental issues 52, 174, 177, 180, 184, 185, 188 Dunnett, Nigel 136
landscape architecture 20, 29, 52, 96 Dutch National Water Plan 178–9
training in landscape architecture 160, 164, 180
Church, Thomas 96, 99 Earth Centre, Doncaster, UK 144, 146
city planning 10, 16, 36, 40, 92, 94, 96 see also New Towns earthworks and mounds 58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 90, 104
Clark, Galen 32 East-West Axis, Berlin (Speer) 96
Clarke, Gilmore D. 27 Eckbo, Garrett (EDAW) 27, 38, 99, 136
climate change 51, 65, 174, 177, 184, 185, 188, 190, 195 ecological footprint 184, 185
coastal areas and landscapes 47, 178, 184, 185, 188, 190–1 ecological issues 8, 13, 14, 16, 44, 46–52, 53, 184, 185

204
EDAW 27, 136 Hedeland Arena, Roskilde, Denmark 64, 104–5
Emerald Necklace, Boston, US (Olmsted and Olmsted) 24, 26 hedges 14, 75, 89, 91, 93, 101, 102, 103, 182
Emscher Park, Ruhr Valley, Germany 44–5, 77, 141 Helmantel, Jasper 193
engineering and landscape architecture 10, 16, 38, 58, 92, 138 Hicks, Philip 91
Environmental Assessment 8, 52, 83, 126, 188 The High Line urban park, New York (Corner) 9, 40, 41, 64
environmental issues 8, 10, 26, 28, 44, 52, 86, 141, 173, 174–93 Highcross Quarter, Leicester, UK 10
Erin Business Park, Castrop-Rauxel, Germany 44, 45, 77 Hilliers Tree Nursery, Hampshire, UK 59, 162
EuroDisneyland theme park, Paris 60, 62, 68 Hitchmough, James 136
Europe 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 34, 160, 168, 174, 177, 180 see also Hoge Veluwe National Park, near Arnhem, the Netherlands 51
specific countries Hong Kong 26–7, 168
European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS) 158, Hope Cement Works and Quarry, Derbyshire, UK 13
160, 169 Horniman Museum, London 189
European Federation of Landscape Architecture (EFLA) 29, 160, 169 Hotel Riu Garopa, Sal, Cape Verde 14
Exhibition Road, London 89, 97 housing, Jonkoping, Sweden 36
Hughes, Elaine 182
Figueras, Bet 38 Humboldt, Alexander von 32
Fishbourne Roman Palace Gardens, Sussex, UK 20
Floating Gardens, Shad Thames, London 10, 182–3 Ijsselmeerpolders, the Netherlands 54–5
flooding and flood protection 44, 166, 174, 177, 178, 184, 190, 191 Ile-de-France Masterplan, France 34
forestry 30, 54, 65, 69, 86, 144, 150, 158 Ilha Deserta, Parque Natural da Ria Formosa Faro, Portugal 48, 175
forests 8, 28, 36, 48, 50, 51, 54, 148, 180 India 29, 52, 160, 164, 174, 184, 185
Foster and Partners 94 Insel Hombroich Wetlands, Germany 47, 51
France 16, 24, 34, 144, 161, 168, 173, 193 International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) 15, 29, 158, 169
Istanbul Technical University 161
garden cities 36 Italy 158, 168
garden design 8, 20, 23, 26, 92, 96 see also parks
garden festivals 52, 144, 147 Japan 20, 85, 97, 101, 103, 174, 180, 184
Garden of Australia Dreams, Canberra, Australia (Weller and Sitta) 38 Jardin Atlantique, Paris 101
Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Portrack House, Dumfries, Scotland 99 Jardin d’Eole, Cour du Maroc, Paris (Courajoud) 40, 41
Gare d’Eaux, Lille, France 129 Le Jardin des Géants, Lille, France 14, 62
Gare St Sauveur Esquisse, Lille, France 129 Jardin Juan Miró, Paris 64
Geddes, Patrick 28 Jellicoe, Sir Geoffrey 13, 29, 38, 85
Gehl, Jan 92, 106 Jencks, Charles 99
Genius Loci 15, 78, 81, 82, 85, 86, 166 Jobse, Gertjan (Arcadis) 190
Genplan, Moscow, Russia 28, 36, 37 Jubilee Gardens, London 90, 97
Geometric Gardens, Herning, West Jutland, Denmark (Sørensen) 99
Germany Kabir, Khondaker Hasibul 184
city planning 36, 37 Kapoor, Anish (Orbit sculpture) 137
conservation 32, 34 Kent, William 19, 85
garden festivals 52 Kersalé, Yann 60
landscape architecture 16, 24, 27, 34, 144 Kiley, Daniel 27, 38, 91, 99
motorway design 27, 28 King’s College, Cambridge, UK 81
national parks 32 Korail, Dhaka, Bangladesh 184, 186–7
training in landscape architecture 28, 158, 160, 168 Kröller-Müller Museum, Arnhem, the Netherlands 28
Geuze, Adriaan (West 8) 42
GIS (geographic information systems) 83, 123, 126 La Défense, Paris 10, 74, 91, 94, 101, 180
Gorbitz-Kräutersiedlung, Dresden, Germany 12, 180 Lacey, Nicholas 182, 183
governments as clients 10, 30, 44, 64, 65, 74, 136, 147, 165, 166 Lakeshore East Park, Chicago, USA 144
GPS (Global Positioning Systems) 125 land reclamation 34, 44–5, 54–5, 146
La Grande Arche, La Défense, Paris 94 landscape, defined 13
Grand Axe, Paris 10, 81, 91 landscape architects
Grebbeberg, the Netherlands 78, 156 client types 10, 64, 65, 66
green belts 36, 37 education and training 26, 28, 52, 156–61, 162
‘Green Finger Plan,’ Copenhagen, Denmark 36, 37 expenses 68, 69
green roofs and walls 101, 144, 180, 188, 189, 195 fees 60, 68–9, 134, 142
The Greens, Dubai 90 internships 163
Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (Dobson) 96 jobs, applying for 163
Griffin, Walter Burley 99 plants, understanding 12, 13, 16, 62, 162
Groupe Signes 74–5 portfolios 156, 157
Gruffydd, John St. Bodfan 158 practices, types of 10, 38, 163
GrünGürtel, Frankfurt, Germany 36, 37 professional status 16, 26–9, 168
Guilin, China 47, 78 role 10, 58
Gunung Pulai Forest, Johor, Malaysia 47 salary prospects 10
Gustafson Porter 66–7 setting up and marketing a business 164, 165
skills required 12, 13, 14, 15, 59, 62, 83, 128, 159
habitats and habitat conservation 34, 47–8, 50, 72, 116, 147, 152, technical knowledge 12, 13, 14, 16, 59
180, 184, 188 understanding the landscape 15, 16
Hadlow College, Kent, UK 14, 101, 155 work experience 156, 163
Halprin, Lawrence 27, 85 landscape architecture
Hamilton, Charles 30 defining 8, 15–16, 52
Hancock Tower, Boston, USA (I.M. Pei & Partners) 94 in history 13, 20–9, 36–41, 46, 96, 174
Hargreaves Associates 136 scale 8, 81, 91–2, 94, 99, 106
‘Harvard Three’ (‘Harvard Revolution’) 27 scientific approach 38

Index 205
 styles 38–43 Oudolf, Piet 90
university courses 26, 28, 65, 156, 158, 161, 163
see also landscape planning Painshill Park, Chobham, Surrey, UK (Hamilton and Burford) 12, 30–1,
landscape gardens and gardening 19, 23, 24, 30, 65, 85, 96, 101, 174 65, 78
Landscape Institute 10, 16, 28, 69, 134, 168 Parc André Citroën, Paris 103
landscape management 8, 15, 16, 126, 147–52, 153 Parc Citroën-Cévennes, Paris (Provost) 6, 10, 74, 96, 97, 144, 156
landscape planning 8, 15, 32, 34, 52 Parc de Bercy, Paris 74, 144
Latz + Partner 40, 43, 44 Parc de Cergy-Pontoise, France 74
LDA Design 136 Parc de La Villette, Paris 40, 41, 59, 91, 144, 147
Le Nôtre, André 96, 97 Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Paris (Alphand) 25
legislation 9, 26–7, 28, 29, 34, 36, 52, 168, 184 Parc des Cornailles, Paris 62
Lely, Cornelis 34 Parc Diagonal Mar, Barcelona, Spain 144
Lenné, Peter Josef 24 Parc Diderot, La Défense, Paris (Provost) 10, 74, 101
Lewerentz, Sigurd 38 Parc Güell, Barcelona 89
lighting 58, 59, 60, 64, 68, 86 Park Klosterberg, Magdeburg, Germany (Lenné) 24
Lille School of Architecture and Landscape 161 parks
‘Linear experiences’ wire model 111 facilities 66, 141, 144
Lipton, Stuart 68 as green space 36, 44, 91
Liverpool International Garden Festival (1984) 52 in history 20, 24, 26, 28, 52, 96
Liverpool One Development, Liverpool, UK 12, 14, 62, 78, 81 management and maintenance 68, 74, 141, 144, 147, 148, 150, 152,
London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) 68, 74, 147 153, 184
London Green Belt 36, 37 national parks 26, 27, 32, 34, 52
London 2012 Olympic Park 10, 133, 136–7, 147 project costs 141–6, 147, 148
Lutyens, Edwin 96 public (municipal) parks 10, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 52, 92, 141–6
see also business parks; named parks
maps and mapping techniques 35, 52, 53, 83, 123, 125–6, 127, 179 Patel Taylor 74–5
marketplace and waterfront, Odda, Norway (Bjørbekk & Lindheim) 108–9 paths 38, 58, 60, 97, 99, 101, 108, 152
Mawson, Thomas 28, 92 Patio de los Arrayanes, Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain 81
McHarg, Ian 83, 126 paving and pavements 60, 89, 97, 101, 103, 108, 135, 192, 193, 195
Mehdi Garden, Hadlow College, Kent, UK 14, 101 Paxton, Joseph 24, 25
Mémorial des Martyrs et de la Déportation, Notre Dame, Paris 81, 94 peat bogs and planting 14, 16, 152, 153
Mezquita, Córdoba, Spain 78, 99 I.M. Pei & Partners 94
Middle East 10, 29, 160, 164 Philadelphia Declaration (1966) 174, 194
Mies van der Rohe pavilion, Barcelona, Spain 89 Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline, Scotland 28
Millennium Park, Chicago, US 144 plants and planting
Milton Keynes, UK 92, 93, 148–9 colour 14, 59, 62, 101, 102, 103
Modernism 27, 28, 38, 74, 91, 94, 99 containers 182
More London office development, London (Townshend) 12, 14, 40, 41 meadows and prairies 62, 74
motorways see roads seasonal planting 59, 62, 101, 102, 116
multi-disciplinary design teams 10, 27, 136–7, 138, 139, 140, 190–1 texture 101, 102, 103
Musée du Quai Branly, Paris (Kersalé) 60 wetland planting 12, 14, 54
see also named types of plants
Nant Cymdu, Aberdraw, Wales 82 politics 9, 15, 26–7, 28, 50, 52, 66, 150
Nash, John 96, 141 pools 66, 81, 99, 101, 152
Nasrid Palaces, Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain 20 reflection pools 60, 89, 97, 99, 101
National Gallery, London 106 swimming pools 64, 86, 130, 131
National Trust 10, 30, 32, 150 population growth 29, 36, 51, 52, 164, 174, 177, 180, 184, 185
natural catastrophes 184–5, 188 Port Sunlight, Merseyside, UK 36
the Netherlands post-industrial landscape development 40, 44–5, 47, 66–7, 74–5, 78,
city planning 180 104–5, 144
land reclamation 34, 54–5 Postmodernism 38, 42–3
landscape architecture 34, 85, 92 Potters Fields, London 90
national water policy 177, 178, 179 Price, Sarah 136
parks 14, 16, 28, 150, 152 private clients 65
training in landscape architecture 158, 163 private-sector as clients 64, 65, 66, 150
New Delhi, India (Lutyens) 96 projects
New Towns 26–7, 38, 52, 65, 148, 158 community relationships 10, 38, 65, 66, 70, 83, 85, 108–9, 148
NGOs (non government organizations) as clients 30, 64, 65 see also completion 135, 147
charities maintenance 60, 68, 70, 74, 141, 147, 148, 150, 184
9/11 Plaza water feature, New York (Arad and Walker) 17 ongoing management 68, 70, 88, 147
Noguchi, Isamu 119 costing projects 68, 138, 141–6
North America 23, 24, 26, 29, 32, 158, 160, 163, 174, 180 see also Canada; capital costs 60, 68, 135, 138, 141, 142
United States fees 13, 60, 68–9, 134, 138, 142
North Holland coastline, the Netherlands 190–1 maintenance and management costs 68, 70, 141, 142, 144, 147,
148, 150
Olin 165 stage payments 69
Olmsted, Frederick Law 24, 26, 27, 52, 70 monitoring 58, 60, 135
Olmsted, John Charles 24 pre-design work
OMA (Office of Metropolitan Architecture) 40 the brief 17, 58, 60, 66, 69, 78, 134, 140
Oostelijk Flevoland, the Netherlands 96 responsibilities 60, 68
open space development 8, 10, 12, 78, 92, 147, 148, 184 site planning 78–83, 84, 86, 88
see also public spaces site surveys 17, 72, 73, 78, 81, 83
Ordnance Survey mapping 53, 125, 126 timetables 68, 141

206
programme of work 68, 69, 135, 140, 141 see also forests; woodlands
project management 68, 138 Tschumi, Bernard 91
stages of work 58, 60, 69, 134–5, 147
Promenade Plantée, Paris (Vergely) 40 UNESCO Building, Paris 89, 193
Provost, Alain (Groupe Signes) 74, 144 United Kingdom
public-sector as clients 75, 150 city planning 36, 52
public spaces 8, 9, 38, 48, 78, 81, 93, 147, 150, 193 see also urban design environmental issues 185, 192
landscape architecture 15, 16, 28, 52
recycling 86, 186, 188, 192, 193 national parks 32
reflection pool, Town Center Park, Costa Mesa, California (Walker) 60 parks 144
regeneration projects 44–5, 52, 136–7 training in landscape architecture 158, 164, 168
Regent Street and Park, London (Nash) 96, 141, 150 United States
Renaissance garden design 23, 81, 92, 96 conservation and protectionism 32, 52
Repton, Humphry 24, 96 ecological issues 184, 185
restoration projects 30–1, 51, 70, 147 landscape architecture 15, 16, 24, 26, 58, 144
Ribeiro Telles, Gonçalo 65 national parks 27, 32
Riemer Park, Munich, Germany 144 roads and motorways 27
Rio Manzanares, Madrid (West 8) 42, 43 training in landscape architecture 158, 160, 163, 164, 168
roads and motorways 12, 27, 28, 58, 60, 89, 93, 188 Unwin, Sir Raymond 36
Rodin Museum, Paris 101 urban design 8, 10, 40, 52, 83, 85, 150, 184 see also city planning
Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow 70 urbanization 180, 184, 188
Roman garden design 20, 23 urbanism and anti-urbanism 40, 92, 93, 149
roof gardens 50, 89, 91, 104, 182, 184, 188, 189 see also green roofs
Room 4.1.3 38 Vallejo defense housing project, California, USA (Demars and Eckbo) 27
Rose, James C. 27, 38, 99 Van Gessel, Michael 60
Rotorua geothermal lakes, New Zealand 47 Vaux, Calvert 24, 70
Rotten Row Gardens, Glasgow, UK 144 Vaux, Downing 26
Rousham, Oxfordshire, UK 97 Vaux-le-Vicomte, Ile de France, France 97
Royal Avenue, Chelsea, London 195 Venlo Floriade 2012, the Netherlands 10, 14, 59, 60, 62, 90, 97, 103, 189,
Rue Faidherbe, Lille, France 12 193, 195
Russia 16, 23, 28, 36, 85, 158, 160, 164 Vergely, Jacques 40
Ruys, Mien 28 Versailles, Paris 89, 106
Viana Barreiro, António 65
Sangam Nagar slums, Antop Hill, Mumbai, India 176 Vik, Rune 108
Sasaki, Dawson and DeMay 94 villa gardens, Aphrodite Hills Resort, Cyprus 14, 130–1
satellite imagery 55, 123, 125, 126
School courtyard, London 116–17 Walker, Peter 17, 60
Schouwburplain, Rotterdam, the Netherlands 89 walls 88, 91, 99, 101, 106, 108, 170, 193 see also green roofs and walls
The Scoop, City Hall, London (Foster and Partners) 94 water features 17, 58, 60, 86, 93, 108
sculpture museum, Kröller-Müller Museum, Arnhem, the Netherlands 28 fountains 23, 68, 89, 108, 141
Seifert, Alwin 28 lakes 15, 25, 26, 30, 47, 60, 64, 68, 71, 149
The Serpentine pavilion, London 94 natural 47, 54, 81, 104, 186
Sha Tin Town Park, Hong Kong 29 rills 12, 23, 97
Shanglin garden, Xianyang, China 20 waterfalls and cascades 66, 81, 86, 89
Shepheard, Peter 38 see also pools; wetlands
Sinai Desert shelter, Egypt 78 Water Gardens, London (Hicks) 91
Sissinghurst, Kent, UK 92, 93 water quality issues 43, 44, 66, 177, 178
Sitta, Vladimir (Room 4.1.3) 38 water supply issues 44, 86, 150, 170, 174, 177, 180, 188
Somerset House fountain court, London 89 Weller, Richard 38
Sørensen, C. Th. 99 West 8 42, 43
South America 160, 164, 174, 180, 184 Westergasfabriek Park, Amsterdam (Gustafson Porter) 12, 66–7, 144
South Bank, London 9, 106 wetlands and wetland planting 12, 47, 51, 54, 66, 133, 137
Spain 16, 168, 173 see also peat bogs
Speer, Albert 96 Whyte, William H. 119
Square Jean XXIII, Notre Dame, Paris 106 Wiepking-Jürgensmann, Heinrich 28
stewardship 15, 32, 50, 65, 148, 194 Wilde Weelde garden, Venlo Floriade 2012, (Helmantel)
Stockholm Woodland Crematorium, Sweden (Asplund and Lewerentz) 38 the Netherlands 193
Stockley Park, London (Lipton) 68 Wilkie, Kim 166
Stowe Gardens, Buckinghamshire, UK (Bridgeman and Kent) 19 woodlands 28, 36, 50, 72, 104, 148, 152, 170, 184 see also forests
Strøget, Copenhagen, Denmark (Gehl) 92
sustainability issues 46, 51–2, 86, 150, 170–1, 174, 175, 180, 184, 192 Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA 32
Switzerland 158, 184 Yosemite National Park, United States 26, 32, 33, 52
Youngman, Peter 38
Thames Barrier Park, London (Patel Taylor/Groupe Signes) 68, 74–5, 144,
146, 147 Zabeel Park, Dubai 89
Thames Landscape Strategy (Wilkie) 166–7 Zoetermeer Floriade Landscape Masterplan, the Netherlands 10
Thijsse, Jacobus Pieter 28, 152 ZVT (Zone of Theoretical Visibility) analysis 52, 53, 126
Tower Place, London 10
Town Center Park, Costa Mesa, California 60
Townshend, Peter 40, 41
Trafalgar Square, London 106, 195
transport 9, 32, 36, 72, 106, 141, 147, 188 see also cars
trees and tree planting 14, 30, 38, 54, 62, 74, 108, 180, 181, 188, 195

Index 207
Picture Credits
Apart from those images listed below, all photographs are by the authors;
all line drawings are by Jamie Liversedge.

8a Mary Hooper; 11d Crown Copyright http://goc2012.culture.gov.uk/

flickr/olympic-park-aerial-photo/ re-use of this information resource
should be sent to e-mail:[email protected]; 11e Aero Camera
Hofmeester; 13b D.Paysage; 17b Paddy Clarke; 22a British Library/Robana
via Getty Images; 25a Paddy Clarke; 26a Frances Benjamin Johnson
Collection, Library of Congress. source http://www.loc.gov/pictures/
item/92501035/; 27b Courtesy of the Westchester County Archives; 27c
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection,
reproduction no. LC-USF34-072401-D; 32b Thinkstock; 33b National
Park Service; 35b Région Ile-de-France; 35c Cornwall Council; 36a RIBA
Library Photographs Collection; 38a Getty Images; 39c Room 4.1.3; 40b
OMA/ Architecture d’Aujourhui; 41D Paddy Clarke; 41e Mary Hooper; 41f
Mary Hooper; 41g Paddy Clarke; 41h Mary Hooper; 42a West 8 Urban
Design & Landscape Architecture; 42b West 8 Urban Design & Landscape
Architecture; 42c Municipality of Madrid; 53a and b David Watson; 55a
NASA; 55b NASA; 55c NASA; 55d Istock/cgnznt144; 55e Ministerie van
Verkeer en Waterstaat, Rijksdienst voor de IJsselmeerpolders; 64a Mary
Hooper; 67b Gustafson Porter; 70a Paddy Clarke; 71b Mary Hooper;
71c–e Paddy Clarke; 87f Lanitis Development Ltd.; 90c The Centurion
Club Ltd., St.Albans; 91a Bernard Tschumi; 92b and c Marian Boswall;
93g Clouston; 99c Christopher C. Benson/ KAP Cris; 108–09 All images
Bjorbekk & Lindheim AS Landscape Architects; 117 All images Gollifer
Langston Architects; 122 Both images David Watson; 125 European Space
Agency, Galileo; 126 All images Shelley Mosco; 127 Both images David
Watson; 135 D. Paysage; 136a Paddy Clarke; 137b and c Peter Neale;
137d Sue Willmott; 137e London Legacy Development Corporation;
145b Grant Associates; 146c Grant Associates; 165 Olin/ Sahar Coston-
Hardy; 167 All images Kim Wilkie; 171 All images Simon Drury Brown;
172 NASA Earth Observation mission 30 satellite crew photograph; 177
Istock (photographer Joseph Nickischer); 178–79 All images Dutch
Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment (Ministerie van Infrastructuur
en Milieu); 186–87 All images Khondaker Hasibul Kabir; 190–91 Arcadis/
Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier/ beeldbank.rws.nl
Rijkswaterstaat, the Netherlands.

Jacket image: High Line Park, Manhattan, © Cameron Davidson/Corbis

Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the patient support, and help and of our
main editor, Peter Jones; our initial editor Liz Faber; our book designer
Michael Lenz; and Philip Cooper, editorial director at Laurence King, who
commissioned us.

This book is dedicated to the Landscape Architecture students at the

University of Greenwich who have inspired and provoked us over
three decades.

208