Professional Landscape Architecture Dr B Snaith CMLI, G Woodfall CMLI, Magda Pelka, Rich Peckham ASLA
Our Professional Landscape Architecture programmes span practice and research. We are firmly grounded in the complex social and environmental issues that inform professional landscape practice each day. This year we asked our students to consider the meaning of “Space & Democracy” in the changing landscape on our doorstep - whose voices and values should be represented in the contested spaces of Custom House and the Royal Docks. We were inspired by the Mayor of London’s move for the town hall from Tower Bridge to the Crystal at Royal Victoria Dock; by the community action of the People’s Empowerment Alliance for Custom House (PEACH); by local history of diversity and activism represented by figures like the Lascar seamen, or Daisy Parsons, and by tragedies like the Ronan Point disaster. The work was situated in a time of unprecedented social crisis, profound political disagreements within the UK, Europe and beyond, global protest for recognition that Black Lives Matter, and increasing evidence of climate emergency. This year we combined in-person and on- line working, with communities and practitioners, continuing our ethos of working on live projects with real clients, seeking to make positive change in the environment while we learn. In design studio term one, after developing ideas for changing landscapes at the Crystal, we met with PEACH, and residents of Custom House, working in teams to engage with local people and develop resident inspired interventions, actions they felt could improve their experience of daily life in Custom House.
SPACE & DEMOCRACY / CUSTOM HOUSE
In term 2 we undertook area-wide mapping, of physical, environmental and emotional aspects of place and time, and explored local stories, weaving these strands together to inform our major projects for the year - future visions for public parks in Custom House 2030-2075. In theoretical studies, Masters year students explored landscapes for foraging, and carbon capture, challenges of professional contexts, urban and environmental theory. Conversion year students critically explored major London schemes like Kings Cross, and the Olympic Park, interrogated contested meanings in international projects including Chattanooga Renaissance Park, and Barangaroo, and made technical studies of planting design, and construction. The student’s learning was supported by visiting professionals, through talks, reviews, mentoring, and this year a Virtual Study Tour, which took us from Morecambe Bay to Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport, from an edible bus stop in Brixton, to a roof top garden in the City, from Dungeness to Washington DC, and from Venezuela to the Home of 2030. The student work illustrated here is selected from our MA, MA (Conversion) and PG Dip Professional Landscape Architecture programmes this year.
“Superiority? Inferiority? Why not simply try to touch the other, feel the other, discover each other?” Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks 1952
