Past Perfect

Days after the Commonwealth Games, Jane Findlay (JF), Sue Illman (SI) and Kathryn Moore (KM), all past presidents of the Landscape Institute, met in Birmingham to discuss landscape, life and the future of the profession. Their conversation was recorded by Paul Lincoln.

"How did you become a landscape architect?"

Jane Findlay (JF)

I was inspired by Dame Sylvia Crowe through someone I knew at the Forestry Commission. Although he didn’t suggest going into forestry – he thought it wasn’t a career for a woman – he suggested that I should become a landscape architect mentioning Sylvia Crowe, who worked for the Forestry Commission designing forests and large-scale landscapes. This ticked all my boxes with its combination of arts and science. I was lucky to come across landscape architecture before completing my A-Levels. I went to Leeds where I met my husband Phil who is also a Landscape Architect. He found a job in Birmingham, and I followed him to the city where I started with Percy Thomas Partnership, a large architectural practice, working on projects healthcare projects and schemes that were the catalyst for the regeneration of Birmingham.

Sue Illman (SI)

When I left school, I had a place at university to study law, but had second thoughts and decided against it. I studied accountancy for three years, which, as I was good at maths, was OK, but I became bored by it. So, one day I went to a careers office and picked up a leaflet on landscape architecture. And I just thought, ‘that’s everything I want to do.’ It was towards the end of September, I called the university in Cheltenham on a Monday, went for an interview on the Tuesday, was accepted on the Wednesday and I started the following Monday, joining in week six of the course. I’ve never looked back.

Kathryn Moore (KM)

I had never heard of landscape architecture. What inspired me was being driven back from Manchester University one day by my father. We were on the A449, which is an exceptionally beautiful road and the landscape around it is extraordinary. I thought I want to do something with landscape. I had been planning to do a course in geography after completing a foundation course in art and design, but I found a leaflet that said if you're interested in art and you like geography, then landscape architecture may be the career for you. This led to me doing the master’s course in Manchester University.

3. Jane Findlay, Sue Illman and Kathryn Moore. © Paul Lincoln

"How has the profession developed during your time as a landscape architect?"

JF

It’s changed profoundly since I started my degree at Leeds Polytechnic. In the early years of my career, we often worked ‘for architects’, there were fewer landscape-led schemes and there were some master planning projects – we didn’t work as strategically as we do now. Information technology has completely transformed our world and the way that we work especially how we collaborate with other construction professionals. We’re also gaining the credibility that we’ve often looked for. I think we do have something important to offer that wasn’t recognised in the past. We are perhaps ‘a shade-loving species’ [Gustafson] as we rarely promote our work and talk about what we can do and how great an impact we could have, but I think our time is now. It’s not just about climate emergency, it’s about our existence, our health and wellbeing. If we don’t look after the planet, we’re not looking after ourselves. There is a danger that people think of themselves outside of the ecosystem, that the natural world just carries on without us. If we’re going to be healthy and comfortable, we have to look after our planet, our reserves, our natural resources. None of this can be ignored anymore.

SI

2. Sue Illman in her fern garden.

When I first started, we were very much second-class professionals, asked to fill in spaces around buildings once the architecture had been designed. Today, a landscape-led approach is normal, and we rightfully have our place at the table. The majority of developers and their design teams understand and respect our approach these days. Now, we are generally allowed the broadest of scopes where its required. However, we still have a job to do in terms of selling our full skill set and helping the client to understand how much more they can get out of each of their projects, if they allow us the scope to show what we can do.

KM

Practice is expanding beyond the purely technical. We recognise that working with the processes of nature and addressing climate the emergency are now givens in any kind of practice. We recognise that whether our practice is primarily concerned with ecological design, SuDS, urban design or planning, developing policy, or landscape management or any other mode of practice, it all has a spatial dimension one way or another. This needs to be shaped well, with care and expertise. What is created plays a fundamental role in shaping the relationship people have with the territory they occupy, work in, move through, remember or cherish.

4. Kathryn Moore.

@BCU

Seeing the bigger picture is repositioning landscape practice beyond the provision of green infrastructure or blue infrastructure. The challenge now is of a greater magnitude – we are beginning to recognise landscape as the infrastructure upon which we all depend, culturally, economically and ecologically, a vital resource to be harnessed if we are to address global challenges effectively and at scale. Understanding the immense restorative capacity of landscape (in its widest sense) to support the green recovery, the construction and transformation of our cities is a fundamental part of the West Midlands National Park (WMNP) Awards being run by the WMNP Lab at BCU.

Today, a landscape-led approach is normal, and we rightfully have our place at the table.

"How do you think the landscape profession needs to adapt over the next 30 years?"

JF

We are generalists, which makes us very holistic in the way we approach our work. We have to realise that we can’t operate in our own little sphere, we have to be open to collaborations. I think we have to be self-sufficient and skilled; we are highly competent professionals with the confidence and the ability to be able to deliver highly skilled, creative work. It’s important that we focus on all the issues of climate change, biodiversity, net-gain, health, and well-being – all these have got to be streams that feed into our projects at all stages, which I think as a very diverse and holistic professional we can do, as we are good at pulling all these threads together. "Today, a landscape-led approach is normal, and we rightfully have our place at the table."

SI

We’ve always worked with the environment as a fundamental part of what we do. And now those messages around adaptation are being heard loud and clear, and not only from us. However, we’ve got to be so much more vocal about what we do, and how we can effect positive change. We are all beset by issues around flooding and problems with water resources, and as a profession, we can make a major contribution to tackling this. We need to think about resources, the environment and how we’re going to create places for people that are liveable in our changing environment, and how within that context, we will monitor and adapt to deliver the ongoing change that we need.

KM

The most important thing we must do is stop dividing nature from culture and thinking of nature as something that’s out there and that culture is something elsewhere. Natural systems do not stop when you enter the building.

Education needs to respond by encouraging the exploration of ideas, to encouraging students to constantly see the bigger picture, and to understand the role of economics and governance. One of the things I try to encourage students to take on board is to become political.

Addressing the challenges expressed through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the other guidance and commitments are a crucial part of our work. As a special envoy for the International Federation of Landscape Architects [IFLA] I was invited to co-author a policy paper “Roadmap to a Just and Regenerative Recovery” for the UN Habitat Professional Forum. Presented at the UN Urban Forum in June, it is timely. Over the last two years, more than $1 trillion dollars has rushed into Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance investment funds in the US, according to the Harvard Business Review (2022). In the UK, investors are looking for suitable ESG projects. The significance of the HPF Road to Recovery is that it moves landscape more firmly towards the economic realm – and as we know, you’ll only persuade people to take things seriously if there is a clear understanding of its long term social, environmental and economic value. This is what we need to adapt to.

"Tell us about one project you’re working on at the moment that really excites you."

JF

I’ve been working for a decade or more on the National Memorial Arboretum, the home of remembrance, and of the Armed Forces Memorial. It commemorates and celebrates the efforts and sacrifice that people have made for this country. It was the idea of David Childs back in the late 1990s. He was inspired by a visit to Arlington Cemetery and the National Arboretum in Washington DC, and wanted to create a year-round national centre of remembrance here in the UK. It’s in the National Forest, who provided the funding. We originally worked on the new masterplan for the site. Our latest project is on land donated to the Arboretum by Tarmac from their adjacent sand and gravel extraction works. It will expand the site by another 25 acres. Our plans are to transform the existing scrubland and silt pond into an inspirational and restorative landscape, where people can gather to reflect and contemplate the impact of the pandemic and remember loved ones who have died as a result.

5. National Memorial Arboretum

Find out more about the National Memorial Arboretum https://www.thenma.org.uk/

SI

In recent years, I haven’t focused on design, but I have spent a great deal of time on policy work and training. So that’s really been the big focus of what I do, as well as coordinating a number of larger design projects. Sharing knowledge and trying to inspire others to understand the scope of what we can do has focused on water management, as this is such a fundamental part of life now. Enabling people to understand why we need to do it, and how we need them to engage with it, is so important. We see so much SuDS work which is just atrocious. Most of the people I’m training are civil engineers, highways engineers and facilities management people. By explaining the principles, and illustrating good and bad practice, we can help them understand what good looks like, and the important role of landscape. We need to encourage the professionals we’re working with to approach the job properly, to get it right, and to maximize the benefits for all. We’ve needed water management policy to change for a long time, and now it finally is.

Find out more about the Updated Guidance on Flood risk and coastal change published on 25th August 2022 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ flood-risk-and-coastal-change

KM

I argue that redefining theories of perception, design, and landscape has implications far beyond the academy. My current work investigates the nature of these implications. The potential for HS2 as a social, environmental and economic catalyst for all the communities along the route, builds on the work carried out for the Black Country Consortium in 2004/5. The study for North Warwickshire funded by the Environmental Agency in 2016 shows the relationship between the communities of the West Midlands plateau and the rivers and streams, the canals, geology and topography as a powerful connective tissue across the region that could have immense social and ecological benefits.

These projects led in turn to the idea of creating West Midlands National Park (WMNP), formally launched in 2018 at Birmingham City University (BCU). Having since built widespread support with institutions, authorities and communities across the region and nationally, it is a strategic project for BCU. Supported by Andy Street, the Mayor for the West Midlands Combined Authority and Birmingham City Council (recipients of a WMNP Award in 2021 for its vision, “Our future City Plan”), the WMNP Foundation is chaired by Dame Fiona Reynolds.

6. Topography, rivers, canals: the centre of Birmingham on the high ground overlooking the Rea and the Tame valleys.

© Kathryn Moore

Find out more about the West Midlands National Park https://www.bcu.ac.uk/newsevents/news/the-westmidlands-national-park-unveilsprojects-to-change-the-region

Jane Findlay, Sue Illman and Kathryn Moore

Jane Findlay is the founding director of Fira Landscape Architecture & Urban Design and the Immediate Past President of the Landscape Institute. She is an experienced masterplanner and has delivered complex public realm projects for residential, infrastructure, higher education and biomedical sectors, and is particularly experienced in design for healthcare. Jane is a sustainability advisor on the University of Warwick Estate & Environment Committee and a landscape advisor for the National Memorial Arboretum.

A past President of the Landscape Institute and Honorary Fellow of both the Society for the Environment, and University of Gloucestershire, Sue Illman is a practicing landscape architect and a specialist in historic landscape conservation, with a long-term interest and expertise in hard landscape construction and planting design. Sue is a passionate advocate for Sustainable Drainage Sytems (SuDS) as a key element in sustainable design practices. She has extensive experience in both lecturing and the delivery of training about SuDS and also speaks about the wider subject of sustainability, of which water is a key part.

Professor Kathryn Moore, Former President of the LI and IFLA, has published extensively on design quality, theory, education and practice. Her book ‘Overlooking the Visual: Demystifying the Art of Design’ (2010) redefines theories of perception, providing the basis for critical, artistic discourse, and setting a new way of looking at landscape, putting it at the heart of the built and natural environment. This work informs her teaching, enabling a more democratic way of teaching design, equipping students with the confidence and skill to become designers. Her radical proposal for the West Midlands National Park (WMNP), based on over 25 years of research was applauded in the 2020 UK Government Review of Landscapes. Reimagining the region from a spatial landscape perspective to drive inclusive social, economic and environmental change, the WMNP is attracting considerable support nationally and from UN Agencies.