10 minute read
Jane Findlay
Birmingham-based landscape architect Jane Findlay becomes president of the Landscape Institute in July 2020. Here she outlines her vision for this important role and calls for landscape professionals to step up and reimagine the urban habitat
Challenges
Whether city, suburban or rural, today’s construction challenges are highly complex. Matters of flood alleviation, carbon reduction, rising populations, tensions between public and private modes of transport, the juxtaposition of community and commerce, and, of course, economic viability. This is the domain of the landscape professional.
As I write this, we are in week eight of the lockdown. Never more than now we, as designers of towns and cities, have to face the tension between creating dense and efficient places for people to live in, seen as essential to improving environmental sustainability, and the separating out of populations which is one of the key tools being used to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. I suggest that this is the call for landscape professionals to step up and reimagine the urban habitat.
Landscape design must be underpinned by the pillars of health and nature. We cannot position people at the heart of ‘place’ without accepting the very fundamental forces that shape our daily experience of the world around us. And yet health and nature – by which we mean the natural world, climate, ecology – are not absolutes; they are infinitely varied and ceaselessly changing.
How then, as landscape architects, architects, planners, engineers, developers, clients, or policy-makers should we tackle this challenge; to create tangible, durable, economically viable structures and spaces that will stand the test of time, without losing touch with the perpetually shifting pillars of health and nature?
As landscape professionals, we use our creativity and technical competence to bring forward solutions. Every project is different. From concept to completion, our teams create schemes that contribute positively to their natural surroundings and the experience of those inhabiting the space whilst delivering value for the lifetime of the project. In fact, this is one of my professional principles: designing healthy places for people. It’s not just a nice idea. It’s an achievable reality.
The pursuit of balance between people, place and nature will gain even greater significance, as our populations continue to grow. This will be felt most keenly in our cities. Living, working, visiting, studying; the daily pulse of our cities faces even greater pressure in the next twenty years. Government research predicts that by 2036, the UK’s 63 cities will contain 17.7% more people than in 2011. Together we face challenges of stressed infrastructure, pollution, a changing climate, and our evolving healthcare needs, together with an ageing population, obesity and other physical and mental health issues. Technology will create opportunities that we cannot even conceive of today.
Growing evidence of the health benefits derived from access to quality green spaces will see greener architecture as the norm in a biophilic landscape, responding to our need to feel connected with each other and with nature. Natural air conditioning, the green oasis, sustainable transport corridors; it is now essential that we make space for nature in our towns and cities.
Every project makes its contribution. Each scheme adds to, not dilutes, the environmental value of our landscape. There has never been a time when our expertise and creativity will be as highly valued, as the climate change movement becomes mainstream and sustainability is right at the top of the agenda, and as we all struggle to adapt our towns and cities to the COVID-19 crisis, we must grasp this opportunity and make a difference.
Competition sweet pea growing on Jane Findlay’s allotment
Relevance of the profession
In the past, landscape was often marginalised in development decisions. Gradually practices and policies are changing and the importance of outdoor space and how it contributes to successful placemaking is increasingly acknowledged by policy makers and clients (and now by the wider public). I believe that landscape should be at the centre of creating, regenerating and conserving urban and rural environments.
We have to engage with policy and decision makers to ensure landscape is at the top of the environmental agenda as a ‘must have’ and not be viewed as ‘a nice to have’.
As a profession we need to be relevant and visible, highly skilled, creative and trusted to ensure that we can compete with and complement other construction and property professionals.
Our universities need to produce graduates who are confident in working alongside other professions, can ensure that landscape, parks and places – from design through to planning, construction and long-term management are prime considerations and are able to work to solve real-world problems.
Diversity in the profession
We are fortunate to work in a broad profession that attracts people from many walks of life. However, we are not representative of all the communities that we serve. We need to be a profession that gives a home to BAME groups, people with disabilities, LGBT+ and those from different socioeconomic groups.
The gender balance of those at the start of their careers has always been even and today there are more women entering the profession than ever before. However, there’s still a long way to go before women are represented equally at the most senior levels as practice principals and business owners.
We need to provide the opportunity to study, the chance to progress and the promise of good careers in our communities.
Although the LI’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group has been working for the past four years to tackle the profession’s lack of diversity, this is work that must now accelerate.
It seems that the same issues that have prevented women and other disadvantaged groups from reaching their potential in the past remain the same. However, if we want to see a difference, we have to make a difference. At a strategic level the Landscape Institute must actively promote a profession that is balanced, diverse and inclusive, so we nurture all those who have traditionally been excluded or discouraged from aspiring to a career in the built environment sector, as well as supporting them in ‘mid-career’ and at principal level.
As individuals, here are some of the small things we can all do to make a difference:
– Be a role model. Help others to realise that you don’t have to be perfect to be successful
– Become a mentor. Help a colleague or another practitioner to navigate their own course: give them the benefit of your experience without assuming that they will necessarily make the same mistakes you did or need the same solutions
– Take a risk. Stand up for yourself: promote an unusual idea and be prepared to argue its benefits. Support others who are prepared to challenge orthodoxy
– Join and support the LI’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group which campaigns to broaden access to the profession
Jane Findlay’s favourite landscapes
St Martins, Isle of Scilly – the best beaches in the world and a place to escape to.
© Jane Findlay
Chester – the city I’m most at home in, close to where I come from of course!
© Shutterstock
Doubtful Sound, South Island New Zealand – a most spectacular and remote place.
© Shutterstock
Kiln Woodland – our ancient woodland near the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, with resident badgers and dormice.
© Jane Findlay
Snowdonia – for walking.
© Shutterstock
Digital issues for success
Adopting new technologies is transforming how landscape practices work and what they deliver. The way many of our organisations operate has changed significantly. The way that we present our designs to clients is changing as mixed, augmented and virtual reality brings public realm to life. The unprecedented move to home working this year only serves to highlight the need to invest in digital technologies and skills to become resilient in a fast-changing world.
One of the biggest challenges facing landscape practices wanting to transform into a digital business is a lack of skills. Skills result from education and training; digital skills can make students instantly employable.
How to encourage young people to join the profession
I love being a landscape practitioner and, if I had my time again, I would still choose to study landscape architecture. It is the most wonderful combination of arts, science and technology; few professions offer such stimulating and challenging opportunities to make your mark on the world around you. Our sector still struggles to recruit skilled and talented people for their businesses.
Building the profile and the relevance of landscape architecture is essential to be successful in attracting the next generation of students to landscape courses. The competition to attract students onto the thousands of different university courses is fierce. We need to raise our voice, influence and attractiveness as a sector to attract the best and the brightest. The commitment of the next generation to fighting climate change; health and wellbeing; and environmental issues is an opportunity for us now.
My practice was once described at being Birmingham’s best kept secret. It was meant as a compliment, but we didn’t take it that way, we took immediate steps to raise our profile and subsequently changed the perception of the company. If we are going to solve the issue of attracting young people into our profession, we need to take a more proactive attitude to developing our professional profile.
I suggest that we identify and develop ‘Landscape Champions’, role models and leaders who will be the faces and voices of our profession to promote and extol the virtues and relevance of our profession at all levels:
– Government, by educating our policy makers
– Spokespeople who can represent the profession to the press, at conferences and on TV – Becoming social media stars
– Giving talks to students in other construction professions. I’ve been approached by many student architects whose eventual choice of profession have been positively influenced by one of my talks about landscape architecture
We all have to do ‘our bit’; we don’t all have to be the next YouTube star but with a defined strategy, led by the Landscape Institute, and with persistence, we can make a difference.
Support for small businesses
A landscape practice, it turns out, is a business just like another. But what do we all know about running a business? If you are like me, very little. I’m a qualified landscape architect and undertook years of training to reach chartered level, but it didn’t teach me how to run a business. Many landscape practices are SMEs or small groups within a larger multidisciplinary company, but we all face similar challenges. For most business owners it is often trial and error, however, there is help but it can be difficult to find.
These issues take on even more significance for the business owner during the current economic climate. I am pleased that the LI has improved its business advice during this COVID-19 pandemic. I’d like to see even more done to build up business advice, skills, grant funding and to consider creating a register of LI mentors willing to give advice to young landscape professionals and business owners.
My vision for a strong and supportive professional Institute
We need a strong Landscape Institute that is member focused; offering leadership to meet the demands of our profession that often lacks influence in the industry. It will be my job to represent and help lead the LI. My priority will be to advance our profession to ensure that it is relevant and modern. I believe that the Landscape Institute needs to continue this journey of modernisation, by:
– Championing and promoting its members in their work however and wherever they practice
– Supporting members to engage politically, locally and nationally, to contribute to the debates and influence policies that affect our environment and communities, making our voices heard
– Improving the role and influence of the landscape architect and all related landscape professionals within the wider industry enabling all sizes of practices, and those in the public and third sectors to flourish in all parts of the UK and beyond
– Widening access and increased support for members through the LI and local branches
– Encouraging flexible education opportunities offering relevant, affordable, and accessible routes into and through the profession
– Increasing and demonstrating the value achieved for society – enabling fee levels to be achieved commensurate with other professions
– Reaching out to past members, attracting those who have left to re-join or those who have not yet joined the LI
Only a few months ago we were all working in an office environment
At the time of writing this article our world has changed out of all recognition. We are at the “pivotal point” as described by Sir David Attenborough, “the moment of crisis has come”. We need, more than ever before, a Landscape Institute with a strong voice and I will do my utmost to ensure that the landscape profession is heard.
