LI life: entry standards By Lucy Pickford
Entry standards update Who are you designing for? It might seem like a simple question, even one with an obvious answer. But are we really doing this in our work as landscape professionals, and how do we approach something as important as inclusive design? The Times They Are a-Changin’ The landscape profession and the design focus of the work in particular is an ever changing one, whether we’re looking at how we incorporate equality and diversity into our work both in the office and out, designing inclusivity into our projects or designing for the future, to ensure that all places are healthy places. There are many factors that drive change: sometimes they are small shifts that happen frequently but are almost missed, and sometimes there are major shifts – Le Corbusier for one has a lot to answer for. When he
developed Modulor, his proportional design system, in the 1940s he was setting in place a system that would define the shape of much of the built environment. It was a set of design rules that focused primarily on a 6ft tall man – something most of us are not. The Guardian recently highlighted an exhibition at the Barbican about the feminist architecture cooperative Matrix that took a radical approach to their design work fighting against these particular engrained standards (we could question whether designing with most of the population in mind
is really radical but that’s not the point here). It did, however, make us think about what the equivalent is within the landscape profession, and how we as built environment professionals look at both gendered spaces and inclusivity in spaces as a whole. There’s a lot to explore here, whether it’s looking at physical accessibility of space, power dynamics in ownership of a space, non-physical barriers to access or the impact of nature and green space on health. The conclusion was that while we may not have a radical group like Matrix, it doesn’t mean there aren’t many of 1. Matrix founding member Anne Thorne carries a pram up the steps of a subway in Aldgate, East London from ‘Urban Obstacle Courses’ in Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment (Pluto Press, 1984). Source: Liz Millen
1 64
