Building links between academic research and landscape practice

By Alison Galbraith

Alison Galbraith is a director and principal landscape architect at Terra Firma.

In the first of a series of articles, we explore the benefits of closer contact between academia and practice.

Kenji Shermer (East Devon District Council), talking recently about his work on proposals for Cranbrook healthy new town (1) and the importance of making sure design decisions don’t have unforeseen consequences, quoted Bertrand Russell from a 1959 BBC interview: “Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have beneficial social effects if it were believed, but look only and solely at the facts.”’ Kenji’s assertion that we designers often rely on hunches to inform how we design things struck a chord with me. We know that what landscape architects do is important. We recognise that what we do could always be improved or may need to change. But are we learning and growing in the best possible way? Jane Findlay, President of the LI, recently called for landscape architects to base our work on a body of evidence, and in doing so making landscape architecture as vital engineering, so that it cannot be sidelined. (2)

I’ve had the privilege over the past 7 years of working with the landscape architecture team at the University of Gloucestershire as part of the LI’s Professional Review Group. I greatly value having regular contact with students starting out in their studies and with the experienced staff who are guiding them and inspiring them. During my time with the PRG, the courses have benefitted from an increasing presence of PhD staff who regularly publish papers and students writing their PhD theses. For me, talking to them about their work gives an insight into the world of research and the possibilities it offers.

But an insight is as far as it goes for me! I feel that there is a lot of good work going on but also that I don’t know what it is or how to get to it, or indeed, how to contribute to it. When I approached course leaders Dr Alessio Russo and Dr Ying Li about writing this article, they kindly sent me a number of papers about the relationship between research and practice – it was clear that it is not just me who feels the relationship could be better. The papers show there are challenges relating to what is researched, what should be researched, how research is carried out, and how research is presented and disseminated. Even what constitutes research is debated by academics – this distinction is important to them and their work.

Helpful and encouraging as the academic papers were to me in starting to think about this subject, they in themselves illustrated to me what I perceive to be part of the problem. They were published in journals I’ve barely heard of; they were written in language I struggled to keep up with; and seemed long-winded, including (as they necessarily do) lots of detail about methodology used and responses to questionnaires, and statistical breakdown of findings. For people like me, used to reading straightforward technical text or a more engaging, conversational style of writing (sprinkled with humour and opinion, and with lashings of pretty pictures and colourful graphics), the papers were a struggle.

However, struggle I did, and the key findings resonated with my own perception that research is somewhat of a ‘dark art’ to us practitioners. To try and better understand the world of research and to explore some possible ways forward, I spoke to Drs Russo and Li.

The primary aim for researchers is to be published in refereed journals. Refereed journals publish content which is subject to peer review: a rigorous process which can take many months, but which is necessary to ensure originality and robustness. One paper referred to a 2013 US study (Chen (3)) which found that only around 25% of US professionals regularly read refereed journals to keep informed of new knowledge. Professional magazines were much more popular, being read by 78% of professionals questioned, with the most popular form of research being internet searches (91%). Even “everyday life” was used as a resource more than refereed journals, at 77%. The same paper reported discrepancies between what professionals, as opposed to academics, felt needed more research. Subjects important to professionals included plants and materials, sustainable design, site engineering, construction techniques, water management and grading / circulation. Topics of interest to academics were less focused on design and construction, covering a broader spectrum of assessment and management, heritage, character, value. Some overlap was identified between human dimensions of planning and design, global landscape issues, and green urban development.

© Unsplash

Perhaps I’m just getting hung up on what I perceive to be the dark art of research – in other words, the type of research that is carried out by academics and takes place in an academic / peer review context. It might be more helpful if the term research is viewed in a more general way, as defined in the Cambridge Dictionary: “a detailed study of a subject especially in order to discover (new) information or reach a (new) understanding.” In which case, we already do this. It is often more readily accessible and, because we might do it ourselves or seek it out for a specific purpose, presumably it is more relevant to practitioners. And if a practitioner wants to find out what others think about a particular aspect of their work, they could send out a questionnaire to their contacts and colleagues or via social media, couldn’t they? The results may not be highly scientific, but surely some conclusions could be drawn?

Resources to which we typically might refer include the LI’s information and guidance notes and standards, building regulations, British Standards, planning documents (including anything from the National Planning Policy Framework, local plans, design guides, to landscape character assessments, ecosystem services statements), building bulletins, supplier technical guidance, and specialist / charity publications such as TDAG’s Trees in Hard Landscapes, CIRIA’s SuDS Manual, Healthy Spaces and Places by Heart Foundation (Australia). Some practices regularly carry out and publish research, most notably the multi-disciplinary global company Arup.

Most practitioners do not have time to read lengthy research papers and just want to understand the potential applications in practice. It could be liken to the carefully crafted trials and years of research undertaken in the development of a new medication to enable researchers to understand and weigh up the benefits and any risks. Most of us don’t need to know all that – we just need to know how it might work for us.

Dr Ying Li pointed me to a helpful booklet produced by the University of Sheffield’s Department of Landscape Architecture.4 This acknowledges the disconnect between academia and practice, saying: “All too often the work of an academic department is hidden or difficult to find…”, and goes on to set out in a clear and brief format information about a range of reports, toolkits, books and academic papers. Contact details of the authors are given, along with synopses of work they are currently undertaking. The titles of recent PhD theses are given, as is information on ways to get involved. This is a really good way of letting us know what has been, or is currently being studied; but who would have known to look on their website?

A colleague of mine works with the LI’s Environmental Standards Working Group, which carries out reviews of new or updated landscape-relevant technical information such as British Standards, guidance from Natural England and other bodies, in order to pass comment back and provide summaries to LI members. A new initiative for the group is to begin publishing regular updates in Vista – the LI’s weekly email newsletter. Could something similar work for making people aware of research happening in academia? Indeed, this has already started happening with April’s issue of Landscape including an interesting feature announcing a collaboration with the international academic journal Cities and Health as part of the ambition to help landscape architects access the research evidence base.

An Australian study indicated that academics want to engage with practice, but they need more support (and time allocation) from their universities.5 It seems that a number of factors need to combine, involving researchers and their institutions, academic and mainstream publications, and professionals and practices.

References

References

1) At the LI conference on Health, Wellbeing and Place: How landscape delivers positive change, 27-29 January 2021; https://www. healthycranbrook. co.uk/place-making/

2) Speaking at an Architects for Health event

3) Chen, Z (2013) The role of research in landscape architecture practice. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (PhD dissertation); in Milburn & Brown (2016) Research productivity and utilization in landscape architecture in Landscape and Urban Planning 147; page 75)