Landscape Journal - Autumn 2013 by Landscape, the journal of the Landscape Institute

Autumn 2013

landscapeinstitute.org

The Journal of the Landscape Institute

Water: a revolution in landscape architecture Designing with water Lessons from Australia Debating green walls Health through landscape Wayne Hemingway profiled

Landscape Autumn 2013

Contents Autumn 2013 Publisher Darkhorse Design and Advertising Ltd 42 Hamilton Square, Birkenhead Wirral, Merseyside. CH41 5BP T 0151 649 9669 www.darkhorsedesign.co.uk Editor Ruth Slavid landscape@darkhorsedesign.co.uk Managing director, Darkhorse Tim Coleman tim@darkhorsedesign.co.uk

Regulars

Design director Dave Hall Production director Clare Moseley

Editorial 5

Senior artworker Mike Carney Editorial advisory panel Tim Waterman, honorary editor Edwin Knighton CMLI Jo Watkins PPLI Jenifer White CMLI John Stuart Murray FLI Ian Thompson CMLI Jill White CMLI Eleanor Trenfield Amanda McDermott

Debate 9

Green walls or greenwash?

News analysis Health through landscape

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Landscape is the official journal of the Landscape Institute, ISSN: 1742–2914 ©August 2013 Landscape Institute. Landscape is published four times a year by Darkhorse Design. Landscape is printed on FSC paper obtained from a sustainable and well managed source, using environmentally friendly vegetable oil based ink. The views expressed in this journal are those of the contributors and advertisers and not necessarily those of the Landscape Institute, Darkhorse or the Editorial Advisory Panel. While every effort has been made to check the accuracy and validity of the information given in this publication, neither the Institute nor the Publisher accept any responsibility for the subsequent use of this information, for any errors or omissions that it may contain, or for any misunderstandings arising from it. For details of how to advertise in Landscape, visit: www.landscapeinstitute.org/contact

why landscape is so important to him

Thames Water

LI director of policy and communications Paul Lincoln

Keep up to date with the latest thinking and the most interesting schemes in the UK and overseas. For an annual subscription to the quarterly journal, visit: www.landscapeinstitute.org/publications

Wayne Hemingway 26 The controversial designer explains

Bigger picture 6

Landscape Institute president Sue Illman PLI

Membership enquiries Charles Darwin House 12 Roger Street London WC1N 2JU T 020 7685 2651 Twitter @talklandscape www.landscapeinstitute.org

Cover Photo ©: — Quintin Lake Thames Waters IV; 5 miles downstream, near Ashton Keynes Photo ©: 1 — Trevor Leighton Photo ©: 2 — CRC for Water Sensitive Cities

Time to embrace a new kind of gardening

Features

13 The LI and public health 17 Case study: Greenlink,

central Scotland 21 Therapeutic landscapes

Technical 1 46 Dealing with salt after

flooding at Brooklyn Bridge Park

Technical 2 51 Ryder’s work at catchment scale

Technical 3

Water 30 Designing with water 33 Rathbone Market in east London:

intelligent design reducing stormwater interception 38 Leicester takes a practical approach

to the cultural shifts in changing attitudes 42 Pioneering work from Australia

55 Latest developments in

masterplanning

Practice 1 60 Dominic Cole, designer of

the Eden Project

Knowledge 1 64 Understanding LED lighting

A word...

66 Tim Waterman considers the

meaning of ‘customer’

Landscape Autumn 2013

Editorial by Ruth Slavid Editor

Time to embrace a new type of gardening

1 — Ruth Slavid.

the ways in which landscape can make people’s lives so much better, through tackling the issues of health and water. The role that landscape professionals can play in preventing health problems by creating environments in which people can lead healthier lives and enhance their mental wellbeing, is understood by many involved in the work. What the Landscape Institute is now doing is making that knowledge more widely available, which is particularly important since the responsibility for public health devolved to local authorities in England in April. 1

Photo ©: 1 — Agnese Sanvito

s an outsider to the profession, I have struggled to understand the uncomfortable relationship that many of its members have with garden design. I do realise, of course, that landscape architects and other landscape professionals are more highly trained and skilled than garden designers – that asking a landscape architect about their favourite plant is a bit like asking an architect what their favourite chair is. They will have one but it is rather missing the point. Yet the discomfort seems to go further. And the reason it worries me is that landscape professionals do, after all, have a close relationship with gardens. Almost every portrait photo I am sent shows its subject standing in front of some fairly manicured

planting. Landscape architects do design gardens. The Olympic Park was certainly a triumph of gardening, even if it was also so much more than that. Public parks would be very odd if they didn’t incorporate gardens. The Landscape Institute has built a fruitful relationship with the Garden Museum. Some landscape architects even (hushed whisper) exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show. So what is the problem? I think this edition of the journal highlights the issue. Gardening just isn’t seen as serious. It fits in the lifestyle category with frocks and food and films – things which many of us enjoy, but don’t see as at the heart of existence. And what landscape can do is of course much more important. In this issue we look at two of

Our other major topic, water, is rather analogous. One could see traditional drainage solutions as the hospitalised, critical-care side of medicine. Working with water, through SuDS and WSUD, is more like preventive medicine – a public health service for our ecosystems. Which, if it can help make our cities more liveable places, will also improve public health. This will be brought into sharper focus when the Flood and Water Management Act is implemented next year. Among other things, the proponents of designing for water and for health are keen, respectively, on rain gardens to absorb storm water and on allotments to promote exercise, healthy eating and social interaction. Both are, in their own ways, gardens. Is it time to embrace the trowel?

Landscape Autumn 2013

Bigger picture by Ruth Slavid

Thames water

h is is one of a series of photographs by photographer Quintin Lake entitled ‘Sweet Thames, Run Softly’, based on a quotation from T S Eliot’s The Waste Land,

Lake says that while watching the first few minutes of Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for the Olympics, with its speeded up aerial journey along the river, he realised that he wanted to walk the length of the Thames and produce an artwork based on the experience. He spent 10 days on the 170-mile journey, camping along the way which was, he said, difficult because the area is so heavily populated. He says of his photos: ‘I purposely cropped out the landmarks to emphasise the difference of the texture and colour of the water. Before I started the journey I would never have thought that the water at the source could look quite so different to the same water as it passed under the M25 bridge.’ The image shown here, with its Monet-like reflections, was taken five miles down from the source, near Ashton Keynes. You can see the full series at http://bit. ly/18FFTxX Prints of the photographs are available for sale. 6

Landscape Autumn 2013

Photo ©: 1 — Quintin Lake Thames Waters IV; 5 miles downstream, near Ashton Keynes

‘Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long’.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Debate

Greenwalls or greenwash? We all want to see more living material in our cities. But unlike green roofs, which are universally acclaimed, there is controversy surrounding the value and cost of green walls. We look at the benefits they offer, and at the downside. Jill White Jill White runs her landscape architecture practice in Devon, specialising in community projects and accessibility issues. She is a member of the LI Editorial Advisory Board.

h ave to say I am disappointed by green, or living, walls. I am aware that they are able to bring new areas of biodiversity to erstwhile sterile environments, and I also know that green walls can reduce pollution and provide planting in spaces where this could not otherwise be possible. But I fear that design practitioners in both architecture and landscape architecture can easily fall into the trap of feeling they must specify them in order to appear contemporary and cutting edge. There is a danger of thinking that the next project simply has to feature a green wall and finding ways of making one fit, rather than offering clients a cheaper and better solution through other landscape design solutions, such as using

wall climbing systems; planted walls or gabions, for example. Green walls depend on a massive range of inputs, all of which have ongoing carbon implications and are far from green. They need life-support systems which use electricity for pumped irrigation systems; manufacture of large-scale plastic plant pocket structures; frequent input of chemical feeds; regular use of pesticides and selective herbicides, not to mention all the CO2 created by the landscape operatives who have to travel to site to maintain these features on a frequent basis. Green walls are expensive to install and maintain and, if any element of this cosseting fails, the result is dead patches and ugly gapping. This makes for a good business model for installers of green walls, as there will be endless and ongoing future repeat business. In some cases this may be worth the expense and effort, but in too many cases clients may not even have been aware of the lower-input alternatives available. Use of clever climber planting could have produced similar biodiversity and visual benefits, with a minute fraction of the ongoing financial and carbon inputs and specialist maintenance requirements. Are clients who insist on having this latest fad always aware of all the future implications of owning green walls? Perhaps they have no clue that with their scheme it might

have been entirely feasible to plant a range of extremely well suited climbers straight into the ground – especially if it was for a new building and the planting bed designed in at the start? This is where clients should be able to see the advantage of using a landscape architect, who can steer them away from expensive mistakes and advise on low-impact solutions that are sustainable in the long run. We have recently seen a good example of professionals in our field seizing this challenge, with Nigel Dunnett’s garden at Chelsea this year (University of Sheffield and the Landscape Agency for the Bank of Canada). His green wall for a rooftop garden used drought-tolerant species in recycled clay pipes, creating a lowmaintenance, low-water-use green wall with a high aesthetic and hibernacula value. This is where we should be heading, using these features in a much more intelligent way; sustainable in the future and continuing to look great with minimal expense and CO2 inputs and having the same (or better) biodiversity and anti-pollution benefits. Let’s see fewer off-the-peg, greenwash solutions to awkward planting situations and more clever, interesting, beguiling and truly green answers to our clients’ problems. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate to them why they really need a landscape architect on board with every building scheme.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Debate cont. With a living wall, the building is shielded from the sun

Gary Grant is an ecologist who works as an independent consultant and as a director of Green Roof Consultancy.

e of the major advantages of n vegetating buildings, whether through the use of green roofs or living walls, is that the building is shielded from the elements. Ultra-violet light damages the exterior fabric and infra-red is absorbed into the structure, only to be re-radiated at night (contributing to the urban heat island effect). With a living wall, the building is shielded from the sun, but there is also the cooling effect of evapo-transpiration boosted by irrigation. Bernhard Scharf and his colleagues at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna have recently completed a research project, looking at the building physics of a living wall on one of the City’s municipal buildings. Their results confirm similar findings by March Schmidt at the Technical University in Berlin, which demonstrate the extent of summer cooling (for example http://bit.ly/12mwJmD). What has been surprising is that the living wall in Vienna has kept the building

Landscape Autumn 2013

warmer in winter, with unprotected facades up to 7oC colder than the vegetated equivalent. Even in Austria, where buildings are well insulated, this translates into significant energy savings in both summer and winter and helps to create a more amenable micro-climate in the immediate neighbourhood. A frequent criticism is that living walls consume too much water. But the new wave of products use emitters on irrigation lines to deliver precisely calibrated quantities of water to the growing medium or mineral wool within each module. Some living walls now use less than 1 litre of water per square metre per day. It is now common practice to collect rainwater to irrigate living walls and there are even firms using grey water (water collected from showers, baths and sinks), including for example the Babylon living wall company in Tarragona, Spain http:// bit.ly/19qz2rH. Another way of avoiding the consumption of potable water is to divert downpipes into living walls, which have integrated storage tanks, a technique being pioneered by the Green Roof Consultancy working with TreeBox. The first raingarden living walls were installed in May 2013 by Team London Bridge as part of the work being funded by the Drain London initiative. This, in effect, is a living wall that is a vertical rain garden or sustainable drainage feature.

Where water is pumped into a living wall, a small amount of energy is required, typically equivalent to the electricity used to boil a kettle each day. This can be taken from photovoltaics erected elsewhere on a building and is in any case an investment because of the energy saved. The amounts of energy whether embodied or required to operate a living wall, are insignificant when compared with the construction and operation of the building on which they sit. The dense vegetation that can be established on living walls has been shown to clean the air by intercepting soot and absorbing gaseous pollutants. Most of the plants that have been shown to perform well in this regard by Kyle Shackleton and his colleagues at Imperial College for example – see http://bit. ly/18xuEaH – can be incorporated into living walls, and Biotecture’s living wall outside of Edgeware Road Station has been funded by Transport for London specifically to help improve air quality – see http://bit. ly/11vPYUE. Finally, living walls can be planted with native species or species with a documented value for wildlife (for example like the RHS list of plants for pollinators) providing habitat in places which might otherwise be barren and helping to ensure that the built environment contributes to the restoration of biodiversity, which supports the ecosystems on which we all depend for our existence. Every little helps!

Photo ©: 1 — John Sturrock Photo ©: 2 — ANS Europe

Gary Grant

In accessible locations, green walls can serve the edible landscape agenda very well

1 — Living wall in Argent’s King’s Cross development, London. 2 — Living wall designed by Shelley Mosco.

Andrew Thornhill Andrew Thornhill is a director at Churchman landscape architects.

v er since the years of botanical research by Patrick Blanc began to grace the walls of our cities, there has been debate about the value of the vertical garden. Comparing highly artificial systems such as the hydroponic variants with climbers planted in the ground doesn’t add much to the debate, as they each have their merits. Given the rapid advance of green wall systems and the potential for further development, including integration with dynamic building facades, I suspect the comparisons will look increasingly irrelevant. In the context of the dense city, where conditions often do not allow roots access to ground water or offer suitable facades to cope with the invasive nature of aerial roots, living walls can offer an alternative. They have great potential for increasing biodiversity, which can be achieved without any loss of amenity space, a valuable commodity of inner cities. In accessible locations, green walls can serve the edible landscape agenda very well,

as the regular attendance to productive gardens allows the level of monitoring that green walls typically require. We designed an edible green wall using a soil-based system to an elevated courtyard for City University, allowing fresh herbs to be picked for the adjacent café. Green walls also reduce particulate pollution, with hairy leaved species typically capturing significantly more than smooth foliage species such as Ivy.

careful positioning, use of water recycling and thicker systems this can be much reduced. There is also growing research into drought tolerant systems; Roisin O’Riordan’s student thesis, recognised at the LI awards last year, demonstrates the potential for certain species to offer drought-tolerant variants established on high porosity walls. Simple robust alternatives that might be described as extensive systems are likely to be developed over the coming years to complement the largely intensive types currently available.

Urban heat gain will arguably become more important in the planning of our cities. So while I do not advocate everyone installs a green wall in combination with other green infrastructure, they can provide significant cooling benefit to the environment. Irrigated systems provide greater benefit during extended periods of high temperatures as they maintain their cooling effect when most needed, an effect that is often overlooked with thinner substrate living roofs. Water consumption is an important consideration but should be balanced against the associated benefits that living walls can bring to the city environment.

The challenge to the profession is how to best use the various systems. We have successfully installed a number of different systems, both soil and hydroponic based, and only recently have had any difficulty with the establishment phase. This arose from a combination of split contractual responsibilities and extreme environmental conditions, factors that can impact on any landscape. These systems are artificial environments and as such there is less room for error, but they do not require significantly more input than a wellmanaged garden would do.

Most of these systems are relatively thirsty, with the thinner mat-based soil-free systems consuming the highest amount of water. This is often exacerbated by the exposed locations they are used in; the wind causes greater evaporation and transpiration and can lead to soil loss over time. But with

Not all forms of horticulture can or should be managed with a strimmer or hedge cutter; some need a bit more effort; I thank Patrick Blanc for so dramatically adding to the richness of our city walls and look forward to the evolution of the green wall in our city fabric.

Landscape Autumn 2013

News analysis By Ruth Slavid

Healthy outlook

1 — Access to parks is good for both physical and mental wellbeing.

Evidence that shows that good landscape can have a measurable impact on people’s mental and physical wellbeing needs to be disseminated more widely.

June, Public Health England produced n a report called Longer Lives, which looked at the variation in premature deaths (defined as those before the age of 75) around the country. Crucially, this takes social disadvantage into account. We all know that poverty and social deprivation shorten lifespans, but this report used peer grouping, so that areas with similar levels of deprivation could be compared across the country.

Photo ©: 1 — Julian Jones

With this measure, one would expect most inequalities to be ironed out, but this was not the case. Instead the report found huge differences in premature death rates between local authorities with similar levels of social deprivation, a result which health secretary Jeremy Hunt branded ‘shocking’. He said that local authorities with bad results needed to address this, while stressing that no blame attaches to them, since they only took over responsibility for public health from the NHS in April this year. But clearly people are dying unnecessarily in certain parts of the country, and things need to change.

The reasons for the disparities are not revealed in the research, but since they are not to do with the details of people’s lives in terms of deprivation, they must relate in some way to health provision, to culture, to education and to the environment. When one thinks of environmental issues and health, it is too easy to become fixated on tough problems such as air pollution which is, of course, massively important. But the environment in which people live can have an enormous impact in other ways on their health, in terms of both their physical and their mental wellbeing.

For landscape professionals this is a hugely exciting opportunity, since it potentially moves the provision of a decent landscape away from something that is nice to have (increasingly hard to argue for in our straitened times) to something that can bring good and save money, as providing healthcare for the sick is a major financial burden. And since good landscape does not necessarily cost more than bad, it should be relatively inexpensive. It is in this context (although presciently before the publication of the Longer Lives report) that the Landscape Institute set out /...

Landscape Autumn 2013

News analysis cont.

to produce a position statement, aimed not primarily at landscape professionals but at public health representatives and also at members of government who have responsibility for spending and legislation. This statement, which will be published in October, aims to demonstrate how landscape, and the work of landscape professionals, can make a powerful and effective contribution to people’s health & wellbeing across the UK, and to suggest that this contribution could help reduce health expenditure in the NHS by reducing future costs through preventative interventions.

for Healthy Urban Environments at the University of the West of England. He identifies several ways in which he feels that better landscape can lead to better health. The first is to do with our physical environment. Linear green corridors in cities should have an impact on air quality, allowing fresh air to move into cities and polluted air to escape. This is in addition to the effect that trees, in particular, can have in absorbing pollutants. The other way in which the introduction of greenery can help is in modulating temperature fluctuations, in particular the urban heat island effect. By bringing down temperatures, green spaces should help to

reduce the number of excess deaths that occur during heatwaves. They should also reduce the demand for air conditioning, which is both an additional cost and a further generator of pollution. ‘The range of issues to do with open spaces in cities is huge,’ Barton said. Studies have shown that living within 300m of an open space can help to iron out the inequalities in health that result from social deprivation. This is why English Nature (now Natural England), a few years ago, set the following targets for access to open spaces: •N o person should live more than 300m from their nearest area of natural greenspace;

Hugh Barton, who is one of the external reviewers for the publication, said, ‘We are wasting huge amounts of money on the NHS because we are creating an environment which is problematic in terms of human health. There is not always an extra cost in terms of making it better – it just needs extra care.’ Barton is well-placed to know. A planner, he is an emeritus professor and former director of the WHO Collaborating Centre

Landscape Autumn 2013

Photo ©: 2, 3 — Julian Jones

It should help public health professionals and landscape professionals, two groups that care passionately about the public good, to communicate and work together, and to understand more about each other’s areas of expertise.

2 — Recent research shows that being in parks can lower blood pressure. 3 — Local shops are destinations that encourage walking and cycling.

• There should be at least one accessible 20ha site within 2km from home; • There should be one accessible 100ha site within 5km; • There should be one accessible 500ha site within 10km. But actually, Barton argues, we should not be so fixated on parks and open spaces that we forget the importance of having living material around us in the form of, for instance, street trees. After all, as Barton points out, some of the most liveable and admired European cities, such as Milan and Amsterdam, do not have large open spaces at their hearts. But we cannot do without nature in some sense, Barton argues. ‘We are creatures of nature,’ he says. ‘To pretend we can live in an artificial environment is false. Landscape professionals are providers of an artificial natural environment in towns. The problem is, he says, that too often these elements are thought of in a piecemeal fashion. ‘Too many local authorities have a discrete approach to open space,’ he said. ‘They look at parks, playing fields and allotments all separately.’ And allotments in particular have been squeezed out of planning policies in the last 40 years or so, yet Barton believes they are immensely important. As well as allowing people to grow food that they can eat, and helping them to learn about fresh food, they provide healthy outdoor activity, and also a way of interacting with a community.

Just as important as the provision of green space and of living things, Barton believes, is the way that a city’s streets are planned, and the networks that are created. The aim of course is for people to carry out as many journeys as possible on foot or on bike. This is good for their individual health, because of the exercise it provides, and good for the general wellbeing of the city, by cutting down on pollution and the creation of greenhouse gases. The way that routes are planned is vital, Barton believes. He quotes research by retailers, who find that if they place a car park a few minutes’ walk away from their retail centre, they may be able to convince people to park and walk. The determining factors are, Barton says, whether they feel safe, and whether the walk is a pleasant one. Similarly, Barton says, people will walk within their neighbourhood but only if they can find what they need – shops for example – within walking distance. If not, they will get in their cars and drive. ‘Distance, safety and environment add up to an environment that promotes physical activity or inhibits it,’ he said. ‘Where there are local facilities that we can go to easily, the number of local trips is up at least 50%.’ Barton believes that, ‘It’s absolutely central that we create an environment in which active travel occurs to get to places. If we make that natural and a pleasure and it feels

reasonably safe, more people will walk and cycle. We have progressively undermined that for 40 years.’ The LI document should, he believes, help to redress the balance.’I am hopeful,’ he said, ‘that this can act as a pressure on the planning of settlements generally, including green infrastructure and extending way beyond. It is really important for us to be able to get quantitative evidence of the effects.’ Sheila Beck, principal public health advisor for NHS Health Scotland, is another external reviewer of the LI publication. Her hope is that ‘the work with the LI gives me the opportunity to advocate for the kind of things that I think are important.’ These things include the idea that ‘when places are being developed there is place making and that the needs of the local community are taken into account.’ NHS Health Scotland is a body set up to reduce inequalities and improve public health. It already has a programme of, for example, encouraging public activity and working with transport planners to make walking and cycling easier and more attractive. ‘We want places that are built at a human scale,’ Beck said. ‘There is evidence, for example from the US, that places are built so much to suit the car that they don’t suit people.’ One of the programmes with which Beck is involved is the Scottish government’s Good /...

Landscape Autumn 2013

News analysis cont.

4 — The planting of street trees brings the benefits of the natural environment to the centres of towns and cities.

Places Better Health initiative, which sets out to improve the health of the country’s children, tackling the problems of obesity, asthma, unintentional injury and mental health and wellbeing. Green spaces and landscape within neighbourhoods are one of the areas that it covers. Awareness is growing, says Beck, but more information is needed. Planners will say, ‘We know that green space is good for health – just how much do you need?’

Not all the evidence that the landscape professions need is so readily available but there is a lot of information. It is becoming increasingly simple to show that good landscape is good for people and that it could save cash-strapped health services money spent on treating preventable illness. If the message gets across to the people who matter, the landscape professions should have a healthy future. 4

Landscape Autumn 2013

Photo ©: 4 — Julian Jones

Beck is also interested in environments that can reduce stress. ‘We used to think it was peak stress that was important,’ she says, ‘but now we think its people with chronic stress who suffer most.’ Recent research at Herriott Watt University, published in a paper entitled ‘The urban brain: analysing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG’ showed that people’s heart rates calmed when they walked through parks as opposed to busy shopping streets.

1 — Cycling is one of the popular activities on the Greenlink.

Case study:

Movement for change By Ruth Slavid

The Greenlink in central Scotland has transformed not only the appearance of a run down path, but also the behaviour of those living near it.

Photo ©: 1 — CSFT

Fancy a walk? How about a walk along a rubbish-strewn path beside a waterway containing burnt out cars? Picking your way down crumbling steps littered with shopping trolleys? Would you like to walk there? Would you feel safe? Would it give you a sense of community? Would you like your children’s school to have an outing there? Not surprisingly, most people would answer ‘no’ to all of these questions. The only positive thing one can say about such an environment is that if one makes a

difference, it will be a difference that is really noticeable and noticed. And this is what the team behind the Greenlink in central Scotland found, when it turned this unpromising area into somewhere that is not only much nicer to look at but, essentially, is loved and used. In an online poll carried out in 2009, every respondent agreed that the Greenlink was making a positive improvement to the local landscape – hardly surprising since they described the conditions before improvement as ‘terrible’ (56%) and ‘poor’ (32%).

Following the works, 92% said they had made a positive difference to them personally, with this testimonial encapsulating just how pivotal landscape can be in enhancing mental and physical health: ‘It has brought a renewed sense of confidence, accomplishment and pride after a bout of illness. It has helped me to build my physical stamina, meet new people and feel part of a team. I’ve learnt more about the great outdoors and how doing my bit can make a difference not only to myself, but to others in the group and the local community. I absolutely /...

Landscape Autumn 2013

News analysis cont.

2 — The old path was almost impassable. 3 — Burnt-out cars were the main decoration. 4 — Now there are pleasant walks. 5 — Aerial view of the South Calder Valley.

love my time at the Greenlink, and it has certainly helped to lift my mood following depression.’ The Greenlink is important, not only because it has created such enormous improvements, but because it has done so in an area where many of the neighbourhoods that it runs through are defined as being among the 15% most deprived in Scotland. The route runs for 5km along the South Calder Water Valley, from Strathclyde Country Town to Motherwell Town Centre, near to the former Ravenscraig steel works, which were once a major source of employment. Communities along the edges of the route – Forgewood, Orbiston and Daisy Park – had all suffered serious neglect.

The project, led by Central Scotland Forest Trust, worked with the community from the beginning, involving local people in ‘conservation’ work, which at first meant very basic cleaning up. The list of what was removed from within and alongside the water is staggering: 27 burnt-out cars, 91 tonnes of rubbish, 87 shopping trolleys, and even five World War 2 shells.

In addition to the main hard path, there are a further 3km of linking paths, some of them loose surfaces, within 20ha of managed greenspace and 20ha of

Landscape Autumn 2013

woodland, funded by the Forestry Commission. Technically, there is nothing particularly clever about the project. What is utterly admirable is the way that, having completed the physical infrastructure, those involved carried on, engaging with local people and responding to their needs and desires. ‘We have been skilling the local community to do this on its own,’ explained Mark Smillie, head of finance and operational development at Central Scotland Forestry Trust. ‘Over the years it has changed shape, as people have started cycling, and then founded a mountain-bike club.’ This led to the development of a mountain bike skills zone – somewhere more challenging than the simple footpaths, where people can build their skills before feeling ready to tackle full-on mountain bike tracks. Walking is important as well. There is a regular health walk, led by a health worker. Following the success of this, Scottish Action for Mental Health has also started leading walks. Smillie’s wife, who is a mental health crisis worker, also takes her clients for walks. Another part of the community said that

Milnwood

Forgewood

Colville Park

North Motherwell Ravenscraig

6 — Schematic map showing route of the Greenlink. 7 — Local schools are among the groups that have become involved.

they wanted allotments for growing vegetables – a problem as there initially seemed to be no suitable land available, only contaminated sites. But now an area has been found, and 40 plots are being created. Schools have also become involved, with local nursery and primary schools using the area on a regular basis. There is also a newsletter so that people know what is going on, and have a way of expressing their opinions and wishes. Smillie defines the aims of the project simply:

Photo ©: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 — CSFT

• To provide a place for recreation • To help people get in the habit of recreation • To get benefits from recreation • To keep the place cleaner. This is an area that had many attractive elements already, obscured by poor upkeep and by neglect. But few could see beyond the surface appearance, and it felt like an insult to people many of whom were already struggling. As Smillie says, ‘If you feel that you live in a dump, then you do.’ That was exactly what people living around the Greenlink did feel. The fact that they no longer feel like that is a testament to the success of the project. 7

Landscape Autumn 2013

News analysis By Mike Westley

Therapeutic landscapes

1 — The Play 4 Life project.

Therapeutic design is another important aspect of designing for health. It can yield great results for relatively low budgets as three projects for the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust in Truro show.

s a landscape architect passionate about working in health and social care settings, I am inspired by the possibility that places I help create can be deliberately designed to deliver opportunities for human healing and for specific wellbeing outcomes. However, despite recent advances, it is hard not to be frustrated by the low level of understanding which still exists around the subject. For many people, therapeutic landscape design is still just a fancy way of describing a ‘sensory garden’, which, as everyone knows, is a place where lavender grows politely around a sundial and nothing else very exciting happens. Sadly, this misleading view still holds, even amongst many commissioning bodies for healthcare service. Despite 30 years of international research and innovative practice pointing to well-established connections between improved human

health and human well being, the vast majority of healthcare environments are devoid of the heartening humanity displayed by the people who work within them to care for us. Yet intuitively most people readily recognise the principle, embodied in Erich Fromm’s notion of Biophilia as ‘love of life or living systems’ and developed further by Edward Wilson, who hypothesised an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. It is my experience that a landscape architect must approach therapeutic landscape design in a manner that firstly, ensures buy-in from austerity-strapped

health sector clients by connecting with their specific agendas and outcome needs. Secondly we must upskill to embrace creative design process working within the complexity of the social healthcare context. Lastly our approach must recognise the need for design solutions that deliver on many practical performance needs, whilst maintaining a sense of its own particular place and integrity. Critically, landscape professionals who are designing for clients in the field of health and wellbeing must be in detailed command of the evidence base supporting their proposals, so as to effectively advance the /... Landscape Autumn 2013

News analysis cont.

2 — Parents, children and staff in the Dolphin House courtyard. 3 — Dolphin House courtyard offers a variety of play spaces.

argument for investment in greenspace as the best-value solution to delivering general wellbeing and its maintenance in people throughout healthcare settings. To gain a permanent seat at the healthcare table, with the resources necessary to make a difference, we must effectively build a bridge of confidence for health service commissioners connecting our art to the scientific basis underpinning our work. My experience has been that ‘action research’ activity into the theoretical basis for our work has paid dividends in terms of the richness of experience it brings into my own design process and our practice culture. To pursue this aim, my practice has been working with researchers from the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, funded through its ‘In Residence’ award, to explore how we can use a targeted evidence base to underpin collaborative greenspace design and management processes, which communities can effectively use in planning the delivery of wellbeing from their own local greenspace infrastructure. Anyone spending a significant amount of time observing healthcare environments can’t fail to note their resemblance both to ants’ nests and to a society in miniature, with their diverse communities of stakeholders, including varieties of service providers and service users, managers,

Landscape Autumn 2013

support staff, external suppliers and regulating bodies and interest groups. This means that even a seemingly anonymous and unused space generally contains complex patterns of stakeholder relationships and agendas. Each will rival the other to test the project designer’s skills of diplomacy and equity in arguing for their own agenda’s pole position on the design brief grid! Although each setting is unique, the most effective and inclusive consultation always results where the process most creatively uses the often widely different capacities and possibilities for stakeholder response. We have used a range of such approaches on three projects. Dolphin House Courtyard is a small courtyard within a special-school setting on the Royal Cornwall Hospital campus, which delivers a clinical treatment and learning play programme to a diverse range of children with learning difficulties and behavioural issues arising from different underlying medical conditions, and varying degrees of severity. The complex learning / play brief requirements eventually resulted in a single, playful piece of sculpture furnishing, which formed the focal poin of the courtyard and also divided the space around it into sub-spaces of varied character and use potential. In clinical use the staff team is able to select from a range of kinetic, proprioceptive, creative and selective-

4 — Play 4 Life offers challenges for children of all abilities. 5 — Room to run about at Play 4 Life.

sensory-stimulating spaces, so as to tailor a unique, appropriate experience for each child.

Play 4 Life is a multi-use greenspace at the heart of the hospital campus, delivering outdoor learning for the Hospital school pupils and specific therapeutic programmes for a range of clinical departments. It is also a ‘playful’ healing place for respite, relaxation and wellbeing promotion for a diverse users profile drawn from across the hospital community.

The Play 4 Life project has a carefully designed spatial quality to suit different ages and conditions of users. This was delivered by reinterpreting the site’s existing qualities and attributes; hedges and mature trees were retained, and demolition material retained and massed to create mounds, defining spaces, creating space for many to achieve relative therapeutic solitude and encourage exploration. The circulation system delivers a range of challenges in terms of step height, surface texture, speed, secrecy, direction and gradient. This delivers flexibility and diversity for simultaneous use by families, clinicians and school staff of a series of defined spaces with particular play leaning / healing possibilities. At first glance however the impression is of a richly varied garden, rather than a playground, encouraging more inclusive use by a wider spectrum of users. /...

Landscape Autumn 2013

News analysis cont.

Grenville Ward Courtyard was a therapeutic garden treatment facility, serving a postoperative elder care and stroke recovery ward. It also provided amenity and respite space serving both ward staff and patients’ families and carers. At the Grenville Ward Courtyard, this sense of layering is present in a serpentine route, which added a softening curvilinear movement, articulating the subspaces along the length of an otherwise harshly rectilinear courtyard. This element doubled as a handrail and distance guide along which OT’s could accompany stroke recovery patients in exercises aimed at reinvesting a sensing of distance, and aiding the recovery of walking.

qualities the planting and the calming sounds of water gently falling. To achieve this requires the design of each of the specifically functional design elements to be, to a degree, disguised. Whether this functionality is being delivered by furnishing, surfacing, structure or planting, with their intrinsic design qualities; taken together, each element should be supportive of the other if the aesthetic integrity of the whole space is to be achieved. In this way the design can be seen as a complex of layers, some sharing common elements; each layer able to be recognised intuitively by each specific user group and utilised.

I consider that a design which merely systematically answers function with form only answers half the challenge. At some level, every therapeutic landscape must retain the overall sense of refuge. It must be somewhere that inspires with its simple beauty and contains qualities that are innately supportive of general wellbeing. For me this is at once the greatest challenge and pleasure; to produce a design that will simultaneously meet the needs of: a busy nurse seeking a few moments of private respite in a sheltered corner, an O.T. working with their patient on a specialist element of furnishing as part of their clinical programme, a family group, escaping the unfamiliar environment of the ward with their patient relative to enjoy the sensory stimulating

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6 — The garden at Grenville Ward encourages older people to get outside. 7 —Staff at Grenville Ward became involved with maintenance. 8 — The Grenville Ward courtyard was simple and temporary yet lush and pleasurable.

Mike Westley is a chartered landscape architect, director of Westley Design and a senior associate lecturer at Plymouth University School of Architecture Design & Environment.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: The place maker

The place maker Wayne Hemingway’s long-standing and sometimes controversial interest in the places where we live, meet and play makes him an ideal choice to present this year’s LI awards.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Photo ©: 1 — Trevor Leighton

By Fiona McWilliam

ayne Hemingway believes that, ‘Place comes before architecture, and landscape plays a big role in place’. This belief, he says, is why he agreed to present this year’s Landscape Institute Awards. As a graduate in geography and town planning, Hemingway is arguably well qualified to comment on matters relating to ‘placemaking’, urban renewal and masterplanning, but one gets the impression on meeting him that he would have spoken out anyway; he is earnest, straight-talking and only too eager to share his views on urban design. He and his wife Gerardine first came to public awareness in the 1980s, as co-founders of the iconoclastic fashion label Red or Dead which encouraged a generation to wear Dr Martens workwear shoes as fashion. Since selling the company and establishing Hemingway Design (HD) in the late 1990s, they have emerged as people’s champions of good urban design, with Wayne very much the outspoken mouthpiece of the operation. He was, for eight years, chair of the place-making campaigning body Building For Life, and is today a CABE trustee.

1 — Wayne Hemingway with his wife and business partner Gerardine. 2 — Hemingway Design consulted on the housing at The Bridge, Dartford. 3 — Staiths South Bank was the first and highestprofile housing project.

In 2001 Hemingway wrote a piece for The Independent in which he infamously decried the ‘Wimpeyfication and Barratification of Britain’. His eloquent tirade about ill-conceived housing developments was picked up by Jeremy Paxman and Newsnight and prompted Peter Johnson, the then chairman of Wimpey Homes (now Taylor Wimpey), to challenge Hemingway to put his design skills where his mouth was.

‘We ended up leading the vision on a 750-plus housing development on a long-term unused brownfield site in Dunston, a largely unloved, but brilliantly located part of Gateshead,’ he said. This became Staiths South Bank. The Hemingways had no experience of designing affordable housing, but had spent much of their childhoods living in low-cost housing in Lancashire. Some of their best memories are of ‘playing out’; Gerardine on the communal recreational space behind her terraced worker’s cottage in Padiham, and Wayne on the landscaped area around the then-new Queen’s Park Flats in Blackburn. Over the past decade Hemingway Design has delivered a number of high-profile and award-winning affordable housing schemes. More recently, it has been selected to work on the restoration of the run-down Margate seaside attraction Dreamland, where it plans to create the world’s first theme park of historic rides, together with an event space, dance halls, restaurants and shops. Placemaking, Hemingway believes, is essential for successful housing schemes. People don’t look for a house, he says, they look for place where they’d like to live. ‘We spent lots of time with Wimpey thinking about making a place (at Staiths South Bank) in which people would want to live.’

It wasn’t always easy. Hemingway Design wanted to deliver ‘home zones’ with streets designed for pedestrians, children playing and cyclists. Rather than building driveways, it planned to put the parking around the side of homes, in a bid to make the development safer and friendlier. The police didn’t agree, Hemingway recalls, saying that the cars would get broken into. /...

Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: The place maker

Simply by checking Home Offices Crime Statistics, Hemingway was able to prove a dramatic decrease in car crime since the introduction of car radios that became useless once they were removed from a vehicle. And so the design was accepted. ‘We had turned accepted thinking on its head, and that opened up an avenue for real change,’ he said. Additionally, and significantly, in the two-year design period before work started on Staiths South Bank, the Hemingways, often with their four young children in tow, travelled the world ‘looking at great and not so great examples’ of urban design. They found inspiration particularly in northern Europe and the Nordic countries, with ‘human-centred’ developments such as the Vauban sustainable neighbourhood in Freiberg, Germany, and Almere, in the Netherlands. These encouraged the team, Hemingway says, ‘to put landscape, play and “home-zone” streets ahead of architecture’. He shows me photographs of a welcoming if shabby looking Soweto street and another in Copenhagen, where shops are interspersed with houses (so grandparents can buy sweets for their grandchildren) and where children can play football without being shouted at. These photographs contrast sharply with others he then shows me of ‘no ball games’ signs taken in the UK. Another, from a play area in Somerset, is particularly draconian, warning people against talking to strangers: ‘Why would you do that,’ Hemingway asks, ‘when talking to other people is what makes a community?’ Good urban landscapes, where children are allowed to play, he says, ‘give young folk something to release energy in, they give us all opportunities to be social’. When he first started to criticise housing, Hemingway recalls, ‘one of the main things we noticed was that properties were being designed only for being inside, for “vegging” out in front of the television; they were not fit for purpose for someone interested in being outside.

He shows me a photograph of housing development in Swindon on which he mischievously superimposed a mocked-up prison fence and look-out tower, and which forms part of a presentation he’s delivered many times in the past few years. What’s striking is that the addition of the fence and tower make so little difference to the already austere and unwelcoming exterior of the development. At the time, he says, the UK came bottom in a Unicef assessment of the well-being of children in 21 ‘economically advanced nations’. (We still do, according to the most recent assessment, published in 2007). It is high time, Hemingway asserts, ‘that we stop blaming lads for living it large when all they’ve been given is five springy chickens to play on’. Landscape has always loomed large in Hemingway’s life: ‘I’m an outdoor person, who’s happy fishing, cycling and running,’ he says. And Gerardine, who loves gardening, has transformed their large garden in West Sussex “into something very special”. While he admits to loving both beaches and proms, he says that urban parks are his idea of the perfect landscape: ‘The concept of a park in a town is an amazing thing. I love the fact that they say generosity; it’s allowing land that could make short-term financial gain available to everyone at no cost.’ Public parks, he adds (while bemoaning one in Chichester that has banned dogs) “demonstrate that mankind hasn’t lost its sense of ‘communal’. Wayne Hemingway will present the LI Awards on Thursday 21 November at Coram’s Fields in London. To book places go to landscapeinstitute.org/awards

Landscape Autumn 2013

4 — This ‘boat house’ in the Hemingways’ garden shows their love of collaging objects.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: Respecting water

Respecting water By Ruth Slavid

As droughts and floods become more frequent, so does the importance of planning and designing with a new respect for water. The principles are now broadly understood, but landscape professionals need to learn more about detail and to spread the word. The following series of articles should help.

en Sue Illman took over as president h of the Landscape Institute last summer, she announced that she would make water one of her key concerns. This chimed with much of the work that her own practice, Illman Young, has been doing in the realm both of SuDS (sustainable urban drainage solutions) and of WSUD (water-sensitive urban design). But it was also timely, which was why she laid such emphasis on it. We have reached a stage at which we can no longer ignore the problems of flooding and of water shortages. Flooding has always caused enormous misery as well as loss of life. Government estimates the cost of flooding in England as more than £2bn annually. And, according to Defra, an estimated 2.7 million properties in England and Wales lie in areas that are at risk of flooding. The 2012 floods caused the biggest insurance industry losses since 2007, with customers filing for £3bn in water damage claims.

Landscape Autumn 2013

We know this is likely to get worse, since climate change is going to make weather more unreliable, and are going to result in a greater number of extreme events. Already we hear fairly regularly of ‘one in a hundred year’ storms returning in less than a decade. While major interventions such as barriers are needed to prevent the most catastrophic floods, there are far more intelligent ways of dealing with water on both the everyday scale and at the unusual but not cataclysmic scale that can still cause so many problems. The solution can come from two areas, with two approaches which sound similar but are, although complementary, different. The first, and better known, is SuDS. This is a way of dealing with run-off that does not just stick it in a pipe in the ground.

£2

Annual cost of flooding to government

2.7 million

Properties at risk of flooding

£3

Water damage claims in 2012

Instead, it mimics natural drainage with features such as swales, ponds and wetlands, to slow down the flow of water, preventing flooding and also the burden on sewerage. In contrast to pipes, which are simply a cost with no amenity value, SuDS can provide interest and amenity in the form of green infrastructure. The newer, more holistic, approach, is WSUD. This looks at the entire role of water in the environment. As well as reducing flooding, it should cut down demand for potable water by allowing grey water to be filtered and re-used for non-potable applications. SuDS and WSUD already make sense in environmental and social terms. But they need a push if they are to be adopted more widely. That is why one of the Landscape Institute’s recommendations is for full implementation of the Flood and Water Management Act, which will ensure the implementation of SuDS on all new developments in the UK. Schedule 3, the relevant element, has still not been introduced despite the act passing in 2010. The latest estimate is that it will be brought in in April 2014, but there is some scepticism. Other recommendations from the Institute include: • Removal of the ‘un-economic cost’ get-out in Defra’s draft National Standards for Sustainable Drainage System unless exceptional circumstances exist (with ‘exceptional’ being defined) • A commitment to consider soft options first • Adoption of water sensitive urban design policies in every Local Plan •A comprehensive programme of retrofitting SuDS alongside larger water catchment management programmes and flood defence programmes.

The institute has also supported the publication of Water Sensitive Urban Design by CIRIA (the Construction Industry Research and Information Association), which is aimed at the general public. ‘The big message,’ said Paul Shaffer, an associate at CIRIA, ‘is that the best schemes are water sensitive, and that with early consultation and innovation, SuDS can be delivered on any site.’ CIRIA has set up an entire website, called SusDrain, which has the aim of disseminating information about SuDS, by pulling together guidance and case studies. ‘I would say people understand it as a concept, but there are still quite a lot of myths,’ Shaffer said. ‘The challenge is not that it is more difficult but that it is different.’ Illman believes that the landscape profession is in a similar state, that people grasp the importance, but that there is a hunger to really understand how to apply the approaches in detail and, crucially, to convince clients that they can work. A new film, released in August, demonstrates that by creating ‘water sensitive cities’ it is possible to address the major challenges of water shortage, flooding and pollution. The film, commissioned by the Landscape Institute and based on work by CIRIA, Arup and AECOM, explains the concept of water sensitive urban design (WSUD) and argues the case for designing ‘with’ water when planning any new development. The film is available to watch on the LI’s YouTube channel. Search for landscapeinstituteuk.

WHAT MAKES THEM DIFFERENT? Conventional drainage systems

Sustainable drainage systems

QUANTITY

QUANTITY – Replicating natural flows – Groundwater recharge – Local flood management – Reducing downstream flooding – Reducing riverbank erosion

– Wildlife habitat – Helath and wellbeing – Biodiversity – Visual appearance

AMENITY/ BIODIVERSITY 1 — SuDS triangle

QUALITY

AMENITY/ BIODIVERSITY

– Reducing sewer overflows – Improving water quality – Reducing misconnections – Watercourse protection

QUALITY

Landscape Autumn 2013

1 — Rathbone Market is an intensive development in a tough urban area.

Market value The water strategy at Rathbone Market, a high-density development in east London, provides precious high-quality open space as well as cutting down on the need for stormwater interception. By Ruth Slavid

change to accommodate run-off from storms, the project cuts back severely on the volume of attenuation tanks that are needed to hold back stormwater before releasing it to the sewage system. In the second phase of the project, tree pits are also used for water storage.

Rathbone Market is in a built-up area of London, sandwiched between a flyover on the A13 and the Barking Road. Outdoor space is at a premium, so what could be nicer than a pond, planted with marginal plants? But in fact it is part of an intelligently considered drainage strategy on all parts of the three-phase development. By retaining water in green, brown and blue roofs, and by allowing the level of the pond to

This is an ambitious project on which the design team – landscape architect Churchman working with architect CZWG – has worked with a sympathetic and enthusiastic client in English Cities Fund (ECf) to create the most water-sensitive design possible. The fact that it was still not able to avoid the use of attenuation tanks is an indication not of lack of imagination or of willpower, but of the fact that such high-density schemes offer limited space for alternative measures.

Photo ©: 1 — Tim Crocker

f you moved into an apartment at Rathbone Market in east London, you probably would not immediately be aware of its SuDS strategy. But you could not fail to notice and enjoy one aspect of that strategy – a pond at the centre of the scheme that provides visual interest.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: Market value

This pond is surrounded on three sides by tall housing blocks and on the third by an acoustic living wall, designed to absorb the road noise from the A13. All but one of the blocks have biodiverse roofs, with a planting substrate and plug plants. These roofs will in any case reduce the rate of run-off of rain, but water that passes through them is channelled down to the podium level. The only roof that is not planted is the lowest, on top of a block that is entirely social housing. On that roof the design team has created a series of allotment beds. It is tempting to call them urban allotments, but of course many allotments are urban. What distinguishes these is that they form part of the building rather than being on a piece of waste ground close by – a clever move since space for allotments is increasingly under pressure. The allotment ‘plots’ are cleverly detailed, with integral spaces for keeping tools. Irrigation is carried out manually, using water from a butt that collects rainwater from an adjacent, slightly higher roof. This can be topped up with mains water in dry periods.

Landscape Autumn 2013

The intention is to run the allotments in association with Capital Growth, an organisation set up in London to increase the number of community foodgrowing spaces. This is the only roof that will be publicly accessible, and can evidently also be used for leisure. There is some shading to protect from sun and wind, but enough open area to allow plants to thrive. The paving around the beds is raised on pedestals, and rain water runs through the gaps between the slabs, again to be collected and directed to the pond.

The pond provides

of water storage

This pond itself is an elegant and sophisticated piece of design, of irregular shape. It has water plants around its margins and has been designed to be relatively inaccessible – the idea is that residents should enjoy being around it, but not wade into it. The clever part of the design is that the water level will be allowed to rise and fall by around 200mm. This effectively creates a storage facility of 40m3. The water will, says Andrew Thornhill of Churchman, be ‘clear but not crystal clear’. It is recirculated through a ‘spring’, effectively a small fountain, that opens into a rill that then runs into the pond. A perforated pipe runs through the gravel beneath the planting at the edge of the pond to draw water through the filter bed. There is also a silt trap. One of the advantages of this arrangement, in addition to the visual excitement of moving water, is that it creates some ‘white noise’ which distracts from the sound of the nearby road. This open, planted space serves the residents of the surrounding development. (it is not accessible to the general public). This drainage strategy only deals with the water in phase one. The second phase, as well as including more residences, also incorporates a library and a substantial retail element. The layout meant that there wasn’t adequate space for another amenity pond.

/...

Photo ©: 2, 3, 4 — Tim Crocker

The development is in three phases, and centres around the revitalisation of what was once a thriving market space, with the intention that it will be so again. In total it provides 650 new homes and 20,000m2 of commercial space. The three-phase construction was unavoidable, since there had to be a degree of decanting. The project mixes social housing and housing for sale in a manner that is indistinguishable. The aim is to build a community, and having a social focus such as the pond helps with this.

1. Semi-intensive green / blue roof 2. Growing gardens 3. Conventional flat roofs 4. Biodiverse brown/blue roof 5. Podium garden 6. Attenuation pond & rill 7. Vegetated accoustic wall 8. Surface water attenuation, tree root cells 9. Underground attenuation tanks

PLOT 1

2 1

5 6

7 9

PLOT 2 8

3 1

8 4

3 3 — An elegant rill recirculates the water.

2 — The pond is at the heart of the drainage strategy.

4 — There are allotment boxes on top of one of the roofs.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: Market value

Instead, storage happens within the roofs. The two tallest buildings, which will not be overlooked, will have straightforward ‘blue’ roofs – flat roofs with parapets and the ability to collect water. Two of the lower roofs will be green amenity roofs – but will also be ‘blue’, while the roof to the community hub, which will not be accessible but will be overlooked, will be a brown biodiverse roof – and again will be ‘blue’. These dual roles are made possible by placing a storage medium – effectively an open cellular structure, beneath the planting substrate and typical drainage board. As on the pure blue roofs, this can be used as a storage capacity to hold back water after a heavy storm. In total the capacity of these roofs is around 110m3. Stored water of course adds a structural load, in the case of these roofs around 80kg per m2 but, said Thornhill, it did not actually lead to any increase in the structural frame, since the additional loading was absorbed in the design factors required for snow loading.

The other additional water storage comes within the root areas of the trees. The trees share a root zone which when combined reduces the volume of soil that each individual tree needs. But the clever move here is to use a geotextile material for this dedicated root zone. Because the geotextile prevent soil compaction, it can take up water very easily but also drain very easily. This both enhances the irrigation and hence the health of the trees, and provides another degree of attenuation. A conservative estimate allows for 20% of the soil volume in water retention. All these measures put together have allowed the number of attenuation tanks on the site to be reduced, with a cut in capacity of around half. At Rathbone Market the below-ground drainage is simplified considerably, which would be a positive result. But what is truly admirable about the project is that it has been reached with such an enormous increase in amenity – biodiverse roofs, a lovely pond, healthy trees and space for growing vegetables.

The capacity of these roofs is around

110 20

of soil volume in water retention

Flat roof

Brown roof Up to 150mm substrate

Manual irrigation STORAGE TANK

Growing garden, up to 450mm substrate depth

Mains top-up

GREEN WALL

Tree planting Localised substrate depth up to 900mm

STORAGE TANK

POOL

Podium planting Substrate depth up to 450mm

Attenuation capacity p y

Drain down RILL

To RW drain

Mains top-up

Overflow

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CIRCULATON/FILTRATION

INLINE SILT TRAP accessed from communal areas

Mains top-up

Photo ©: 5 — Tim Crocker

5 — A living wall provides sound attenuation from the adjacent major road.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: Leicester

Working together

Collaboration between different disciplines is helping Leicester develop a depth of knowledge about dealing with water By Ruth Slavid

While some kinds of ‘bad water’ are reasonably easy to define, such as flooding, she is also keen to avoid what one could see as the tragedy of good intentions. Her presentation showed, for example, a carefully designed swale ruined by a ‘protective fence’ that has been put up around it.

Currently this risk is high. Leicester is one of the most likely places in the country to suffer from surface water floods – not from large rivers bursting their banks but from run-off with nowhere to go. Leicester’s susceptibility may be surprising because we have not seen pictures on the news of residents being forced out of their homes. Fortunately, Tinsley says, ‘Flooding in Leicester doesn’t wash through houses.’ But there may well be water in the streets and in basements and, in particular, it affects infrastructure, leading to lights going out and power failing. And, because of distribution patterns, these problems may affect people who are not particularly close to where the flooding actually occurs.

By pulling together teams in Leicester, and treating every project as a learning experience, the hope is that these problems can be avoided there, and the city can benefit from some improved spaces and a reduced flooding risk.

‘This has provided funding to us as a lead local flood authority to find out the causes and to look at solutions,’ Tinsley explained. ‘The Surface Water Management Plan level 3 identifies and maps critical drainage areas and suggests mitigation measures.’

ryse Tinsley, landscape planner with h Leicester City Council, titled a recent presentation on SuDS ‘the story of good and bad water’. Avoiding bad water is what she is helping Leicester to do, in a role where she sees the key task as working across the disciplines.

Landscape Autumn 2013

The projects carried out so far are relatively small in scale – in fact what the city needs is a large number of smallish interventions – so that their overall impact is not great. But they are being studied and monitored so that they can inform best practice in the future. One might imagine that most of what needs to be known about SuDS is known already, and on a purely technical level that may be true for all but the most ambitious projects. But the value in the Leicester projects, beyond the straightforward amelioration provided in a fairly localised area, lies in the lessons learnt about consultation, about public fears and also about the behaviour of and learning needed by those who have not engaged in this type of work before. 2 1 — At Spinney Hill Park, the council worked with Chris Blandford Associates to create a less formal edge to a stream with enhanced flood capacity. 2 — Spinney Hill Park before improvement. 3 — Work in progress at Spinney Hill Park. 4 — At Abbey Meadows the council has created a floodable area that protects playing fields. 5 — Swales in a housing development at Hamilton.

Photo ©: 1,2,3,4 — Leicester City Council Photo ©: 5 — CIRIA

Ditch widening created

1000

So, for example, a report on the Abbey Meadows Wetland project, completed in 2011, lists the main lesson learnt as ‘That projects of this nature can be over designed – nearly lost the start date by over insistence on numbers of sections.’ What this meant, Tinsley said, was that engineers working on widening an existing ditch were eager to design the section of a floodable area with the degree of accuracy that they would have given to a highways section. The slightly more relaxed approach to engineering in this type of natural environment is something that has to be learnt by people who have been trained in other disciplines. The project itself is simple, but no less admirable for that. It is set on an area of open land, near to the Grand Union Canal and the River Soar, and also near to an area prone to flooding. A ditch that runs through the area frequently flooded in winter, making sport pitches unusable, and also flooding on to the nearby road, washing pollution off it and into watercourses. By widening the ditch, the council has created about 1,000m3 of flood storage capacity. It was not possible to create more because of the proximity to a badger sett. As well as making the open space usable all year round, new planting has enhanced biodiversity. The consultation process was a way that the council could learn about concerns. Through its displays and meetings it won over some who were initially opposed to the plans.

of flood storage capacity

Another project, at Castle Hill Country Park on the edge of the city, was driven mainly by a desire to increase biodiversity. The intention was to create a /... Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: Leicester

number of wetland scrapes in varying environments: three within stormwater areas that would be mostly dry; three nearer to a brook which would usually contain some water; and three near on/offline ponds that would help to store floodwaters. It was this last category that represented some new thinking. On / offline ponds are what they sound like – at times of low water they are independent ponds, but when water is high the brook can overflow into them, bringing them ‘online’. This was another project in which skills were built, and that worked because of good cooperation. In this case, the lessons learnt were about getting the scale right – the larger ponds worked better – and the importance of dealing well with spoil.

What Leicester is doing today, much of the rest of the country will, we hope, be doing in the future. 6 — Castle Hill Country Park is another project where improved flood protection has also created a richer environment.

Photo ©: 6 — Leicester City Council

At Spinney Hill Park, the council worked with Chris Blandford Associates, again deformalising the edges of a stream, enhancing its appearance and biodiversity and at the same time increasing its flood capacity.

Tinsley works very closely on these projects with a highly qualified nature conservation officer and the flood risk manager who ‘was a drainage engineer for many years but has seen the light and is a born again SuDS enthusiast’ and a range of people from other departments. She adds, ‘At a landscape architect level, I see my role as to spread knowledge about SuDS and to look for practical opportunities to implement schemes. I got some RIEP funding a few years back to provide training; through that I have run workshops both for local authorities in Leicestershire, for urban designers in the region, given talks to developers; in fact anyone who will listen, taken groups out to see schemes, built up case studies and set up the County SuDS group for us to share knowledge through quarterly meetings.’

Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: Sense & sensitivity

Sense and sensitivity Australia and New Zealand have become pioneers of water-sensitive design, tackling both the technological and the cultural challenges. By Ruth Slavid

Landscape Autumn 2013

Photo ÂŠ: 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; CRC for Water Sensitive Cities

isitors to Ecobuild earlier this year were impressed, as is everybody who has heard him talk, by Tony Wong’s presentation about water-sensitive design in Australia and nearby countries. While this is a subject with which the UK is only just starting to get to grips, it is an area where Australia seems to be way ahead. The reason is evident if you look at a Tedx talk that Wong gave in Canberra in May where he starts by outlining the scale of the problem that Australia faces. A disastrous drought that lasted from 1997 to 2008 was followed by cataclysmic floods in January 2011. Their effects could have been even worse if the country hadn’t already started to adopt measures, pioneered in Melbourne, to make its cities water-sensitive. Wong had an important part to play in this. A civil engineer, his interest began in the early 1990s when he was looking at how biomimicry could be used to improve the quality of stormwater, and then realised that actually the problem was the behaviour of the stormwater itself.

1 — A median wetland at Lynbrook Estate near Melbourne. 2 — Victoria Park in Sydney intercepts and re-uses water.

From there he developed some projects that defined a new norm for working with water. And as if that were not enough, he now heads a research centre, called the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, based at Monash University in Melbourne. It has funds of A$120 million (around £75 million) and four research hubs in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Singapore. Its aim is to bring together ‘the inter-disciplinary research expertise and thought-leadership to undertake research that will revolutionise water management in Australia and overseas’. But although the ambition is large, the scale of the projects is not necessarily so. Wong, for example, has worked in Singapore as well as Australia and New Zealand (he has both run his own practice and, for a while, been part of AECOM). Singapore is a city-state with no hinterland and hence is obliged to work to create a densely populated but ecological and liveable environment. It is to be lauded for some of the ambitious schemes it has executed, such as Atelier Dreiseitl’s reworking of Bishan Park, where money has seemed to be, virtually, no object. But these are not the schemes that interest Wong. Instead he has concentrated on smaller-scale interventions. ‘My job,’ he said, ‘is to look at smaller, lower cost projects that can be implemented throughout the country without breaking the bank.’ Wong stresses that all his work has been in collaboration with landscape architects. ‘I couldn’t draw anything if my life depended on it,’ he says. ‘I have provided a very strong scientific layer to what is often a strong narrative about how landscape relates to the environment. My role is to provide a much stronger ecological meaning. How good it looks often is nothing to do with me.’

Photo ©: 2 — Max Creasy

The principles that he works to are becoming so universally accepted that it is difficult to remember that they were once revolutionary. But this acceptance certainly doesn’t mean that the job is done. There is still much to learn about the details of implementation, plus a new set of skills to diffuse.

An indication of this is that when Wong quotes projects, he often refers to some of the earliest ones, with which he was most closely involved. This is not as an ego trip but because, he says, when he paid close attention he could ensure that everything went according to plan. Projects that have followed have not always been 100% successful as not all of the approach has been understood. But Wong believes this is an unavoidable part of the learning process. /... Landscape Autumn 2013

Feature: Sense & sensitivity

The principles are easily grasped however. Water is a precious resource, which is wasted when it runs off as stormwater. It takes nutrients with it that pollute water courses, yet treating it would be prohibitively expensive. The answer, of course, is to reduce the run-off, and to keep the water within the city as a resource not a problem – since the obverse of having too much water is not having enough. With the right engineering, many of the nutrients can be recovered within ecosystems, and the water can be re-used. ‘We should think of rain gardens as the kidneys of our cities,’ Wong says. Once water has been filtered by natural processes, it is ready for a wide range of uses. ‘We should all have two taps in our houses,’ Wong says, ‘One for drinking water and one for other uses.’ Cities can be important water resources after a drought, Wong believes. In the countryside, if the ground is parched, any rain that does fall will be absorbed and not reach the water course. But in cities there will always be run-off. Capturing this and using it, at the time when it is most needed, is therefore essential.

Wong cites projects like Victoria Park in Sydney where he worked with landscape architect Hassell. Originally this area was part of a large wetland ecological system, and the current mixed-use design refers back to that period before the land’s long exploitation, first as a racecourse and then as heavy industry. The east-west streets have median wetlands (strips between the carriageways). Swales capture the first-flush water from the highways, and this water, which is filtered naturally, is then intercepted and re-used in water features.

Run-off from roads and streets is directed to grass swales and an underground gravel trench system that collects, filters and carries this water through a 150mm diameter perforated pipe to the main boulevard. This boulevard, which incorporates a gravel trench with another perforated pipe in it, acts as a stormwater retention system. Eventually, excess water from here runs into an ornamental lake from which water can, in turn, filter out to be used in irrigation. If this sounds a little mechanistic in principle, it is certainly not so

Landscape Autumn 2013

Photo ©: 3 — NCRC for Water Sensitive Cities Photo ©: 4, 5, 7 — Neil Price

An earlier pioneering project was the Lynbrook Estate, a housing development about 35km southeast of Melbourne. The initial stages of the scheme, which was not very successful, had a conventional stormwater drainage system. The Urban and Regional Land Corporation, which is the developer of the estate, then decided to use the later stages as a demonstration project for WSUDs.

3 — The water-sensitive design at Lynbrook Estate has made it a more attractive place to live. 4 — Waitangi Park in Wellington New Zealand forms part of the city’s water strategy. 5 — Waitangi Park has the capacity to absorb excess water. 6 — Tony Wong. 7 — Water levels can rise and fall at Waitangi Park.

in practice. ‘It is a beautiful lush urban environment, with strong biodiversity,’ says Wong. It is this win-win – a more rational and frugal use of water along with the creation of more pleasant places to live – that encouraged the Victoria government (the state in which Melbourne is) to introduce legislation requiring all new major housing developments to incorporate water-sensitive design. it is a beautiful lush urban environment with strong biodiversity

Tony Wong 6

As a result, Wong became involved not only in designing projects, but also in capacity-building, to help other engineers develop the skills and knowledge necessary to implement such policies. Wong’s approach is, he says, ‘to work out some non-negotiables from the technical point of view and some of the things you do not need to get hung up on. Then you leave the door open for design creativity. It is unconventional for an engineer’s practice.’ Another project that is innovative is Waitangi Park in Wellington, New Zealand, for which the lead consultant was Wraight Athfield Landscape – a joint venture between Wraight +Associates and Athfield Architects. Built on a former industrial site, it could, says Wong, ‘so easily have been just another park.’ It is a park, but one that actually functions as part of the city’s water strategy, taking run-off from surrounding streets, harvesting it for irrigation and preventing pollution of surrounding watercourses. While Waitangi is on brownfield land, it is still a new piece of urban landscape. Evidently it is simpler to introduce these approaches with new construction, but, says Wong, ‘the focus is now on existing environments, on how we can capture the urban renewal process. A lot of cities in Australia are undergoing a period of densification. How can we start to embed a lot of green infrastructure in this process? How should we design buildings?’ Green walls, for instance can, he believes, be used to recycle and treat grey water. As cities become denser, so having good quality urban spaces becomes more important. If those spaces can also work harder, attenuating stormwater run-off, harvesting water for re-use and providing a source of interesting planting to lift the spirits, we will all be much better off. While the principles of the approach are broadly understood, and Australia’s leading role is to be applauded, there is still plenty of research to be done. Wong’s research centre should have a long and fruitful existence.

See Tony Wong’s Tedx talk at http://bit.ly/15Bsn9g

Landscape Autumn 2013

Technical 1 By Rebecca McMackin

Dealing with salt When we think about storm damage, we do not always think of how to mitigate the damage that salt inflicts on plants. But for the director of horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park this was a major concern in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

n October 2012 Hurricane Sandy devastated coastal regions of New York and New Jersey. Much of Brooklyn Bridge Park (BBP) was underwater for four hours. Sandy was the second ‘100 year storm’ in two years, and researchers at MIT say we should now expect such extreme weather events every three to 20 years. In light of our changing climate, robust ecological landscapes must now comprise more than native plants, sustainable construction, and organic management practices. Landscapes should be created with rising waters and extreme weather events in mind, and management practices for storms and floods should be researched, established, tested, and shared. Below is a case study for horticulturallyfocused storm management, using BBP’s experiences and experiments after Hurricane Sandy. The techniques utilised might be helpful in other coastal or storm-prone landscapes. Management strategies and (very) preliminary 46

Landscape Autumn 2013

experiment results are laid out below with the hope that other landscapes might benefit from and join the conversation about how to manage horticultural storm damage in the future. Assessing the storm damage Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre (34 ha) public park built on reclaimed shipping piers along the East River. The park contains many distinct ecosystems – from meadows to forests to wetlands – and is managed with an emphasis on ecology. While our many piers were hit hard by Sandy, the park weathered the storm relatively unscathed. Large areas of the piers, uplands, and even surrounding streets of the park were submerged in brackish and salt water for up to four hours during the storm. The park lost electricity that BBP is still working to restore (editor’s note – this article was first published in January 2013), and two playground surfaces were badly damaged. Three young trees toppled over, and anything that wasn’t secured, from 200-gallon (900 litre) planters to shipping containers, floated incredible distances around the park. However, that was the extent of the damage. While it is too soon to tell if submerged plant material will return with full vigour in the spring, initial surveys indicate minimal plant loss and we are cautiously optimistic. We owe this adaptability to forward-thinking park design and proper management in the

days and weeks after the storm. The designers of the park, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), carefully considered waterfront location, shoreline conditions, climate change, and rising sea levels to create a park capable of withstanding storms and major floods. Topographical changes blocked incoming flood waters, soft edge treatments of rip-rap and salt marshes held up against violent water forces, and the park itself soaked up waters that might have damaged the surrounding neighborhoods further. The sandy soil profiles used in the park (between 70 and 90%) helped the initially salty soils drain quickly. Plants were selected for salt tolerance and placed with rising water levels in mind, using many salt tolerant natives like pitch pine, beach plumb, and Baccharis in flood zones. It is this kind of design sophistication that can help create the adaptable and climatechange-appropriate landscapes of the future. However, proper post-storm landscape management can be just as critical for ensuring long term plant survival. Flushing out the salt Following the storm and after four hours of salt water inundation, our biggest horticultural concern was flushing soils of plant-toxic salts. Remember Carthage? Elevated salt levels can kill plants through reverse

1 — Salt damage to cherry laurel above and below the water line. 2 — Rendering of the completed Brooklyn Bridge Park.

osmosis and make soils uninhabitable for plants in the future. There was a concern regarding adding water to potentially drowned plants, but salt was determined to be a more critical factor.

Photo ©: 1 — Julienne Schaer Image ©: 2 — MVVA Inc.

Without electricity, the extent of our irrigation system was limited to a single zone at a time. With 100 zones per pier, this was not enough. Water trucks were brought in to spray foliage and flush soils in low-lying lawns and beds. We estimate that soils received two to three inches of water through these means in the week following the storm. While the Nor’easter that swept New York just a week after Sandy was devastating to many neighborhoods, compounding prior damage, it was incredibly beneficial to BBP, which soaked up the additional inch of water happily. When flushing soils, salt does not simply dissipate; one has to chase the salt down the soil profile. We were aiming for a safe salinity level of less than two parts per thousand to a depth of 18 inches (46 cm), out of the reach of the majority of the plants’ roots. It is estimated that 12 inches of water (30cm) will reduce salinity by 80%, and while this is by no means always accurate, we used it to set a goal of applying 12 inches of water to the park’s more affected areas. Between irrigation, rainfall, and water trucks, we estimate that the park received about 14 inches of water (36 cm) in the month after the storm.

Testing salinity-reducing soil additives In addition to water, we received many recommendations regarding soil additives that might help bind or drain salts. It has been my experience that the data on these methods are limited and some are feared potentially harmful to soil food webs, so we divided the park into quadrants to test the efficacy of our various options, as well as potential damage to soil biology. Humic acids were applied to the park. The acids have been shown to aid plants with nutrient uptake and reduce stress in saline soils, as well as potentially lowering soil salinity levels. Originally, lignite-based humic acids were integrated into a compost tea mix and sprayed in with water, and later applied again to all areas in a granular form. As this is a proven technique, and carries no potential ecological drawbacks, we applied humic acids to all flooded areas and did not keep a control.

Gypsum (calcium sulphate) has been shown to reduce salinity and increase drainage in sodic and clay soils. While our soils were neither clay nor sodic, we wanted to test the hypothesis that gypsum would reduce salinity in severely compacted areas as well. We manage horticulture at BBP with an emphasis on ecology: a healthy soil food web is the basis for the plant material, habitat, and wildlife. We monitor and cultivate microbial biodiversity. As was expected, inundation in salt water decimated soil ecology directly after the storm (see Table 1). While there were undocumented concerns that gypsum might harm the soil food-web, it was decided that elevated salinity was more detrimental and we proceeded with experiments. We took soil samples for food-web analysis before application of gypsum to selected locations. We will sample again next year to determine both short – and long-term effects on soil biology.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Table 1. Post-storm arbuscular mycorrhizal content of a turf grass above and below the flood line. Source: Ecolandscaping Table 2. Preliminary salinity results for Brooklyn Bridge Park over time October 28, 2012 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; January 4, 2013. Source: Brooklyn Bridge Park

Preliminary results (Table 2) indicate that the majority of our soils drained quickly back to safe salinity levels regardless of treatment. Only the most compacted areas remain potentially problematic. Soil compaction is a major factor in salinity drainage because water has a hard time flowing through compacted soils to flush the salts.

centimetres

30 25 20 15 10 5

Comparing results and planning for 2013 Due to limited data, it is too soon to say how our various amendments affected soil salinity. In the days after Hurricane Sandy, we were focused more on helping the park rather than on science. It is our hope that patterns will appear with increased testing in the coming year. I invite anyone in similar situations or with experience in the matter to contact me regarding post-storm landscape management. Through comparing notes and techniques with many coastal landscapes in the region, it is my goal to construct and share best management practices for flooded coastal areas. I would welcome collaboration in this process.

0 Flooded lawn

Not-flooded lawn

Salinity levels (parts per million)

4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 Safe salinity levels

2000 1500

Pier 1 playground bed

1000 Vale lawn

500 0

1 Jan

22 Dec

Swing valley lawn 27 Dec

12 Dec

17 Dec

2 Dec

7 Dec

22 Nov

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27 Nov

12 Nov

17 Nov

2 Nov

7 Nov

28 Oct

Bridgeview lawn

While the true extent of the plant damage from salt water flooding will not be known until well into next season, preliminary tests indicate that trees, shrubs, forbs and turf sustained only minimal damage. We were lucky that the storm hit after most of the plants had begun going dormant for the winter. With good design, good management, and good luck, we hope that most of the

Technical 1 cont.

We have to plan for 100-year storms and expect them every decade

3 — Native plantings, post-storm, apparently unscathed by the flood waters. 4 — Immediately post-storm, several areas appeared to be holding up well.

plants at BBP will thrive in the coming year. Visible plant deaths so far have only occurred in recently transplanted trees, ironically pitch pines. While we had hoped to take much of the established planting beds off of irrigation this year, we will continue to water for 2013, especially in the case of drought. We will continue monitoring all plants closely and keep track of survivor and vulnerable species for future use.

Photo ©: 2, 3 — Jeanne Rostaing for Gardenista

The evolution of ecological landscapes must take our changing climate into account and seek to create and manage landscapes that perform the ecological processes and services capable of surviving and even mitigating extreme weather events. We have to plan for 100-year storms and expect them every decade. Using the unfortunate event of a super-storm to test remediation strategies for future hurricanes can turn a potentially devastating event into an opportunity for science.

This article was originally published under the title ‘Weathering the Storm: Horticulture Management in Brooklyn Bridge Park in the Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy,’ in the January 2013 edition of the ELA newsletter (newsletter of the Ecological Landscaping Association). You can find this and other articles at www.ecolandscaping.org. Rebecca McMackin is the director of horticulture for Brooklyn Bridge Park.

AFTERWORD – June 2013

Park plantings have been affected far more than expected. Many of the survivors/ victims fly in the face of printed ‘salt tolerance’, (most of our London planes are dead) so we’re cataloguing and sharing the information with as many parks as possible. Because we work with many native plants, there isn’t thorough research available on resilience. The amazing thing is how briefly the plants were inundated, and how quickly the salinity levels returned to normal, and still how much damage we see. Replacing dead material is a slow and careful process. No trees will be removed until we are absolutely certain they are at the very least 80% dead, which, with trees, can be difficult to ascertain. Many of the shrubs we feared dead are re-sprouting from their crowns, and will simply need to be cut back. Michael Van Valkenburgh, of MVVA, relayed a lovely sentiment last week, that in our replanting, we should focus on making the park more resilient for the future, but we don’t want to hide the history of the landscape. We don’t want to create an immediately ‘perfect’ park that never went through a storm. The irregularities in plant growth that will result from the flooding can be truly beautiful.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Technical 2 By Ruth Slavid

1 — The flood prevention work in Banbury involved construction of a major embankment. 2 — Defences in Shrewsbury are attractive but need dedicated maintenance.

On the larger scale

Photo ©: 1 — Suave Air Photos Photo ©: 2 — Ryder Landscape Consultants

people in England and Wales live and work in properties that are at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea. In 1953, the UK’s worst peacetime disaster occurred when the East Coast flood killed 326 people. Even without loss of life, the cost in financial and psychological terms of flooding can be enormous.

The contribution of the landscape architect at catchment level can mean the difference between visual intrusion and enhancement of the landscape.

contrast to SUDs and WSUDs, where n it is possible to design the landscape so that it does much of the work that would previously have been performed by hard engineering structures, at the catchment level, if flooding is a concern, there are bound to be physical barriers. The landscape architect will therefore often be working to

ameliorate the effects of hard engineering structures, rather than to replace them. The importance of the work should not be underestimated. Stuart Ryder, of Ryder Landscape Consultants, says, ‘We deal with the cataclysmic end of the scale. We work with sites where there is an extreme flood risk.’ The problem with severe flooding is that it is not all that frequent – many designs are for one in 200 year floods – but that when the floods do occur the results can be terrible. And it is a huge problem. The Environment Agency believes that more than five million

The Environment Agency is, rightly, taking the risks seriously, and has recently appointed a framework of consultants and contractors to work with it over the next 10 years to deliver a £2.5 billion programme of works. Ryder describes his practice’s work on such projects as falling into three main areas: planning which can range from initial site assessment through to submissions for planning permission; design, which may include public liaison during the construction process; and management which may be anything from long-term land use planning through to habitat management. Put simply, one vital role of a landscape architect is to ensure that the protection measures that are put in for those occasional and exceptional circumstances do not blight people’s lives during the majority of time when those circumstances do not apply. ‘Our work is collaborative with civil and structural engineering, to ameliorate the potential harm from large and intrusive engineering elements,’ Ryder said. ‘If that sounds rather negative, a way of not doing harm rather than of doing good, then look /...

Landscape Autumn 2013

Technical 2 cont.

3 — Community engagement discovered that protection of the Bakehouse Steps was the major concern in Morpeth. 4 — Award-winning coastal defences at Cleveleys. 5 — Coastal protection schemes need to preserve special environments, such as this salt marsh at Donna Nook in Lincolnshire.

large earth embankments, protected habitats and looked at future agricultural usages. It carried out an extensive public consultation programme, since it is vital for people that will live near the defences to have an input, and to understand why the work is necessary.

no further than the Cleveleys coast protection scheme which won a British Construction Industry Award in 2008. In this traditional seaside town which is just north of Blackpool, the design team managed to incorporate elements in the defences that made them into an enhancement rather than an interruption. Crucially, it managed to avoid visually separating the town from the sea, and so removing much of its charm.

Landscape Autumn 2013

In Banbury, Oxfordshire, the flood risk comes from the River Cherwell where it spills into the adjacent Oxford Canal and floods Banbury from there as well as from its own watercourse. The project was to build a large upstream flood storage reservoir that required a 3km embankment to be built between the river and the canal. At three places the River Cherwell had to be moved to allow space for the construction of the flood embankment. Ryder designed the landform to ameliorate the effect of the

A scheme in Shrewsbury was tested in earnest with flooding just two weeks after completion in 2004. It was the first time that demountable defences were used in England to minimise visual impact. One of the lessons that the practice drew from the project was that ‘If you want to create a quality scheme that fits into its setting, then time and money have to be invested in the design of cladding, the quality of materials and site supervision.’ While this may seem an obvious point on the design of a highquality office block, it may be less apparent on what is essentially a civil engineering

Photo ©: 3, 4, 5 — Ryder Landscape Consultants

In Morpeth Northumberland and in Lancashire, consultation found that the single most important element for local people was the preservation and continued use of the Bakehouse Steps, a series of stepping stones across the river. They have historic significance, since they were once the only means of crossing, but are still widely used today. On a scheme like this, which is in a mix of rural and urban areas, such understanding – as well as an appreciation of the need to preserve the local crayfish population – can be vital.

ROLES OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS IN ASSISTING THE DESIGN AND DELIVERY OF FLOOD ALLEVIATION PROJECTS

Planning • Initial site appraisal work • Identifying flood management options with engineering colleagues • Scoping environmental issues • Inputting to or leading Environmental Impact Assessments on these projects • Public and technical engagement • Planning and other consent submissions Design • Refining design options to arrive at a preferred solution • Alignment and form of defences • Locating and managing win areas for large scale earth works • Mitigation design • Enhancement opportunities for rural, coastal and urban projects • Supervision of works on site • Public liaison during the construction process Management • Management of mitigation and enhancement works • Long-term land use planning • Recreational access • Habitat management

project. Another lesson drawn from that project was that, however high-profile the scheme may be, planting will not be looked after unless it is specifically written into the maintenance contract. No two flood prevention schemes are the same, yet there are lessons that can be applied widely. If landscape architects are employed at an early stage, they can make the difference between degrading and enhancing a neighbourhood when introducing vital measures to protect from flooding.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Technical 3

Home truths Housing schemes are increasingly adopting SuDS and WSUD approaches, but how can – and should – they be done? Illman Young shares its expertise.

MANAGEMENT TRAIN

1 — This schematic drawing of the typical management train of a residential SuDS scheme shows the inter-relationship between the various levels of control, and the mixture of evapotranspiration, infiltration and travel to a water course. Diagrams like this can be very useful in explaining the principles of SuDS to clients and to consultees on a project.

he principles of SuDS and WSUD may be more widely appreciated now than they were, but actually carrying out the work requires skills of both analysis and detail, and involvement at an early a stage as possible. Illman Young, which is based in Cheltenham, has built up expertise in this area of work over eight years, including carrying out a 30-month research study in association with the University of Gloucestershire. As a result it developed an in-house training scheme to ensure that all staff are as knowledgeable as possible. The knowledge gained has helped inform Sue Illman’s decision, as president of the Landscape Institute, to make water one of the main themes of her presidency. Illman gives popular CPD presentations on SuDS and WSUD. The drawings shown on these pages appear in her presentations. Here there is an opportunity to study them in more detail, with descriptions provided by her colleague Judith Puckmayr.

Site control

Evapotranspiration

Source control Regional control

Infiltration

Receiving watercourse

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Technical 3 cont. Cribbs Urban Village The site for the new Cribbs Urban Village is on the edge of North Bristol, between the boundary set by the M5 motorway, and the A4018 (Cribbs Causeway). It is 51 hectares and will accommodate approximately 1250 dwellings. The main objectives for the SuDS at Cribbs Urban Village is the immediate containment of surface water runoff on site preventing any increased and rapid runoff from impermeable areas affecting the downstream environment which already experiences flood problems.

SECTION OF MASTERPLAN, CRIBBS URBAN VILLAGE 2 — The architect’s interpretation of this showed much more blue, as they became enthusiastic and imagined a lot of water in the project. In fact, as all the features are on the top of a hill they will only fill up during rainfall, and will mostly be green as shown in this sketch. Only one parcel was designed to that level of detail to illustrate how the SuDS could work in greater detail. The rest of the masterplan was done much more schematically.

The early design work considered how and where water would be conveyed and stored on site, considering the topography, existing landscape features, and the available discharge points to the local watercourse. The potential to discharge is highly restricted to a small part of the site, and is itself within flood zone 2. This early planning was essential to ensure that appropriate space was allocated within wwthe scheme in the right places. Drainage features will be used in series, starting with prevention and dealing with the runoff as close to source as possible, followed by site and regional control measures, such as the use of basins, ponds and wetland features. Most SuDS features used will be above ground and will take advantage of opportunities to enhance the landscape and biodiversity. They will allow easy access as they will be part of the overall landscape maintenance strategy, with any blockages or pollution becoming visible very quickly. The aim is that the SuDS will become an integral part of the landscape and urban design and give the development a distinct identity.

5 6

Landscape Autumn 2013

1 Open channels

4 Site control feature

2 Swales along road / source control

5 Open canal

3 Detention basin with permanent pond

6 Conveyance to regional control feature

MAJOR ROAD, CRIBBS URBAN VILLAGE 3 — This was a typical section through a major road to assist the masterplanning process, to allow enough space for SuDS within the road layout. The principle of the design was to create a linear park inc. a swale in the middle of the road.

1 Pedestrian access 1.5m

6 Planting with seating 2m

2 Car parking 5m

7 Shared surface 5m

3 Shared surface 5m

8 Car parking 2.5m

4 Swale 6.5m

9 Pedestrian access 1.5m

5 Footpath 1m Water collected in downpipes and discharged via shallow dish drain or pipes into channel

Swale collects all surface runoff from adjacent roofs and buildings and allows infiltration. Excess flows are conveyed into ponds, basins or wetland systems for attenuation.

Flush kerb and safety barrier Permeable paving with storage capacity underneath

Permeable paving with storage capacity underneath

Max 1 in 4 slopes

Surface water flows towards swale

TYPICAL RESIDENTIAL STREET, CRIBBS URBAN VILLAGE 4 — Typical residential street with a swale to one side of the road. Again, this is to ensure that sufficient width is allowed for and to assist the masterplanning process.

1 Pedestrian access 1m

4 Shared surface 5.5m

2 Tree planting 2m

5 Car parking 2.5m

3 Swale 5.5m

6 Pedestrian access 1m

Water collected in downpipes and discharged via shallow dish drain or pipes into channel

(IF SHORT OF SPACE OMIT THIS IMAGE AND ITS CAPTION) 3 — The mews site is sloping and will have some

Image of mews roads running straight down the contours. Cascades have been designed to allow water to be collected from these steeper roads. They can also become Swale collects surface runoff from very distinct features. buildings and adjacent roads.

Excess flows are conveyed into larger SuDS facilities (ponds, basins or wetlands)

Permeable paving with storage capacity underneath

Landscape Autumn 2013

Technical 3 cont. Middlemore These three drawings show Middlemore, a small site in Daventry, Northamptonshire that illustrates how a single-phase development of approximately 50 residential units could be developed in a new local community. The site chosen has an area of 2.72 ha in total, with a target density of approximately 36 dwellings per hectare.

TRADITIONAL DRAINAGE SOLUTION — 1 in 30 year event Pipes (600mm diameter): 360m3 storage Total: 360m3 — 1 in 100 year event Crates: Total:

140m3 storage 500m3

As the site is currently a green field that slopes down in one direction, it was important to begin the masterplanning process by understanding the existing drainage characteristics. The initial study showed that water will naturally collect along the access road at the bottom of the site and the approach was to allow the direction of water flow to occur in a natural way, with controls at source, site and regional levels. An intial SuDS strategy was then developed which showed how the site can be divided into two ‘sub-catchments’, each with a system of source control – e.g. permeable paving and green roofs; site control, – e.g. ponds, basins and swales; and regional controls – e.g. ponds, basins and wetlands.

2 1

There will be a discharge from the regional control features to storm sewers after the larger or longer storms. The SuDS features are positioned so that the larger controls are at the bottom of the site (in this case, the south-east), allowing as many natural features as possible and to minimise the use of underground pipes and pumps. For cost comparison purposes not only was a fully integrated SuDS solution developed, but also a traditional layout as well as a semi-engineered ‘end of pipe’ solution. The cost comparison showed that the lowest capital cost was for the full SuDS scheme which is fully integrated within the site layout, and which uses the least number of hard features. This did not include the added benefit of a ‘pond premium’ that SuDS schemes can offer – i.e. the extra capital value on the price of the housing units due to the attractive green environment.

Key

Rain water pipes (100mm diameter) Gullies Hydrobrake 1 50m3 crated storage 2 25m3 crated storage 3 65m3 crated storage

— Oversized pipes deal with the 1/30 year storm event — Crated storage system deals with the 1/100 year storm event 5

Landscape Autumn 2013

Surface water sewer (600mm diameter) and manholes (1800mm diameter)

ENGINEERED SUDS SOLUTION — ‘END OF PIPE’

FULL SUDS SOLUTION

— 1 in 30 year event Pipes (400mm diameter): 240m3 storage Permeable paving: 120m3 storage Total: 360m3

— 1 in 30 year event Rain garden Permeable paving Basins Ponds Total:

— 1 in 100 year event Ponds: Total:

140m3 storage 500m3

15m3 storage 120m3 storage 135m3 storage 90m3 storage 360m3

— 1 in 100 year event Basins 40m3 storage Ponds 100m3 storage Total: 500m3

2 6 1

2 1

4 7

13 14

1 15m3 rain garden 2 50m3 pond storage

Discharged at greenfield runoff rate Key

4 20m3 basin 5 40m3 pond storage 6 18m3 basin

Surface Water Sewer (600mm diameter) and manholes (1800mm diameter)

Key

7 10m3 basin

Rain water pipes (100mm diameter)

Swales

Gullies Hydrobrake

Ponds

9 22m3 basin

Permeable paving

10 10m3 basin

Basins

1 50m3 pond storage 2 25m3 pond storage

Piped connections

3 65m3 pond storage

Direction of falls on roads

— Pipes and permeable paving deal with the 1/30 year storm event — Balancing ponds deal with the 1/100 year storm event 6

3 15m3 basin

8 60m3 pond storage

11 28m3 basin 12 25m3 basin 13 28m3 basin 14 28m3 pond storage

— Swales, permeable paving and basins and several ponds deal with the 1/30 year storm event — Balancing ponds and several basins deal with the 1/100 year storm event 7

Landscape Autumn 2013

Practice 1 By Jez Abbott

Gardener of Eden Geoffrey Jellicoe was an enormous influence on Dominic Cole, so it is appropriate that he is to give this year’s Jellicoe Lecture.

hen Dominic Cole gives the Jellicoe lecture on 8 November it will be in the most appropriate place possible – the Eden Project where he was the principal designer. He will offer a tantalising glimpse into the creative process behind this most unusual landform. That creation is now 12 years old and maturing well, both inside and outside the biomes that gave world-famous definition to the former china clay pit. As masterplanner Cole transformed steep, filthy industrial land into a verdant yet lunar-like landscape, and he feels it is fitting to return to St Austell, Cornwall, for this particular lecture. Cole, chairman of the Garden History Society and of the National Trust parks and gardens advisory panel, admires the legacy of Geoffrey Jellicoe, who died in 1996. This was five years before Eden, but his influence is not lost on Cole who insists the old master’s blend of modernity grounded in context

Landscape Autumn 2013

makes Jellicoe ‘polymathic’ – a person of great and varied learning. As a child in Tring, Hertfordshire, Cole romped around the Water Gardens in Hemel Hempstead, one of Jellicoe’s favourite designs. As a student at Leeds Poly, he met Jellicoe, and right now Cole is working to restore the playground of his youth. This is badly neglected but traces of the original form and structure are still visible beneath the dereliction and undergrowth. Yet it is still the clay pit that captures the limelight. Tim Smit’s wily charm helped mastermind Eden; Cole’s intellectual rigour made it happen. Both had worked on the Lost Gardens of Heligan, also in Cornwall, and as a principal of Land Use Consultants (LUC) Cole’s team did the lot at Eden; not just the greenery, but science, zones of visual influence, photomontage and analyses. ‘I was there last summer,’ Cole says. ‘The structural landscape – the stuff I was responsible for, the naming and placing of big plants – was starting to mature. It feels like it should feel, and that’s exciting. I felt there were maybe too many interpretation notices for plots and plants that could self-tell their story, but I still feel extremely proud of the project. ‘The message and the point of Eden still have potency. Would I do anything differently? No, I’m assuming this will be

the biggest project I ever do, and we had to make it what it was; nobody told us what to do. This took three years and endless rounds of talks, many of them after hours with a glass of wine, or two. ‘The frustrating thing was how to set parameters on what stories we were going to tell and how we were going to tell them,’ he recalls, praising botany tutor and founding Eden director Peter Thoday. ‘I just had a sense of what I wanted and needed to do. I have never been so sure of myself with a design. The ideas came out of my head and straight on to the paper.’ Cole’s rigour extends beyond the computer and – his preferred tool – the drawing board, into the drier realm of management and governance. As chairman of the Garden History Society for several years, he has ruffled institutional feathers but helped transform an “imploding” group into a well-oiled outfit with hundreds of thousands of pounds in the bank. He is also a trustee of plant-health charity Living Medicine and has been working on an ‘edible motorway service station’ project called the Gloucester Gateway, on a housing scheme in Oxford with dedicated foodgrowing spaces, and on the Southbank Queen Elizabeth Hall roof garden which incorporates allotments. These are just the type of interests that would have hit home with left-field entrepreneur Tim Smit.

1 — Dominic Cole. 2 — Cole’s drawing of the Eden Project 3 — The Eden Project.

Cole also had plenty of experience with which to win over Smit. He joined LUC in 1982 and has worked at impressive historic properties, including Trentham Gardens, Lowther Castle, Stowe, Wrest Park, Audley End and at Alnwick Castle for the racy Duchess of Northumberland, who announced plans a couple of years ago to host cagefighting in the very historic grounds tended by Cole.

At Trentham near Stoke on Trent in 2004, Cole worked with Tom Stuart-Smith and Dutchman Piet Oudolf on a flower garden, pleasure garden and parterre in the garden originally laid out by Capability Brown. You could hardly find a starker contrast than that between the geometry of this garden and the organic maelstrom of curves at the Eden Project.

This shift in emphasis from the historic to the contemporary cutting edge is made easy by the fluid nature of landscape architecture, which constantly ‘reinvents’ itself, Cole says. New entrants to the profession today are, he believes, entering a different workplace with different skills from those of his generation. The debate on style has become stale and too rigid for this evolving art.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Practice

4 — The simple yet dramatic solution at Lowther Castle. 5 — Cole’s masterplan for Lowther Castle. 6 — Aerial view of Lowther Castle.

‘I get bored with the modern-versus-historic debate and don’t see myself specialising in any area,’ Cole said. ‘As a profession we are crap at explaining what we do. There’s rarely reference to the intellectual content and depth of understanding we bring to a space. It’s a fascinating but difficult conundrum; how do we explain what we do? This strikes a raw nerve with Cole, who looks back to the golden age of Jellicoe and reckons that today’s professionals are partly to blame: ‘Landscape architects forget to celebrate what they do,’ he says. ‘There were fewer than ten when the institute was being formed after the war and they were rebuilding Britain on a megascale; power stations, housing estates, new towns.

Cole constantly refers to pride and passion, not just in his work but in respect of the wider profession. He is ‘passionate’ about mending schisms between designers and contractors and gardeners, and ‘proud’ that landscape architecture is not only helping to shape the modern world, but is also ensuring ‘cities, at any scale, can be liveable and sustainable’. Tickets for the Jellicoe lecture at the Eden Project on 8 November are free. Register at http://www.landscapeinstitute.org/awards

‘So tendering has become hopelessly complex involving endless services – landscape, ecology, archaeology etc. We seem to have lost the confidence to tackle a job outright under the heading of landscape architect. I see landscape architecture as an umbrella with services underneath not outside.’

Landscape Autumn 2013

‘It was the go-to profession if you wanted to do masterplanning, and over the years we have lost that bigger picture. We have become an unseen profession and whinge about not being noticed. That’s partly because we have compartmentalised ourselves. I constantly hear expressions like green infrastructure and urban design as if they are new and separate skills.

Landscape Autumn 2013

Knowledge By Guy Harding

Understanding LED lighting New LED products are launched seemingly every day and there is an abundance of advice, efficiency claims, dire warnings and baffling technospeak to filter. If you are not a lighting professional, it can be daunting to try and understand the opportunities and pitfalls. The following should help. The quality of LED light There have been some widely reported cases in the press recently of residents complaining when LED lighting has been installed in their street. A couple of local authorities have been forced to suspend the introduction of LED lighting due to complaints about ‘glare’, ‘lanterns looking like UFOs’ and ‘they are not bright enough’; one local paper has even reported claims of ‘LEDs damaging brains’. Naturally this is an area that demands validated investigation since one piece of recent research by Celia Sánchez-Ramos at Complutense University of Madrid (http:// bit.ly/14nB98i) presented a possible link between long-term exposure to blue light and retina damage. However, analysis shows that the potential risk to the retina was demonstrated in conditions that equate to staring at a light source equivalent to a 100W lamp for 12 hours. Blue light is also known to stimulate the brain and exposure late at night has been 64

Landscape Autumn 2013

linked with disruption of sleep patterns. But is it the ½ hour walk, cycle or drive home under LED street lighting or the subsequent two to three hours spent staring at a tablet computer or LED TV that could cause harm? For decades we have been used to our streets being bathed in the monochromatic orange glow of low pressure sodium lamps or the warm white light emitted by the more recent metal halide lamps. Most LEDs emit much more white/blue light, providing some streets with a cooler feel but also the benefit of better colour rendering. Another factor that affects the perception of the ‘brightness’ of LED lighting is that the optics are so much more focused so light is now being precisely targeted at the roads and footways where it is needed rather than escaping to illuminate house frontages and gardens. This should also minimise the effects of light spill on sleep patterns. Analysing savings and the importance of light on the ground What are the most important factors when assessing a lighting scheme for energy efficiency? It essentially boils down to energy in and the desired output i.e. light on the ground. These two criteria are easily measured and give us a real indication of true efficiency. Firstly we should consider the energy input into the scheme. This is not necessarily simply the rated wattage of the lamps or the nominal wattage of the LED luminaire. It is the actual power that is consumed by the luminaire, including its control gear and/or power supplies.

Secondly, and very importantly, how good are the optics at putting the light where we want it, on the area to be lit on the ground? This can only be assessed by measuring the actual average illuminance (or luminance in the case of main roads.) Illuminance is a measure of light hitting any surface and is relevant for minor roads and pedestrian areas; luminance is the light reflected off the road surface back to the driver’s eyes, which is relevant for driving on higher speed roads. These two criteria have led to the development of SLEEC (Street Lighting Energy Efficiency Criteria) ratios. The SLEEC is calculated as follows: SLEEC = (W/Lux)/m² where W (total energy used) = actual power used by (each) lamp in watts x number of luminaires Lux = average illuminance m² (total area coverage) = area to be lit, e.g. road used in example below is 500x9m = 4500m²

The best way to demonstrate this is to examine a typical lighting scheme for an urban residential road, lit to the appropriate British Standard for illuminance. Let us assume that it is a 500m long x 9m wide road that needs to be lit; we will look at three lighting solutions based upon common light sources.

Table 1 Comparison of street lighting energy efficiency ratios (SLEEC) for three different lighting solutions Luminaire Actual Number of power power used luminaires required

Spacing Average SLEEC illuminance

High pressure 70W 83W 13 40m 7.62 Lux 0.031 sodium (SON) (W/Lux)/ m² CosmoPolis 60W 67W 13 39m 7.52 Lux 0.026 (metal halide) (W/Lux)/ m² LED 54.7W 54.7W 12 45m 7.74 Lux 0.019 luminaire (W/Lux)/ m² (N.B. Figures correct at time of writing and are for demonstration purposes only. They use similar maintenance factors)

The SLEEC figures in Table 1 offer a realistic means of obtaining a true and easily comparable measure of efficiencies for lighting so that we can determine whether we really are making savings. This methodology allows lighting designers to examine the actual savings and investment cost benefits across tens, hundreds or thousands of kilometres of road. Table 2 shows that significant savings can be made by specifying more efficient light sources. In summary, there is a multiplicity of benefits to specifying a high quality LED luminaire when designing a lighting scheme.

Table 2 Costs in use of different lighting solutions

Energy use for a typical lighting year (4200 hours)

Potential energy cost per year based on £0.12p/kWh

Energy cost over 20 years (not allowing for energy price rises)

Energy cost equated to 100km of similar road over 20 years

High pressure 4531 kWh sodium (SON)

£544

£10,879

£2,175,800

CosmoPolis 3658 kWh (metal halide)

£439

£8,779

£1,755,800

LED luminaire

£331

£6,616

£1,323,200

2756 kWh

More precise direction of the light to where it is needed will reduce light pollution and have less impact on our wildlife; our streets will feel different at night as we become accustomed to a more natural colour rendering of our surroundings; tangible financial benefits exist in evident energy savings, coupled with the reduction of maintenance costs (compared to discharge lamps), as well as the opportunity for CO2 reductions which may also be reflected in the bottom-line. Not least, exciting new luminaire designs will surprise and delight, and the availability of these new luminaires will enhance the whole landscape.

Guy Harding is lighting development manager at Woodhouse

Landscape Autumn 2013

A word... By Tim Waterman

... we must accord communities full voice as owners in the process of public landscape design

‘Customer’

It’s worth thinking more deeply, though, about what a customer actually is. A customer is not just a consumer. They are one who gives their custom; who makes a habit of regular patronage. A healthy commercial street or district is a rich web of interacting customers. These are people who find comfort and support in regular associations and recognition, and in the assurance that those businesses that they frequent are reliably good. I think of the consumer, on the other hand, as the mouth that can’t stop feeding and the ever-swelling stomach. The consumer needs choice, because otherwise the endless consumption becomes boring, but the customer needs

Landscape Autumn 2013

but to be a customer involves a private transaction - an exchange of currency for goods or services. A public park is a shared creation, and it is owned, emphatically, by the public. A restaurateur might buy a sandwich in her own cafe, but she cannot be her own customer. Public taxes that pay for parks are not fees for admission, but rather a contribution for upkeep of public property. We talk about ‘ownership’ as an abstraction when we speak of public space, but in fact it is a concrete reality.

only the assurance that their habitual rounds will continue to richly serve their needs and satisfy their desires. The customer and the consumer might share the same street, but their motives are utterly different. The consumer is not part of a relationship. The role of the customer includes mutual support. How does this relate to the provision of public services, in particular of landscape? How, you might ask, can a park user be envisioned as a customer or a consumer? A park consumer would need to visit every park, hungrily using up as much of each park’s experience on each visit as possible. This, though, is preposterous. Public parks aren’t like Disneyland. A park customer, however, might expect regular visits of similar quality. This is closer to the point,

Blurring the lines between public and private can be at the very least confusing, and at worst dangerous and destructive, as evidenced at Istanbul’s Gezi Park in the tensions generated over the co-option of public space this summer. This would never have happened if there was a clear division between public and private interests. Dan Hind puts it well in ‘The Return of the Public’ when he writes that the public service sees itself as working on behalf of the public rather than at their behest. As landscape architects we must accord communities full voice as owners in the process of public landscape design. The public is not a customer.

Tim Waterman is a landscape architectural writer, speaker and critic, who lectures at the Writtle School of Design and is a studio tutor at UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. His books on landscape architecture have been translated into seven languages. He is the honorary editor of Landscape.

As a teacher, I am told by many that I should treat students as customers despite the clear conflict between the fact that a customer is always right, and that students often learn more from getting things wrong than they do by regurgitating ‘right’ answers. What educators do is to help the public be more thoughtful and engaged in society and government. Education as such is a true public service. The British public service model, however, never truly engaged with the real public, but rather has long seen itself as providing for the public in a paternalistic way. It has been all too easy to subvert this approach to cast civil servants as ‘service providers’ for a public made up of ‘customers’. This has fundamentally changed the way we provide for the common good.

Landscape Autumn 2013