Landscape Journal - Spring 2019: The Human Skills issue by Landscape, the journal of the Landscape Institute

Issue 2 - 2019

landscapeinstitute.org

The Human Skills issue How AI and advanced digital technologies are creating new demand for human skills

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PUBLISHER Darkhorse Design Ltd T (0)20 7323 1931 darkhorsedesign.co.uk tim@darkhorsedesign.co.uk INTERIM EDITOR Fiona Shaw EDITORIAL ADVISORY PANEL Eleanor Trenfield CMLI, Landscape Planner, ETLA and chair of the Panel. Dr. David Buck AMLI, Senior Lecturer in Landscape, University of Gloucestershire. Amanda McDermott CMLI, Landscape Architect, 2B Landscape Consultancy Ltd. Peter Sheard CMLI, Landscape Architect. John Stuart-Murray FLI, Landscape Architect. Jo Watkins PPLI, Landscape Architect. Jenifer White CMLI, National Landscape Adviser, Historic England. Rosie Wicheloe, Landscape Ecologist, London Wildlife Trust. Holly Birtles CMLI, Associate Landscape Architect B|D. Jaideep Warya CMLI, Landscape Architect, The Landscape Partnership. Lily Bakratsa, Landscape Architect, Architect and Design Educator. FOR THE LANDSCAPE INSTITUTE President: Adam White CEO: Daniel Cook Managing Editor: Paul Lincoln, Executive Director, Creative Projects and Publishing Landscapeinstitute.org @talklandscape landscapeinstitute landscapeinstituteUK Advertising enquiries: Sam Hodgson, Cabbells, 020 3603 7934 sam@cabbells.uk Subscription and membership enquiries: membership@landscapeinstitute.org The Landscape Institute (LI) is the chartered body for the landscape profession. It is the professional home for landscape practitioners including landscape scientists, landscape planners, landscape architects, landscape managers and urban designers. The LI’s aim, through the work of its members is to protect, conserve and enhance the natural and built environment for the public benefit.

Landscape is printed on paper sourced from EMAS (Environmental Management and Audit Scheme) certified manufacturers to ensure responsible printing. 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.

Issue 2 - 2019

landscapeinstitute.org

The Human Skills issue How AI and advanced digital technologies are creating new demand for human skills

Cover image © Scottish Canals. Schoolchildren engaged in a design workshop, north Glasgow. See page 50.

Being Human “More than half a century has passed, and yet each spring, when I wander into the primrose wood, I see the pale yellow blooms and smell their sweetest scent – for a moment I am seven years old again and wandering that fragrant wood” – Gertrude Jekyll. As landscape professionals, we work with nature to create places that form the background to people’s lives and will be enjoyed and cherished for a long time to come. We, above most professions, will be creating those special moments where a fleeting scent and a sight takes someone back to a vivid memory and point in time. This is a wonderful privilege, however, we cannot take for granted that this talent and our technical skill is enough. We need to thrive in a loud and competitive world, and therefore aspects such as publicity, finding and securing funding, networking, collaborating with other professions and how we position ourselves are all important to collectively achieving the recognition that our profession deserves.

responding to history and making the most of vast spaces (p27); and how people watching helps to make public spaces work (p30). We also consider the creative thinking and problem-solving aspects of working with dyslexia (p34); building a personal brand (p70); new thinking on consulting and collaborating (p50); and learning from dramatic changes in the design of public places in Moscow (p55). And if this edition inspires you to further creative endeavour, let us help you put that creativity into action. The LI have a brilliant CPD programme which is now being live streamed so that you can watch it on the go. And celebrate our 90th Birthday. Come along with your family and friends to the Olympic Park on 7th and 8th June. Share your skills, your creativity and your love of landscape. And let’s be human together.

As the LI gets ready to prepare for its 90th Birthday in May of this year, this edition of the Journal looks at the human skills at the heart of our work. We look at winning hearts and minds with the right approach to publicity (p12); working out which skills are needed for the future (p14); finding the money to do good work (p16); being in at the start and growing our own projects (p19); getting the scale right – big or small (p 22); supporting volunteers in making heritage projects work (p25);

Eleanor Trenfield CMLI Director, ETLA Honorary editor of Landscape

CONTENTS

BRIEFING

6 12

Being Human Five landscape professionals tell us what ‘human’ skill they best add to projects and think about skills gaps

What do we need to think about? Communication skills; running a small practice and innovative project funding; self-generated projects, future trends and heritage consultation – we look ahead to the issues driving future projects and practices.

How do we win hearts and minds?

What’s next for a wellplanned future?

Where will the money come from?

Communication is vital to the profession’s ability to grow and thrive. We get some pointers ...

What skills do we need?

How can projects be grown from bottom to top?

How can we reap the rewards of thinking smaller?

What issues and approaches must landscape professionals adopt to initiate new work?

The future isn’t like the past... How can we harness the agility, speed and innovation of small businesses?

Against a backdrop of Brexit and austerity, economist Alexander Jan has some ideas ...

25 How can

we support volunteers to learn heritage skills? Inspiring, motivating, nurturing and supporting the volunteers the heritage sector relies on

PROJECTS

Centre piece

People watching

The bigger picture

The challenges and opportunties of Halifax’s vast new community centrepiece

Gehl Studio’s approach is rooted in anthropology. How is it evolving in these digital days?

Creative thinking and problem solving are just two skills professionals with dyslexia bring to the party

FEATURES

37 Being bold Where are the opportunities for professionals, now and in future, as technology and data transform work?

+ Image

= Reputation

Six collaborators tell their tale

Value of personal brand

The other part of the equation is your personal brand’s reputation. This refers to what other people say about you, their trust in you and how they rate you. In fact, your reputation is critical because it can reflect how effective, or otherwise your personal brand is. It can literally make or break you because, although a good reputation can be beneficial and should be cultivated, a problematic reputation can be difficult to manage. It risks being amplified through both online ratings and a reduction in peer-to-peer recommendations.

If you get your image right and build a good reputation, you will be able to count on a valuable personal brand. This will be instrumental in levering you into a powerful position with a useful network – with enough ‘reach’ to target customers or industry influencers. Researcher Nielsen reports that almost 90% of customers trust the reputations of people recommended to them by someone they know, whilst only 33% of buyers trust marketing from a company. Consequently, building your reputation is central to ensuring that your peers and customers speak highly of and recommend you.

Community-led approaches call for people-centred design and new ways of working

How do you approach making sure that you – and your work – stands out from the crowd? How do you build a personal brand that is recognised, remembered and respected by your professional peers, clients and other stakeholders?

1 Build your image. Remember that you are your own personal brand ambassador. Unlike a company brand, where the focus is largely on the product or service, the focus in personal branding is squarely on you. You have control of it. However it’s not about selling, but about influencing perceptions of you as an individual and professional in order to benefit your career or business.

Ebbsfleet Engagement in action. Plans for Ebbsfleet Garden City go public ...

So, how do you build a personal brand?

Personal brand value

Hal Moggridge at the Royal Institution

Places for people

Reputation

55 of customers trust the reputations of people recommended to them by someone they know

LI Graduation Ceremony 2019

Your personal brand image refers to the values and personality that you convey and, in turn, would like others to perceive about you. This is a wide concept that stretches to include issues such as: – the value of your professional credentials including your qualifications, skills and experience; – the way you present and communicate about yourself, your professional skills and credentials; – your soft skills – in other words, the way you behave towards your customers and colleagues.

Hone your personal brand 90%

Talking heads – how was it for you?

Image

Standing out from the crowd

ystified by the purported need for ersonal branding. And they have equently complained about being amboozled by the range of jargon and efinitions they have to wade through explain personal branding. To address this, I have developed user-friendly equation to condense nd clarify the key elements of ersonal branding. There are two main elements of personal brand – the individual’s mage, and their reputation. In turn, ese elements work together to give our personal brand its value. To put is all together simply:

’s quick and easy to find out sure your personal brand .

2 Build your reputation. Cultivate a good reputation by taking control of your image by developing a proactive action plan. Not sure where to start. Have a look at the infographic on the following page to get to grips with what you need to be thinking about. Nothing beats a plan to supercharge your personal brand.

The new pioneers 40 Russian cities with a combined population of 28 million get a strategic, design-led reimagining

ELEMENTS OF PRACTICE

64 Growing professionally Personalise your future professional path ...

The Three Cs Future work demands we view digital skills as a key building block of all jobs ...

LI LIFE

67 Events and training On-demand CPD and the LI’s current training programme

68 LI news Brexit bills, biodiversity and new protection for trees on our streets ... ON MY MIND

70 Why building a library is a sign of faith in the future The Future Library: ready to read in 94 years ...

BRIEFING

Being human We speak to five landscape professionals, asking them what ‘human’ skill they best add to projects, where they see skills gaps and what they didn’t learn in their training – but now recognise as vital…

Elaine Cresswell is director of reShaped and specialises in sustainable people-centred design. She recently won the Landscape Institute Award for Communication and Presentation 2018 and is a member of Chester’s Design Review Panel. I’d like to think the most human skills I bring are listening and respecting the community’s opinion as experts in their life, culture and neighbourhood. Empathy enables me to design a place that others will like and use. When I’m visiting the site, I often bring a few bulbs to plant or my dog – they’re great conversation starters and encourage passers by to engage with me through their own curiosity. I always come away impressed by their perception, dedication to their neighbourhood and a clear idea of how to fulfil my client’s brief in a way that the community will be happy with. Looking outside our profession to the way that artists and community land trusts are working, we need to be

more imaginative about the way we engage people in landscape issues and our projects. Over the last six years, I’ve been involved with many community and artist-driven co-design sessions and environmental campaigns such as Bluegreen Liverpool, Zerocarbon Liverpool and the Thing on the Rec. Without exception, the success of these projects has been due to creating a simple meaningful message; engaging with the public in a fun way that speaks to their individual and cultural experience; communicating the message in person through performance, staging, breath control and public speaking; broadcasting the message through social media, YouTube, podcasts and augmented reality apps; empowering the community to own the project and take it in the direction they want it to go and promoting the social, environmental and economic impact of the project. Whilst it’s obvious that we’re not designing for ourselves, we’re all limited by our own lived experience and perceptions. We need to rely on ‘local experts’ more. My lightbulb moment came during a mental health hospital startup meeting, when a service user spoke about the humanity of being able to open windows when you get hot or want fresh air. The need for people who are sectioned to have some element of control had never occurred to the design team and completely changed the environmental and safeguarding concepts throughout the design.

Empathy enables me to design a place that others will like and use.

BRIEFING

Ujwala Fernandes holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies, alongside a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture from Edinburgh College of Art. She works as an Associate Landscape Architect at SNC-Lavalin Atkins business and is currently working on some of the most significant projects in Scotland including the A9 Dualling Project, Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route, Edinburgh Tram – the York Place to Newhaven Extension and the Edinburgh Street Design Guidance. Ujwala has been a Landscape Institute representative on the City of Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire Design Review Panel. As a landscape architect you need to be passionate and enthusiastic about what you are trying to create and be able to communicate your ideas

effectively to a wide audience. You need to be sensitive to the needs and requirements of various user groups and be able to interpret and translate these requirements into your designs in a sympathetic manner to deliver a successful project. Negotiation and compromise is vital, and I don’t think our training reflects that. As a student, the design is yours for you to develop as you please. What you realise in practice is that designing a scheme is a collaborative process involving other professional disciplines – and often there are conflicting interests and priorities that need to be balanced to deliver a sound design. This can be a complex and challenging process and our graduates often find this quite difficult and disheartening – I know I did at first. Over my years in practice I’ve learned that good design occasionally involves making compromises; however, it’s important to stay positive and use your creative design skills to negotiate competing demands and achieve a positive outcome. We live in a digital world, in which designing in a three-dimensional BIM environment is fast becoming a necessity. Landscape professionals need to develop their skills in this area – not just training in the use of compliant software, but a shift of attitude and transformation of practices to fully embrace the benefits of BIM and pass these benefits on to the client.

Negotiation and compromise is vital, and I don’t think our training reflects that.

Phil Henry is an engineer and designer with over 40 years’ experience in the UK construction and manufacturing sector and a track record of providing engineers with sustainable water solutions for tall buildings and urban realm. He is Market Development Director at Polypipe and sits on the Constructing Excellence management board. He is a BSRIA Council Member and Chair of the Fountain Academy, which assists next generation challenges around water engineering and use. Polypipe works in the realm of blue/ green infrastructure – water and water resource – so, from a human point of view, we’re using water to make improvements in people’s lives. Green infrastructure is really important and you can’t have a green roof or infrastructure solution without the blue – the rainwater and surface water. Polypipe is not just looking at an engineering solution, but the health and welfare and general betterment of people; air quality, stress relief, mental health and recreation areas – certainly within cities. Creating a better environment using traditional engineering, and by adding nature-based solutions. We spend a lot of time communicating the benefits of green and blue infrastructure to clients, making sure they know it exists and understand the benefits. Blue Green solutions are still not that well known from an engineering point of view – and generally we’ve used the same solution for the last 70-80 years. I believe green and blue provides a better solution. There are early adopters out there and some cautious take-up, so we’re working with

We spend a lot of time making sure clients know green and blue exists, and they understand the benefits.

engineering graduates and have set up an independent academy around water and green infrastructure. But there’s also a digital base to this – our research routes are cloudbased systems, monitored every 12 seconds. Big data underlines its functionality. Virtual reality engages people: we’re working on the redevelopment of the Thamesmead Estate in south east London, which will turn it into one of the city’s most biodiverse and sustainable urban living environments. VR and AR (augmented reality) let us boil that information down into an App on your phone, so you can see what’s going on beneath the green and blue layers. Sharing information creatively means residents take pride in ownership – involving the local community, not imposing on them. It’s alive and reactive, rather than a static design. There are huge skills gaps in the existing professions and we need to look at skilling up alongside future skills. Many of those jobs don’t exist at the moment but, in the future, will become a career. A blue-green roof, which has so many moving parts in it, would normally be driven by a landscape architect. The landscape architect has to work with a civil/mechanical engineer, water proofer, manufacturer and a green roof provider. This can’t be achieved without collaboration, from the design and delivery to procurement. Networking is a much underrated – but vital – skill. We need to understand what people do and how we can collaborate. How can different groups help create a solution? What I’d really like to see is a landscape architect and an engineer morphed into a combined role, bringing green infrastructure knowhow alongside engineering expertise. That would have a massive impact on biodiversity and its knock-on benefits for habitats and for social sciences. We need to break those silos down.

Serena Welton is Chartered Member of Landscape Institute and a senior landscape architect at RSK. She has worked in the landscape architecture field for nearly six years and in that time has gained a wealth of experience working in both England and Scotland. As a result, she has experienced the diversity of the landscape profession from largescale infrastructure and renewable energy projects, to the various landscape design sectors including public realm regeneration, education, residential development and masterplanning.

In any profession, human skills provide a level of diligence that a computer software can’t. It might create something ‘adequate’ but lacking that level of consistency or care, which only comes from humans. At the moment a colleague is working on a play space; I am sure if play design software existed she could input the requirements in order to create a scheme. But whether that ‘design’ would give the children what they need in terms of play, learning and social space is another question. We’re a design profession and that’s what we give to clients and collaborators – what we do is not a mathematical process. Technology alone just doesn’t have those nuances. In saying that, I went to a conference about pushing the boundaries of BIM. The prevailing view was that landscape was way behind, and isn’t necessarily worth investing in. However, in my opinion, once you start designing and looking at things in 3D – as we do as humans, not just the bird’s eye view of a plan on paper, it becomes very different. Technology can also be so interlinked with the human side. Moving forward we can do more

Human skills provide a level of diligence that a computer software can’t. It lacks that level of consistency or care, which only comes from humans.

Sharing information creatively means residents take pride in ownership. 9

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BRIEFING

to help people’s understanding of who we are and what we do; how we can interlink and help other professions. One of our company directors is encouraging people to join him in going into schools, colleges and universities to talk about the wider profession; not just about landscape design but environmental consultancy including landscape planning and management; highlighting that there’s a whole raft of skills and jobs that they aren’t aware of. One of my colleagues studied chemistry, which included a module on air quality, which lead her to an atmospheric chemistry Masters and who now works our Air Quality team. Why can’t we have more links, modules or seminars on related courses such as architecture, geography and planning, giving students an introduction into the landscape profession? When we talk about training the next generation of professionals, we need skills to be in context.

Courses don’t teach you much about realism and time. University isn’t about trying to stifle creativity – you’re there to explore ideas – but often you’re working with no constraints. Our work is about creating something feasible, on time and on budget: A client could say to you ‘this is the site: we want X but not Y; there are series of constraints, such as a group of TPO’d trees, level differences and a number of underground services.’ Those are the realities and you have to cut your cloth accordingly. That said, it’s good to push the boundaries and think of innovative ideas for the betterment of the scheme. I’m a big believer in encouraging junior team members to get stuck into projects; if you’re just doing what you’re told, you don’t learn anything and if you make a mistake, so what. Yes, you might have to stay behind and do some extra hours, but you’ve learned something, thus becoming a better practitioner.

Laura Schofield is a Landscape Manager and an Associate Director at TEP. She co-manages the Land Management team and works on a range of projects including green infrastructure and open space assessments, landscape and habitat management plans and heritage parks projects. Energy, positivity and passion are three of the most human skills I add to any project I work on. And my ability to communicate – about what we’re doing; what I’m doing; what needs doing. My honesty and reliability ... they’re the skills that make a difference in the work I do. As a profession, I think we still have a skills gap around communication – both verbal and written. Are we really communicating the benefits and advantages of projects to clients and communities effectively? Part of this lies in our capacity to influence projects – knowing when and how to present an argument for or against

something on a project, but also in management situations. We’re not yet confident enough in what we do; either our individual self-promotion as practitioners or promoting the profession and the role we play. That also has an impact on our collaboration skills; our understanding of, and ability to work with, others, including different professional disciplines. There is so much more requirement to manage people than I ever considered in this career. It wasn’t something I considered when I decided to study landscape architecture. It was the technical side of landscape architecture that appealed to me – the environment, design and the science. But I’ve realised that the ‘people’ or human skills are vital to being a landscape professional and having a successful and fulfilling career – whether that’s managing a team, projects, clients or stakeholders. Human skills build your resilience and help shape the way you behave in situations, in a way that technical knowledge doesn’t. If we’re to attract the next generation of landscape professionals we need to emphasise the impact we can have. We need to be bold in demonstrating the scope to create change and our ability to make a difference: to collaborate; to focus on sustainability and the environment. We need to shout about what we do and let future landscape architects know how ambitious we are about what we can achieve for the profession.

Energy, positivity and passion are three of the most human skills I add to any project.

What do we need to think about? Communication skills; running a small practice and innovative project funding; self-generated projects; future trends and heritage consultation – we look ahead to the issues driving future projects and practices:

do we win 1 How hearts and minds? should the 2 What next generation be aware of? will the 3 Where money come from? ow can projects 4 H be grown from bottom to top? ow can we reap 5 H the rewards of thinking smaller? ow can we support 6 H volunteers to learn heritage skills?

BRIEFING By Jane Bevan

Jane Bevan was head of PR at the Natural History Museum before setting up Firebird PR.

1 How do we win hearts and minds? Winning over clients, communities and developers is integral to the profession’s ability to grow, influence and thrive. How do we best bring ideas to life from the page and the drawing? What nuances do we need to evolve to speak the language of the developer and how do we communicate clearly, concisely and creatively? Communications expert Jane Bevan gives some pointers ...

hatever size of landscape project you are delivering, be it a high-profile complex commission, or one in a smaller, domestic setting, it is very easy to focus exclusively on the delivery of the job in hand. And just as easy to ignore the potential to tell the wider story of what it takes to make a project happen; the wider benefits the project delivers to the community, as well as the environment. The ability to communicate ideas and win hearts and minds is integral to the profession’s ability to grow, influence and thrive. Having worked in communications for over 30 years, experience tells me that – like many

other organisations – the landscape profession is not alone in underplaying its manifest achievements. Yet the same cannot be said about your more high-profile sibling – architecture in the built environment. There is work to be done. A good starting point for communicating what you do is to look at your business as whole, before zeroing in on specific audiences you want to address. How do you position what you do to the outside world? Who are your key audiences – your current clients, potential new clients, the media, or the local communities you are working in? No matter what the size of your company, it is important to think about a mission and

Until we all make the case for the benefits of the landscape profession to developers – as well as to wider audiences – it is easier to disregard your contribution, when costcutting calls.

1 1. Valuing and counting communi cations as an integral part of your business is a good starting point. Make it part of someone’s job description to think about communication in its widest sense. © iStockphoto

vision that encapsulates what you are doing. That guides the direction you want to take the business in. It is also useful to ask the question – is this something that all your staff are signed up to? Having a set of values about how you operate as a company is vital. It will help you articulate what motivates you as a company and an individual, creating an appreciation of what role you have to play in making a difference to people’s lives. Working with the Landscape Institute, one of the things we have been looking at is how to make the case for what you do as a profession. We all need to make a stronger case – not only to help with recruitment, but also so that developers, planners and the wider public understand the value that good landscape planning can bring to society. Well-designed public spaces improve health and wellbeing and strengthen communities. So how can you go about this? Valuing and counting communications as an integral part of your business is a good starting point. Successful companies are good at this – make it part of someone’s job description to think about communications in its widest sense, not just what the developer needs in technical terms. But don’t just leave this responsibility to one person – the whole team needs to make a contribution, so that your messaging and the overarching narrative is consistent and coherent.

Start with ‘why?’ What are the benefits and outcomes of the project? How has it enabled change, facilitated community use or spearheaded regeneration? What impact has it had on people’s lives, or the way they work? These are the stories we remember, and understand. Look at the language you use – make sure you avoid jargon and industry tech-speak. Can you explain the human or environmental impact the project delivers? It is not just cold facts and figures that demonstrate success, but – owing to the crosscutting nature of what the landscape profession spans – you have a powerful underlying narrative to convey. Using case studies to illustrate your approach is important, as well as highlighting the wider issues that are being tackled within the project. Once you have developed a case study, look at how you can use it across a range of communication platforms – on your website, social media, with the local and sector media and with developers in your tenders and presentations. Always think about what developers (or other specific audiences) want to see – can your experience on a

particular project help them achieve their wider objectives? Until we all make the case for the benefits of the landscape profession to developers – as well as to wider audiences – it is easier to disregard your contribution, when cost-cutting calls. On both a personal and industrywide level, can you all afford not to invest in improving your communication with the outside world?

Top communication tips • Good communications starts from the top – make it a priority • Create a framework for your communications and make it part of everyone’s remit • Tone of voice – think about your audience: who are you talking to? Use language they’ll understand • Look for the human interest angle • Focus on outcomes and impact • Avoid tech-speak and jargon • Use stories across all your platforms • Make the wider case for the landscape profession

Jane Bevan’s communications career spans almost 30 years. She was head of PR at the Natural History Museum before setting up Firebird PR, working first with the Landscape Institute on the Capability Brown 300th anniversary festival in 2016. Over the last year, Firebird has worked with the LI on projects including #ChooseLandscape, the Ebbsfleet Design competition, Valuing Landscape conference and LI Awards. 13

BRIEFING By Anna French

Anna French is a Chartered Landscape Architect and Director at Anna French Associates Ltd.

2 What does our next generation need to think about? What skills should landscape professionals focus on to start their own practice? And how are those skills evolving in the 21st century? Anna French shares her experiences ...

fter setting up my landscape architecture and ecology practice in 2011, I was accepted onto the Government’s Growth Accelerator Scheme, which offered part-funded business advice to companies looking to flourish. It was an invaluable source of guidance for me in the early days, and has created the foundations for the business today. Finding a good business mentor is critical when it comes to running a business successfully and my mentor helped me put together a growth plan to look at the key aspects including finance, marketing, route to market, customers and the staff team. They reinforced the notion that every single aspect of running a business is of equal importance. Running your own business, you need to focus on 14

consistently improving all areas, rather than just focusing on your speciality. They also helped setting up a cashflow forecast – getting paid on time is the perennial problem for any small business. Planning ahead can give you much more control and confidence in knowing where and when expenditure is feasible. I also found that reading the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz has helped; not only are the financial management principles extremely useful, it’s genuinely entertaining. People management skills are key to any business and it’s useful to get HR expertise on board – either internally, or through outsourcing. You’ll cover the basics of people management and, crucially, have policies in place to enable the company to bid for larger projects. One of the

most difficult areas to get right is marketing, so engage a specialist to help. Clearly communicating what you do, and why, is vital to landscape professionals and it can really help to have a sounding board to tease that out. Although social media is incredibly effective in getting your business name out there and connecting with your customers, it can be quite overwhelming; it’s also equally important to meet people in person to build lasting relationships. Technology and ecology skills are going to be crucial in the future, as the environmental professions will be dealing with issues rooted in balancing ecological design, water management, pollution control and carbon capture. We need a better understanding of these areas to lead the way in countering the impacts of

1. A residential development at Merrick Road in Southall, London incorporates green space for residents © Anna French Associates

2. A former nursey in Elephant and Castle, London, has been transformed into the Joseph Lancaster Community Garden © Anna French Associates

People management skills are key to any business and it’s useful to get HR expertise on board – either internally, or through outsourcing.

development. Whilst landscape and greenspace are currently championed by the local authorities, future priority may be given to carbon and biodiversity mitigation. It’s critical to look beyond our profession to develop these skills, in particular watching the architectural profession. Architects lead the way in terms of design, technology and services like building information modelling (BIM) – as landscape architects, we are increasingly being expected to work on BIM projects using architectural software such as Revit. 3D printing is another area

to watch and build skills, soon we could be printing out the odd bridge or sculpture for a park, rather than building it in the traditional way. Looking ahead, it will be necessary to employ ecologists, not just to provide the development ecology reports, but also to be involved in the design process itself. With the gradual move towards more wildlife-friendly and ecological landscape design, there is much work needed to create far better-designed and sustainable landscapes, both for individual sites and strategically. With the possibility looming of

more design and drawing work being undertaken by artificial intelligence, it will become important for the landscape architect to focus their skills setting the parameters of a successful design, managing projects and adopting excellent customer service and communication skills. Hand drawing remains a useful skill, from drawing a quick sketch to explain something to a client, to producing sketches for plans that can then be drawn up using other software. Whilst AI will help speed up these tasks to become part of our everyday life, it can never replace the human touch – interaction is fundamental in the landscape marketplace. Anna French is a Chartered Landscape Architect and Director at Anna French Associates Ltd, a landscape architecture and ecology practice based in Bedfordshire. The team works on a range of commercial and private developments – mainly in the residential sector, but including schools and colleges, healthcare and hotels.

BRIEFING By Alex Jan

Alexander Jan is chief economist at Arup.

3 Where will the money come from? Local government funding has taken a 60% hit over the last decade. Economist Alexander Jan looks at how can the landscape sector can innovate to find finance for projects, and what issues – and opportunities – other sources of funding create.

or many who work to improve the urban and natural environment in Britain, it’s been a torrid time. The financial crisis of 2008 precipitated austerity. The government aimed to eliminate the use of public borrowing to pay for day-to-day services. Because of sluggish economic growth and, at times, lower than expected tax receipts, that process is taking longer to achieve than was anticipated. More recently, things have been aggravated by uncertainty associated with Brexit. The British economy has not recovered to its pre-2008 trend levels of growth which, in turn, has reduced tax yields. To make matters worse, austerity has been skewed. Healthcare and pensions expenditure have largely been protected whilst other parts of the public sector have seen disproportionately large reductions. The NHS in England experienced a real-terms cash increase of nearly 13% between 2009/10 and 2018/19. But total funding for local government sees 16

a corresponding reduction of 60% over a similar period – between 2010/11 and 2019/20. Spending on things such as the public realm – trees, streets and parks – have borne the brunt of cuts, as councils have done their best to protect statutory service provision for the elderly, children and other vulnerable groups.

So austerity presents real challenges to those professions and sectors that have traditionally been funded from the public purse. But, alongside some painful choices as to where to allocate increasingly scarce resources, it has perhaps stimulated public players to look to more innovative, efficient delivery

The UK now finds itself at the forefront of new and innovative ways to deliver improvements to green and public spaces.

2 1. BIDs and the great estates have delivered greening programmes like Wild West End, which includes beehives on the roofs of business properties. © Wild West End

2. The Portman Estate is encouraging wildlife back into the West End, including Portman Square gardens. © Wild West End

LOCAL GOVERNMENT FUNDING has taken a

60%

hit over the last decade

THE NHS IN ENGLAND experienced a cash increase of nearly

13%

between 2009/10 and 2018/19

models that allow the harnessing of resources from third parties. Examples include the growing role of business improvement districts (or BIDs). In London’s Holborn and West End areas for example, BIDs, plus the great estates, have been involved in paying for and delivering programmes of work to tame traffic and restore traditional patterns of movement on the city’s streets. One-way systems and gyratories have been stripped away; greening initiatives such as Wild West End have been put in place. There is even a programme of beehives on the roofs of business properties to help boost bio-diversity and pollinators. Outside of central London, in Birmingham, Staffordshire and Hackney for example, Friends Groups have been set up to help manage local council parks and other green areas. After a reversal in policy to sell off some sites, Knowsley council in Merseyside promised to set up a charitable trust to administer its parks and open spaces. And the lottery recently launched a £2m fund to support “parks innovators” across the UK. Not all these initiatives are without their critics. Some have argued that private sector resources are, more often than not, channeled into those areas that are already successful. Public realm improvements lead to

better commercial returns for property owners, fuelling concerns over gentrification. Some politicians and council leaders fret that communitybased approaches erode democratic legitimacy and cannot substitute the need for civic leadership. And moving public assets to social enterprises or charitable trusts that then bid for money from national funds risks creating winners and losers. It might also result in prioritising investment in space with heritage and history rather than securing resources to tackle the effects of climate change or provide greenways for people to get to work. Dealing with the public finance problem in non-statutory service provision was always going to be challenging. And this is set to continue. Increases in public expenditure announced by the Chancellor last year will once again be targeted at a select group of public services (including the NHS and pensions) and also provide for a handful of large capital major projects. The effect will be anaemic expenditure growth (or even further reductions) for many other parts of government. In the world of landscape design and its associated fields, that means innovation, private finance and partnerships with business and community groups and charities are here to stay. For all the concerns with these approaches, the alternative –

even less investment – is likely to be far worse. Perhaps inadvertently, the UK now finds itself at the forefront of new and innovative ways to deliver improvements to green and public spaces. A decline in the landscape sector’s dependence on traditional funding means that it is probably more be able to withstand future shocks to public finances. And new and different ways of doing things here might well be transferable to other countries that are also struggling to improve their urban environments as they wrestle with pressures on their public resources. That provides an alternative avenue for growth in some parts of the UK sector. As long, of course, as Brexit doesn’t get in the way. Alex Jan is Arup’s chief economist. He leads work and analysis on a range of economics issues facing Arup and clients including financing and funding of transport projects, as well as wider infrastructure advisory work. Jan has worked with business improvement districts, local authorities and governments in London and internationally on their growth and economic development strategies. Jan has written extensively on policy challenges facing world cities and London infrastructure. 17

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BRIEFING By Will Sandy

Will Sandy is a creative director of design practice The Edible Bus Stop Studio.

4 How can projects be grown from bottom to top? How do you develop the projects you want to work on? What are the issues and approaches that landscape professionals need to adopt to initiate new work? The Edible Bus Stop generated community pride and column inches when it took shape in 2011, and became London’s first Pocket Park in 2014. Its creative director Will Sandy talks through the considerations. 1. The Edible Bus Stop – Stockwell – the first of Mayor of London’s Pocket Park scheme © The Edible Bus Stop

1 19

BRIEFING

s landscape professionals our primary role is to deliver places for people. Conventionally that follows a client brief or tender process. Selfinitiated work, however, presents an alternative route; some might even say a less corporate one. Having proactively identified a site, you are engaged from the project’s inception, simultaneously working with the client – be they a developer, the local community or an organisation. Ultimately, it’s about the mutual desire to create better spaces and places. In self-initiated projects, landscape architects have to make the whole process more engaging – this ensures the project development is accessible to a wide and diverse audience. As such, successful projects are those that directly engage with the public. Sharing concepts at this critical early stage, the public are not only able to comment, respond and feel included with the process but, for landscape architects, they can quickly establish the project’s viability, address any immediatelyarising issues and move the scheme forward in a timely manner.

The landscape architect must adopt a multi-faceted approach. They initiate early connections, invite stakeholders into the project and ensure smooth timekeeping. A good memory for people and places will also enable the landscape architect to seamlessly join the dots. Allowing stakeholders from outside the profession to comment on a design can bring fresh perspectives that lead to exciting outcomes. Never underestimate the knowledge within the team and project community – it will enhance the project’s intrinsic value and, by understanding what each party requires, the project can be delivered in a way that maximises its impact, influence and investment. It may sound like a cliché, but the best concepts often emerge by chance or by learning from mistakes – something that is often overlooked (or even discouraged) in the standard project process, due to budgetary or time constraints. Furthermore, having a sense of playfulness in their design and approach helps to establish the landscape architect as an integral part of the project

and not just an external consultant. A clear understanding of the local authority’s objectives and the project’s context is just as important as community and stakeholder engagement. Gain support from local councillors and businesses – this will demonstrate a wider local investment and buy-in for the scheme. Phase your project. Local authorities are more likely to sign off smaller amounts initially. This could begin with temporary solutions that help to inform permanent schemes; reducing up-front costs, while demonstrating the viability of a concept. It also provides further opportunity for project engagement and consultation, helping to reduce the likelihood of misinterpretation or concern regarding physical change within a space or neighbourhood. Of course, not all self-initiated projects come to fruition. So, treat these projects like a competition entry; decide how much time you are prepared to allocate to each project prior to the commitment of any funding. Financially, this is often easier for larger firms, but smaller firms often

2. Riot of Colour – RHS Hampton Court 2012 © The Edible Bus Stop

3. Reframing Spaces Caracas public presentation / project development - British Council - ongoing project © The British Council)

4. Grow:City – A Smarter City Competition Shortlist and People’s Choice Winner © The Edible Bus Stop

I strongly believe that the energy and determination at the core of humanoriented, self-generated projects will help our industry to stay fresh and connected to those it is serving.

have the agility and understanding to lead self-initiated schemes. When it comes to obtaining funding, landscape architects must act like an entrepreneur. Convey the idea, its feasibility and value, alongside the interest and support, in order to prove its worth. Funding will likely come from a number of sources. This requires the landscape architect to take the initiative, fostering connections while demonstrating creative and commercial skills. Consider where the project is located and the potential to source funding from businesses or institutions based in the area. Investigate what other projects are already underway locally and the potential to complement these – and possible funding they could offer. The Edible Bus Stop Studio started life through self-generated projects. The first project – and derivation of the studio name – being a community-led public realm project adjacent to a bus stop in Stockwell, South London. The team worked closely with local residents to safeguard one of the neighbourhood’s only green spaces, successfully negotiating with the local council and key stakeholders. In 2014 it became the Mayor of London’s first Pocket Park, transforming the space into a productive and active place for the community. To this day it is actively used and maintained by those who live and work in the area. The scheme sparked a new way of developing projects, leading to further self-initiated schemes in both permanent and temporary settings, establishing a new proactive design-led approach to the traditional project process. Elsewhere in London, further positive examples of self-initiated schemes include the Peckham Coal Line. A community-led project, it aims to better connect Peckham’s neighbourhoods via a linear park that will link Queens Road and Rye Lane, and Sayes Court – a significant landscape heritage site in Deptford with links to John Evelyn and the National Trust. Here, local residents have come together to safeguard the public space for future thinking around the importance of landscape in our cities.

Self-generated projects provide scope for dynamic collaboration between practices of different scales and styles. Drawing on the creativity, strengths and duality of one another, together they can enrich the project at key touch points and help to deliver successful schemes. We are heading towards a future in which our natural and built environment is increasingly influenced and shaped by technology. However, I strongly believe that the energy and determination at the core of humanoriented, self-generated projects will help our industry to stay fresh and connected to those it is serving. If we lose contact with that crucial human element, we may continue to generate exciting and innovative ideas, but we won’t be creating the places that humankind

needs in order to thrive. Without the people that live, work and play within our schemes, a place doesn’t work, isn’t sustainable and that’s the bottom line. Will Sandy takes a multidisciplinary approach to design, working across various sites, scales and styles and earning a reputation for delivering projects in places that might otherwise be overlooked. Humour and playfulness are central to his work, establishing Will as a forerunner in designing vibrant urban and fringe spaces. He runs his eponymous landscape architecture and design practice, while concurrently being the co-founder and creative director of design practice The Edible Bus Stop Studio.

BRIEFING By Mark Shayler

Mark Shayler is a Founding Partner of the Do Lectures and author of the book Do Disrupt.

5 How can we reap the rewards of thinking smaller? For too long we’ve thought big is beautiful. Mark Shayler tells us how to harness the agility and speed of a smaller business mindset.

ight now, this moment – and this one – is the most exciting time to be alive. Okay, knocking around with Ebenezer Howard in 1898 would have been pretty cool – so too would hanging around the Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1963, or Covent Garden’s Blitz Club in 1980. But right here, right now is a great place to be. Why? Brexit? Hardly. Political certainty? Errr no. Global stability? Probably not. No, the reason that this is the best time to be alive is because there’s nothing we can’t do. Web 2.0 and Capitalism 2.0 have placed creativity in our palms. Literally. Everyone is a designer now. Everyone is a creator now. University has never been more expensive and less relevant. This is not a problem. It is an opportunity. When talent is priced out of university it goes somewhere else; it goes to its bedroom, to start-up spaces, to the park, to gardens, to the greenhouse.

Talent goes where it can grow, literally.

two things remember – a work thing and an out-of-control thing.

The future isn’t like the past; the way we build our careers is changing so quickly and this is difficult for everyone. It is difficult for those building their careers and it is as difficult for organisations looking for great talent. One of the biggest obstacles to growing our businesses is how we attract and retain the best talent in the world/ country/ county. We are only as good as the people that we employ and – if we continue to look solely for people with the skills that we have – then we risk missing the future, missing great people and great opportunities. The problem comes when things change and we don’t.

2 We have democratised creativity with web 2.0 (and even more so with the coming web 3.0) and we have democratised enterprise. Embrace that, use these new channels, new tools and new approaches to grow your business.

There are a few lessons here:

3 Stop thinking about graduates alone. Let’s be frank – many degree courses are alarmingly out of date. There are other routes to excellence and some of them come without a £60k debt. I’m not saying forget graduates, but I am saying embrace people who have taken other paths. You want to recruit potential, not just exam passers (noted that these two things are not mutually exclusive).

1 Don’t be baffled by Gen Z. They have grown up in a different world to you. Not worse; just different. They aren’t (as commonly repeated) entitled, they just have no certainty or rules in terms of career. Career means

4 Just because they don’t look like you, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be brilliant. Study after study has shown that the most diverse companies are the most successful. Embracing diversity makes you stronger.

But what specific skills are going to take us through the next 30 years or more? It really doesn’t matter where you look on the web, the same main skills are cited as the most in-demand by 2020. These were determined by a series of interviews with businesses in 2016 (so they may already be out of date). But these are the skills that employers say they are looking for: 1 Complex problem solving 2 Critical thinking 3 Creativity 4 People management 5 Coordinating with others 6 Emotional intelligence 7 Judgment and decision making 8 Service orientation 9 Negotiation

Amazon famously states that a team is too big if it can’t be fed by two pizzas.

will remove some jobs; sure some of those will be desk jobs; sure it’s scary. But it may generate as many jobs as it removes. That doesn’t mean your job isn’t under threat, it may be. But there will be a growth in those jobs that require softer, more human skills; those jobs that rely on creative spark and fluid thinking, those jobs that rely on insight and observation. So there is a clear theme here – the skills companies want, and those that are more AI-proof, overlap considerably. I lecture in design and I tell my students that design isn’t about moving a pencil or a mouse. It’s about moving hearts and minds. That’s true, and to do that designers need to sit in the problem for longer, to be better at observation and listening. These are the skills they will need. The future will be about problem setting, rather than problem solving.

10 Cognitive flexibility

If you want a better answer, ask a better question

This is an interesting collection of skills. It is a very human set of skills. Just as well, as the advance of artificial intelligence will change the job market forever. I’m pretty optimistic about AI. Sure, it will have an impact; sure it

This is the age of the smaller business. Or, should I say, the smaller business mindset? My big clients all want to think and act like small businesses, harnessing the agility, the speed, and the nimbleness of companies that

think small. Amazon famously states that a team is too big if it can’t be fed by two pizzas. There’s a lot of sense in creating a big company made up of many, many small ones. My work on building startups inside bigger businesses indicates that anything over eight people slows things down. Rushing to a solution before understanding the problem takes you down the wrong route; not being open to newer ways of thinking, learning and recruitment reduces the ability to generate ideas that the market wants. And finally, not embracing the speed of modern product and service development (once you’ve sat in the problem for longer) means you’re wasting money and time. This is the age of small. Mark Shayler helps big companies think like small ones and small companies think like big ones. He works on innovation of products, services and business models; sustainability and company purpose; and he coaches businesses and individuals. He is a Founding Partner of the Do Lectures and author of the book Do Disrupt.

BRIEFING By Linden Groves

Linden Groves is Strategic Development Officer for the Gardens Trust.

6 How can we support volunteers to learn heritage skills? How do we inspire, motivate, nurture, support and thank the volunteers many heritage projects rely on? Linden Groves has some ideas.

1. Visitors to a Catton Park open day learn how views are carefully designed by painting one. 2. Norfolk Gardens Trust volunteers share their enthusiasm.

600 PEOPLE attended the open day

s a statutory consultee in the English planning system, the Gardens Trust has an important role in protecting and conserving historic designed landscapes. This statutory role sounds sounds reassuringly solid, with heritage assets securely protected within an automated system in which the Gardens Trust is an efficient cog. In reality, this only works if it is underpinned by people, with human skills such as experience, judgment and diplomacy. Limited resources mean we have a single professional Conservation Officer to fulfil our statutory role, so rely on the contributions of volunteers across the country, within local County Gardens Trusts. Working with, or as, a volunteer is very different from paid employment. Yet increasingly we find ourselves asking volunteers to undertake very ‘professional’ tasks and workloads – commenting on planning applications; contributing to local government plans; providing research to the designation system. For the planning system to function with such a dependence on volunteers, it is critical that we are able to inspire, motivate, nurture, support and thank. Benefitting from grants from Historic England, and before that Natural England, we run a capacitybuilding scheme that supports and trains volunteers to acquire skills and contacts to play a proactive conservation role. Although there is always more to be achieved, this scheme has been incredibly successful, producing an exemplary volunteer workforce. We are acutely aware, however, that these superstars increasingly feel the burden, which is carried by all too few shoulders. It is now essential that we learn how to attract more people, so that we are no longer a ‘committed few’, but rather an ‘energised many’. Sharing Repton: Historic Landscapes for All is a two-year audience development project which has used the 2018 bicentenary of landscape designer Humphry Repton as a springboard to pilot five easily-achievable and repeatable activities. It is designed to attract new people to historic parks

and gardens, and then motivate, upskill and grow our community of garden historians to take the lessons learnt to share our subject with others and bring it fresh life. We were delighted to be awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £99,500 and are deeply grateful to the HLF and lottery players. As a small charity, the Gardens Trust couldn’t have undertaken this kind of work without such substantial funding and we have found that simply being able to describe Sharing Repton as an ‘HLF project’ has brought it vital kudos and has been a considerable morale boost. The pilots have been a social event aimed at people completely new to garden history at Blaise Castle in Bristol (a 21st century equivalent of the ‘lecture with wine’ standard) and a coach trip to Wicksteed Park in Kettering for families from a multicultural community centre. We hosted a Heritage Open Day at Catton Park in Norfolk aimed at guests who wouldn’t usually visit a historic park or garden; a research and recording project for people local to Warley Woods in the Black Country, and a workshop at Kenwood in London to empower people – in this case, predominantly refugee groups – to care for heritage sites near them. We have

been incredibly fortunate to work closely with County Gardens Trusts, Broadland District Council, English Heritage, and other voluntary groups. The results have far exceeded our expectations. 600 people attended the open day where we only hoped for 60; some of the families on our trip offered to volunteer in future, and the rookie researchers asked to write a Statement of Significance to help protect the site before we had even completed training. We are building materials from our capacity-building adventures into an online Resource Hub at www.thegardenstrust.org and, where funding allows, are also able to deliver support inperson. Do get involved – it is imperative that we work collectively and inclusively if designed landscapes are to be conserved for future generations. Linden Groves is Strategic Development Officer for the Gardens Trust. She is passionate about conserving historic designed landscapes, be it through the planning system or through winning hearts and minds and also works as a freelancer, focusing on children in the historic environment. 25

PROJECTS By Warren Chapman

Warren Chapman BA (Hons) Dip LA CMLI is an Associate Partner at Gillespies LLP.

Centrepiece Halifax’s Grade I listed Piece Hall is the sole survivor of the eighteenth century northern cloth halls and the centrepiece in the town’s regeneration. Gillespies’ Warren Chapman looks back on the challenges and opportunities created by this vast open space – and the uniquely human skills needed to transform it.

1 1. The Piece Hall restoration project has placed an accessible 21st Century public space at the heart of the town’s civic and economic renaissance. © Paul White / The Piece Hall Trust

he restoration of the Piece Hall has been one of the UK’s most significant and high profile heritage projects in recent years. An accessible 21st Century public space has been created, which has attracted some 1.6m visitors since it opened in 2017. With the re-imagining of the building’s central courtyard as a key component, its regeneration has positioned the building as a heritage landmark and visitor destination at the heart of Halifax’s civic and economic renaissance and is a catalyst for the development of the town’s new Cultural Quarter.

Built in 1779, the Grade I listed Piece Hall is the sole survivor of the great eighteenth century northern cloth halls. By 1815, the courtyard was being used as a venue for political meetings and public spectacles; the Victorian era saw it become home to a thriving fruit and vegetable market, a horse fair and community ‘sings’. By 1970 it was unused, in disrepair and, although designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, escaped demolition by a single vote in 1972. In 2013 the Piece Hall transformation project was made possible by funding from Calderdale Council, with support from Heritage

Lottery Fund, the Garfield Weston Foundation and Wolfson Foundation. Gillespies was commissioned as part of a multidisciplinary design team to transform the public realm within the courtyard of this Grade I listed building. With landscape design at the heart of the project, the reinvention of the courtyard and surrounding streets is the project’s defining feature and required sensitive, committed and imaginative landscape design and collaboration. Gillespies’ challenge was to present a historically-sensitive landscape restoration, that transformed the square into a flexible and multifunctional 21st century public space. It was a brief 27

PROJECTS

designed to help attract new uses and activity, helping to save a vulnerable and nationally significant building. Central to the project was an imaginative proposal to relandscape the 66,000 sq. ft. central courtyard to improve access and enable more flexibility. A new ‘town square’ for Halifax, it would be comparable with the great public squares of Europe. Whilst the design appears deceptively simple, the reality was extremely complex, requiring multidisciplinary collaborative working with the design team, client group and important stakeholders such as Historic England. By focusing restoration around the public courtyard, we have repositioned the Piece Hall into the heart of the town and created a place that has quickly become the focus for cultural, educational and civic events for the enjoyment of future generations. Unsurprisingly – for those of us who have been involved in landscape restoration projects – the uniqueness and age of building gave rise to a number of particular challenges. Prior to construction, the discovery of a Georgian graveyard required the exhumation of over 200 skeletons. With a cross fall of some 3.5 metres across the square, integrating slopes

across the courtyard sensitively into the building colonnade – whilst creating a large level central events space – provided a particular challenge. Gillespies adapted levels to define and orientate public accessibility in and around the square; we introduced cascading water features, granite steps, ramps and street furniture to create a large usable central space for events and festivals. The new design meets modern standards for inclusive design and – for the first time in the history of the Piece Hall – the central space has been excavated to produce a large level plaza. To better connect the square into the fabric of the town centre and to boost footfall across the space, a new gateway has been created through the east wing of the building. Doing so has provided a new pedestrian link between the town centre, relocated Halifax Library and the railway station. Gillespies has also designed the public realm around the new library to seamlessly connect it with the Piece Hall and ensure a coherent character along a key town centre route. Considerable attention to construction detailing has required close collaboration with both the main contractor and stone supplier.

Public spaces are laid in natural stone, predominantly sandstone and granite, with differing unit sizes used to articulate different areas and functionality. Feature banding runs across the central space and aligns with columns located on the restored building, to provide a geometry that is harmonious with the surrounding architecture. Bespoke water features attract children and adults and provide a sense of ‘movement’ in the formality of the space. They also tell the story of the importance of water in the textile history of the Piece Hall, with cascade steps representing the moorland stream sources used in cloth manufacture and formal rills show how water power was used in mechanisation in the mills. Lighting has been successfully integrated into the public realm. But, perhaps more importantly, the nighttime economy is now supported by and attracted into this reimagined building. New lighting in the floor, facades and furniture avoids the use of lighting columns, which would restrict how the space was used and wouldn’t be historically authentic. Yet our design for the central space also needed a different approach. The

2. The central courtyard’s reimagining takes into account a cross fall of 3.5m, integrating slopes with the building colonnade, creating a large events space. © Paul White / The Piece Hall Trust

3. The square has once again become a focus for cultural events... © David Millington/Gillespies

4. Piece Hall’s security, access and crowd movement requirements limited planting opportunities, although businesses occupying the surrounding units add seasonal colour. © David Millington/Gillespies

1,600,000 VISITORS

to the Piece Hall since opening

DESIGN AWARDS

won by the Piece Hall

200

SKELETONS

exhumed before construction started

It is as if St. Mark’s Square in Venice has been deposited in West Yorkshire and puts Halifax on a par with major cities in Europe. The only word I can use to describe it is inspirational.

historic nature and importance of the building meant avoiding the temptation to provide too much colour and pattern within the centre of the large plaza area; it was important that the elegant classical elevations of the Piece Hall remained the most dominant visual element within the public realm. As a result, we located the water features to the edges of the space and kept the paving pattern very simple, responding only to the rhythm of the surrounding facades. It’s very unusual for us to design a public realm of this scale without any planting. The Piece Hall public realm has to cater for events of many types and sizes and to successfully integrate planting into the space seemed problematic. The requirements for security, access and crowd movement meant that planting opportunities were extremely limited – we took the design decision to move away from our inherent desire to “green” the space, to avoid a fragmented and piecemeal approach to planting that may not be sustainable. Businesses occupying the units surrounding the plaza will require temporary planting as part of their retail fit out, which will add seasonal colour. Collaboration was key to the project. With other design teams working on adjacent but separate projects, it was important to maintain a seamless link through the public realm. Gillespies led on this, making efforts to engage with others and resolve areas of conflicting detail, such as kerb widths and paving bonds. Two way communication with the contractor also added another

dimension. The contractor’s site manager suggested changes to the construction detail for stone steps in one particular area, based upon years of experience. We gladly accepted and this helped create an atmosphere of cooperation and respect on site. The Piece Hall has won 12 design awards – most recently from the Natural Stone Federation for Best Landscape Project and was Highly Commended by the Landscape Institute in the 2018 awards. In 2017 it was the overall winner at the Historic England Angel Awards. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was quoted, saying: “The Piece Hall is a stunning example of urban renewal that should spur on the councils of every major city and town in Britain to do something similar. It is as if St. Mark’s Square in Venice has been deposited in West Yorkshire

and puts Halifax on a par with major cities in Europe. The only word I can use to describe it is inspirational.” Most importantly, successful regeneration has reinvented the building and its public space for the 21st century and brought The Piece Hall back into public use. Sensitive restoration has saved a vulnerable and nationally significant building and positioned the 238-year-old building for an active future as a multi-use commercial and cultural destination, with shops, bars, galleries and startup space for new business. The Gillespies-designed courtyard provides the focus for this new chapter. It is an inspiring example of how our profession can breathe new life into our towns and cities by delivering beautiful and elegant people-centric public spaces.

PROJECTS By Jeff Risom

Partner and Chief Innovation Officer at Gehl, Jeff Risom is also an active teacher and lecturer, speaking at conferences around the world.

Collective vision Danish architect and urban designer Jan Gehl pioneered a new anthropology-based approach to analysing the movements of the city, which became the foundation for the studioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work. Jeff Risom is chief innovation officer at Gehl, and tells us how that approach is evolving and expanding in the digital age.

1 30

1. Gehl’s anthropological approach shows that residents of Toronto prefer their public space to be active © Gehl

2. Planning a new São Paulo © Centro Aberto, Gestão Urbana SP, Prefeitura de São Paulo

3. Plotting ‘favourite spots’ in Charlotte, North Carolina © Gehl

Ours is a people-first approach, using everything from hand-held clickers to GIS layering, social media analysis, Streetview, AI and advanced sensor technology.

rom industrial and product design to website UX, embedding the ‘human experience’ has become central to the thinking of process engineers, salespeople and marketers and corporate boardrooms the world over. For many years the complex business of urban development has flirted with human-orientated design thinking, but it’s always remained a niche; a ‘little brother’ to the embedded forces at play across cities and regions. Whilst the pioneering urban theorists and thinkers of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s – Jane Jacobs, William Whyte, Christopher Alexander and the founder of our practice, Jan Geh – pointed a way forward, the knowledge they exposed has proven difficult in practice. The human-orientated design of cities is a messy affair, and not one that is suited to the pressures of client deadlines and constraints of hourly consulting rates. Nevertheless, for almost 20 years Gehl has made its way, crafting a methodology and tactics to measure people’s movements and behaviour in cities, and using that data as valuable evidence towards urban strategy, design and policy. Bolstered by technological advancements we now find ourselves grappling with ‘big’ data and the Internet of Things as tools that have the power to transform urban planning. We know that, alone, these tools might do more harm than good, but if used with people-orientated design intentions, we have a chance to promote a design practice that is based on the fundamental human needs we all share. People-orientated design has made a comeback. But it’s a big leap from advocating, to doing, in the complex arena that is the built environment. Nevertheless, we see its potential to not only remedy past urban design failures, but provide the foundation for novel urban strategy and design that more accurately addresses the needs of people and planet. We study public life. And this is difficult – hence the lack of real progression in this area since its original pioneers in the ‘70s and ‘80s. To understand a place, you have to collect data systematically from several

locations, at different times and under different conditions. This is fine if you’re studying for the sake of studying, but it’s less practical under the constraints of commercial pressures. Ours is a people-first approach, using everything from hand-held clickers to GIS layering, social media analysis, Streetview, AI and advanced sensor technology. It’s our job, as urban design and landscape professionals, to put tools together to uncover hidden patterns. These technologies and the layering of data sets gives us the opportunity to uncover connections between different systems and individual behaviours at a variety of urban scales. Knowing what behaviour to study and where to observe it is a major barrier to new advances in the field. Over the years we’ve explored lowtech and, later, higher-tech ways of

knowing where to look and what to look for. Inspired by work the City of Copenhagen undertook to examine citizens’ favourite places, we began to develop tools to more systematically measure people’s most treasured and travelled spots in their communities. It’s both more positive and constructive than typical engagement – firstly by asking people what they love and want more of (rather than what they dislike and want to change) and because it asks citizens questions in which they’re the expert. Other forms of engagement often expect people to do the work of city officials and designers in project programming or prioritising design tradeoffs. Our work is often district or even city-wide and the ‘favourite places’ approach gives us a map of places to explore in a community. After learning what places people love and why, we 31

PROJECTS

deploy our design team along with local volunteers, stakeholders and members of the client team to study those places and learn more about the spatial and social characteristics they have in common, and what are best suited to different contexts. This creates a ‘user-generated quality criteria’ – effectively a citizen-led design brief full of values and principles, rather than prescriptive design traits and one that is authentically rooted in place. We learned, for example, that in Charlotte, people prefer laid back places to relax and unwind – much more than Torontonians, who prefer places to be active. This gives us a method for constructively gathering individual preference – as applied to collective issues – more successfully than traditional approaches. We meet citizens where they are – in the bus stations, beer gardens and dog parks, where people spend their time. We can speak and meet with people who have never previously attended official ‘citizen engagement’ meetings nor been asked asked their opinion of their community in a systematic way.

More recently we’ve turned to higher-tech tools such as social media analysis, layered with sophisticated GIS mapping. Given the need for privacy, these assessment tools allow us to break out of the stereotypes so dominant in traditional community meetings. Working with TANT Lab, a digital anthropology department at Aalborg University, we’ve been able to conduct post-demographic studies focusing on what people have in common or differ on in their digital lives, rather than making tired assumptions of people’s needs and concerns based on biased stereotypes of ethnicity, gender and age. We paired people with differing political sentiments (individuals who responded positively and negatively to the same political statement) and gave these political antagonists unique user numbers. Then we analysed when and where people who tend to disagree on Facebook, actually might meet in the same physical place and might share the same interests in real life. This macro scan revealed ‘bridging’ places that seem to invite for diversity that then allowed us to target our more time-consuming, in-person

anthropological studies to these locations, to find out if these places really are bridging or not. When studied in person, we can ask more qualitative questions like: Are there different types of groups there? How can we apply post-demographic neutrality when we’re seeing people in real life and keenly aware of their ethnicity, age, and gender? While previously our focus was limited to public space and public life data, we’re adding these new layers of data insight to our arsenal. We’re building on this core and extending it to other layers including economic, spatial and social. We’ve partnered with UK-based RealWorth, which has devised clever and insightful metrics on social return on investments in the public realm, monetising the impact of improving people’s health and wellbeing, alongside the turnover of shops and restaurants. Spatially we’re partnering with Harvard and Cornell based A-stra, which has devised machine learning algorithms and AI to analyse mass amounts of Streetview photos, providing city-wide insights into urban qualities such as human scale, sense

4. Community planning in Charlotte, North Carolina © Gehl

5. Residents of Charlotte, North Carolina, want their public space to be a laid back place where they can relax and unwind © Gehl

Our vision is of a future city where people’s everyday behaviour contributes to regenerative economies, where individual actions positively contribute to collective flourishing.

of enclosure and visual connectivity to green space. And we’re partnering with camera vision company Numina, which has developed GDPR privacycompliant sensors that monitor both flows of modes of traffic and stationary activity – places where people spend time and the types of activities they partake in, whether sitting, standing or laying down. These partnerships blend our design sense with economic modelling, AI and machine learning. But they also give us a more holistic, complete and nuanced understanding of how well the public realm meets the needs of citizens. In the future, we plan to utilise more multi-disciplinary and holistic approaches to better understand how people interact with systems that we share in cities. From food systems and energy networks to water resources, there are numerous shared systems where landscape architects – and designers and anthropologists – will benefit from understanding how people interact with them. Currently, most of these interact in the thinking, research and work being done in the field of circular

economy. We see a huge opportunity in this field, where momentum from across the public and private sectors is gaining steam. Yet we can also see that the movement is prioritising micro-technology (nutrient looping and material science innovation) and the macro-biological understanding (material flows at a regional scale), leaving the human scale of people and their behaviour largely out of focus. We’re plugging this gap by developing an innovative experiment with new ways of promoting sustainable food systems (production, distribution and consumption) in dense urban areas in Copenhagen. We’re using social media, socio-demographic and public life data to map patterns of food consumption and behaviour to produce leading edge entrepreneurial prototyping and citizen engagement. Our vision is of a future city where people’s everyday behaviour contributes to regenerative economies, where individual actions positively contribute to collective flourishing. New forms of production – like food, and more – might shape new inclusive micro-economies and bring

people together in places previously only thought useful for consumption activities, like high streets. Distribution can be channeled through excess capacity in existing systems, enabled through high-tech means like distributed web (blockchain) and lowtech means, like community hubs for reuse and exchange of goods. We envision a city where urban culture is like bike culture in Copenhagen today: where the most convenient, accessible and affordable options for the individual are also the ones that are the most sustainable and beneficial for the collective.

Jeff Risom is Partner and Chief Innovation Officer at Gehl. He leads Gehl’s innovation team, focusing on developing new tools that combine established and novel data collection methods. His background and design experience provides him with a unique insight into the technical, as well as social aspects of urban design.

PROJECTS By Ashley D Penn

Ashley D Penn is a landscape architect and writer from the UK based in Finland.

The bigger picture Anecdotal evidence suggests there is a high incidence of dyslexia among landscape practitioners, who bring good spacial awareness and creative thinking/ problem solving to projects. Ashley D Penn tells us why his unique way of processing information has found an ideal home in the profession.

was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was 11 years old. Until that point, I had always been told that I was either lazy or stupid. At first, the diagnosis offered an explanation as to why this might not be the case and described the difficulties I faced. These days I have come to understand that dyslexia can be as much an asset asÂ it is a disability. Having left school at the age of 16 with a handful of adequate GCSEs, I felt rather disparaging towards education. I was encouraged by the head of sixth form at my school to enter vocational

further education. She believed that, given my predicted GCSE results, I would not be able to cope with AÂ levels. I enrolled at Writtle College (now Writtle University College) on a course in amenity horticulture. This proved to be a major turning point for me in my education. Having such a strong background in vocational and land-based training, Writtle has attracted many students with dyslexia. The encouragement I received while at Writtle gradually increased my confidence until I felt comfortable enrolling in an undergraduate degree in landscape and garden design, which

eventually lead on to a postgraduate diploma in landscape architecture. Self-confidence is one of the biggest difficulties for many people who have dyslexia. This can impact upon both written and verbal communication in a professional context. My personal coping mechanism for verbal communication and presentations is to simply try and anticipate every question an audience might have; then make sure I have a contingency plan that covers those eventualities. In many ways, this overcompensation has fuelled my professional development

1. Penn’s submission to the Asuntoreformi 2018 ideas competition in Finland. KOKO is a mixeduse development of housing, shops and services in a hybrid block. © Jolma Architects

2. Quayscape is Penn’s proposal for flood defence and amenity improvements along the river Lee, submitted to the Morrison’s Island International Design Competition, Cork, Ireland. © Jolma Architects

DYSLEXIA

20% UK

entrepreneurs Up to

35%

USA entrepreneurs

to a point where I am now more than comfortable in presenting and teaching. In a similar way, my poor reading and writing skills lead me to seek out coping mechanisms such as speed reading techniques, and technical aids like online proofreading software. This proactive approach has, in turn, sparked an interest in writing. All too often, dyslexia is understood to be merely a problem with reading and/or writing. However, these two things are actually manifestations of deeper processes. For example, according to the various dyslexia evaluations I have undertaken in the past, my specific difficulties lie in the sequencing and decoding of information. This has obvious impacts upon my literacy, with sequencing affecting my spelling, and decoding slowing my reading speed. However, these difficulties extend beyond the written word. One thing I still struggle with is process or service design. In any profession, finding an efficient workflow is important. In landscape architecture, working in multi-disciplinary teams, it is vital to coordinate the workflow in a way that allows each specialist to input at the right time. Writing a clear and concise method statement can help. By identifying the information needed and outputs required for each stage of the project, conflicts of sequencing can be avoided. Dyslexia is often framed as a disability. This is perhaps not surprising, given we live in a world that highly favours reading and writing skills. However, there are some distinct advantages to being dyslexic. Projects like Made by Dyslexia highlight the many common skills dyslexics share. It is well documented that dyslexic people have good 3D and spatial awareness – as well as keen problemsolving skills. NASA is reported to actively seek out dyslexic applicants in its recruitment. On average, around 50% of its staff have dyslexia. As well as the obvious 3D and spatial skills colleagues with dyslexia can bring to the team, other skills common in people with dyslexia include empathy, emotional intelligence, explaining and story-telling, simplifying, and visioning. One of the things I

love about landscape architecture is engaging with people and finding out what they need and want. The empathy, visioning and communication skills some dyslexic people have can be really useful in stakeholder engagement, and communication. Another aspect of landscape architecture that I believe my dyslexia benefits me in is communication. I have never been blessed with great graphic design skills, and visualising my ideas has been a constant struggle. However, I’ve noticed over the years that I am able to express myself in written word. It often surprises people to know that I am both dyslexic and a keen writer. But it is perhaps because I’ve struggled with reading and writing that I have had to push myself to communicate effectively. When working with team members who have dyslexia I think it is important to remember that each person’s skill set is unique. It can, perhaps, be tempting to think in terms of helping and enabling. Certainly, there are many policies that a practice can implement that will benefit all team members, such as early publishing of meeting agendas and materials, accurate recording of meeting minutes, following verbal instructions with written confirmation, and peer proofreading. However, reframing dyslexia as a different way of thinking or processing can help identify potentially useful characteristics that can be a real asset

to a team. One way I use my dyslexia to my advantage in my design work is to identify conceptual links between apparently disparate phenomena. So much of landscape architecture is about identifying, categorising, analysing and assimilating different layers of information. To do all of those things we need specialists. However, I believe we also need generalists who are able to see a different ‘bigger picture’. It is often said that dyslexics are good innovators. That’s probably why so many entrepreneurs are dyslexic (20% in the UK and up to 35% in the USA). I think my dyslexia allows me to make connections that I might not otherwise make. I try to use this as much as possible at the concept design stage, even if I then need to rely on those specialists to see the design through to completion. While dyslexia still presents some difficulties in my professional life, there are many areas that I think would be the worse for me not being dyslexic. It is many of these more ‘human’ skills that I believe will increasingly set us apart in an evermore technological world. Ashley D Penn is a landscape architect and writer from the UK. He is a member of MARK (Suomen maisema-arkkitehtiliitto ry), the Association of Finnish Landscape Architects. He works for Jolma Architects in Tampere, Finland. 35

HMS Caroline at Titanic Pump House A must-see floating museum and visitor centre with an amazing story to tell. HMS Caroline is the sole surviving vessel from the Battle of Jutland in 1916. After life as a C-class light cruiser in the Royal Navy and as an administration centre, she was decommissioned in 2011, at which time she was the 2nd oldest ship in service after HMS Victory. In July 2017 she opened as a museum ship to the public at Alexandra Dock beside the Titanic Pump House (now converted to a Visitor Centre), all within the Titanic Quarter of Belfast Harbour Estate. An incredible journey and Hardscape Ireland were privileged to be amongst the stakeholders involved in the creation of the exterior hard landscape to the Pump House Visitor Centre and the Museum adding value to the surrounding quay area where the Ship is now docked. Client team: National Museum of the Royal Navy, Titanic Foundation, Belfast Harbour Commissionaires and the Department of Communities and Infrastructure. Landscape Construction Phase: Landscape Architects: Park Hood Design Belfast and Contractors Tracey Bros. Materials supplied: European Silva Vilar granite kerbs, bespoke treads, risers, cladding, blister tactiles and quoin pieces. Chinese Yellow Rock granite setts and paving. Reconstituted cobble stones.

For further information on our paving product range telephone: 028 9099 2500 or visit: www.hardscape.co.uk Come and visit us too at: Hardscape Ireland, Building C, 89 Holywood Road, Belfast BT4 3BD.

F E AT U R E By Deborah Mulhearn

Deborah Mulhearn is a freelance journalist writing about the arts, architecture, heritage, social issues and the built environment.

Being bold

ÂŠ iStockphoto

Deborah Mulhearn takes a broad look at the landscape profession, asking where the opportunities are for professionals now and in the future. How is technology transforming work; where does data lead us? And we ask fellow professionals where the opportunities for collaboration and innovation lieâ&#x20AC;Ś

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hether a multidisciplinary practice or a small firm with a specialism, the landscape architect’s role and responsibilities in the twenty-first century are increasingly about building social capital and maintaining healthy, sustainable environments as much as keeping up with fast-paced technological changes. These are challenges that bring rich opportunities for collaborative ways of working and sharing expertise. They could be projects that bring humans closer to nature while protecting fragile ecosystems, as at a new nature reserve such as Walthamstow Wetlands, or delving into the growing overseas markets such as Russia, a country looking to western European expertise to achieve a more human-centred approach in Soviet-era towns and cities.

Profiling the profession ‘We have a great opportunity to create an identity for our profession that people can understand and that

elevates our collective profile,’ says Ben Palmer, a director of Optimised Environments (OPEN) in Edinburgh. ‘As landscape architects we are good at thinking about projects across longer timescales. Having a voice within big teams and having the confidence to say what we think as professionals is something we could work on. We collaborate but it’s also about knowing when to push. Certainly we must stand up for what we think is right – often we are standing back to benefit a project as a whole, as we did as part of Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA)’s architectural team at the new V&A Museum of Design in Dundee. But there’s also a time to let our egos shine. Knowing when is the skill.’ The new V&A was a project very much about the building in a setting. ‘The landscape is very simple around the V&A, because the building is the iconic object,’ explains Palmer. ‘On other projects we take the lead as landscape architects, working either with our in house teams or external consultants in order to produce the best possible overall projects. It’s

not about landscape versus the architecture or engineering. If you take that adversarial approach, the whole project suffers. It’s an easy trap to fall into and we can come out of projects feeling bruised.’ Landscape architects are well placed to bring teams together and in some cases lead, as at Walthamstow Wetlands, Europe’s largest urban wetland nature reserve – created from a chain of open reservoirs owned by Thames Water and covering 200 hectares of land in East London. Until this HLF-funded scheme there was no free public access. ‘Landscape architects should not underestimate how they can affect the success of a project,’ says Lynn Kinnear, director of Kinnear Landscape Architects (KLA), a London-based practice with a track record of innovative projects that challenge social exclusion. KLA was lead partner on this hugely complex site necessitating a multidisciplinary team of landscape, urban realm, architecture, structural, civil and services engineering, exhibition

1 & 2. OPEN was part of Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA)’s architectural team at the new V&A Museum of Design in Dundee. ‘The landscape is very simple around the V&A, because the building is the iconic object,’ explains director Ben Palmer. © VisitScotland / Kenny Lam

It’s a question of how to blend some of the new technologies with traditional skills, using the immediacy of techniques such as hand drawing to maintain creativity at the beginning of the design process

design, wayfinding and graphics, curation, arboriculture, ecology and specialist planting design for the client, Waltham Forest Council. The main challenge was to find a shared vision with stakeholders who often had polarised views, and negotiating those tensions and conflicts, for example between protecting habitats and increasing access, and the operational requirements of the site. To do this, landscape architects have to understand about reducing health risks in urban areas, and flood characteristics in rural or low-lying areas, as well as wider global issues such as alleviating the impact of climate change. ‘Ours is an expansive profession and we have a range of skills, including at the strategic level, that show our true potential,’ says Kinnear. ‘But we have to be more aspirational. The education system could be more ambitious and push students to do a lot more design critiquing so they learn to strive for great spaces and places, and not just settle for the norm.’

Digital or digits? Many large projects are structured to employ BIM and large multidisciplinary practices now ensure they have people with the requisite digital skills on their teams. The construction industry as a whole is embracing this method of collaborative working and landscape architects are increasingly tasked with combining BIM modelling with traditional skills. Smaller practices can position themselves by offering a more flexible and creative service. ‘We ensure that we stay up to date with our use of IT programs, but also do a lot of hand drawing,’ says Sophie Parker-Loftus, an associate landscape architect at Exterior Architecture (ExA) in Manchester. ‘BIM packages are invaluable for collaborative technical design but early in a project pens and tracing paper allow for greater freedom and creativity. CAD drawings can feel abstract and providing more fluid sketches can give the client more opportunity to influence the process,’ she says. ‘It’s also good to get away from the computer screen sometimes. We go on regular study trips to analyse our own work and that of others – the good, the bad and the ugly. The whole practice from assistant to director goes, and we study landscapes abroad and around the regions, to sketch and photograph and discuss as a practice what we can learn from other projects.

‘It’s best practice to revisit but R&D also takes time and it’s about promoting and raising our internal standards as well. If you are focused on computer skills there is always the danger of not only forgetting about traditional skills, but the experiential part of going through a landscape can only happen out there, being out in the rain, getting your hands dirty, hearing the sound of rustling reed beds.’ ‘Drawing skills remain absolutely relevant,’ agrees Ben Palmer of OPEN. ‘But digital tools are front loading the design process, and these are issues we discuss a lot within the practice. Of course there are benefits to digital ways of working, and clients like them because they can be great collaborative and coordinating tools, but systems such as BIM can be clunky and can accelerate the design process to the point where the initial creative stage can be lost or stilted. ‘It’s a question of how to blend some of the new technologies with traditional skills, using the immediacy of techniques such as hand drawing to maintain creativity at the beginning of the design process. Being able to communicate ideas is essential, and hand drawings can encourage clients and stakeholders to feed into the design process as they don’t feel so precious or final.’ At Walthamstow Wetlands, KLA was able to show how data underpins

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and influences design decisions. For example, how a set of seasonal routes are determined by habitat movement, rather than the other way round – and how this is applied to determine where the entrances could be sited to encourage people to move around and through the reserve in certain ways. ‘At Walthamstow Wetlands a fully integrated design process has resulted in a scheme rooted in the natural and industrial heritage context of the site and that seamlessly flows between the external and internal spaces,’ says Rose Jaijee, project director for client Waltham Forest Council. ‘The process of agreeing detailed design was by no means straightforward,’ explains Jaijee. ‘Critically, the design team was able to manage a structured process of securing consensus at each design stage. Important for the scheme that finally emerged, the team had the confidence and strength of conviction to put forward design options that pushed the envelope and challenged the client group.’

case GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sky TV. It’s not just about adjacency, we were aiming for genuine connectivity and mutual benefits.’ A series of engagements and consultation to activate moribund spaces included a pop-up shop where startup businesses could come and test out their ideas and products, and cargo bikes could be hired to reduce emissions. Working genuinely from the grassroots up allows landscape architects to talk to people at concept stage to discuss how they would like to see their spaces animated and cared for in the long term. ‘Almost all of ours are community projects because it’s really important for us to connect with

3. Walthamstow Wetlands © iStockphoto

4. Brentford’s revived High Street © Grant Smith

We’ve established a reputation for a specific kind of work and our clients see us as placemakers who can balance the more corporate or commercial aspects with local and community driven interests.

Community engagement – all together now Communities are becoming much more aware of their environment, of how cities function and the relationship with health and place, for example. KLA has worked proactively to empower local communities for decades, and in this way practices like theirs are way ahead of the architecture profession. Twenty years ago KLA was working with the Bengali community in Whitechapel High Street, setting up translators in sari shops to reach marginalised communities and people, often women. Brentford High Street, 2016 winner of the LI President’s Award and a Civic Trust award, was also a project about bringing together communities and stakeholders, including both local authority and private landowners, in a densely populated part of London that suffered major traffic issues. ‘It was a complex project with many facets but we looked at it from the social perspective rather than as a design project,’ she says. ‘We considered how a local population could benefit from the big businesses on its doorstep, in this

as many people as possible,’ says Heather Ring, landscape architect and founder of Wayward, a London-based collective of landscape architects, designers, artists and urban growers. ‘We often offer programming and curating for the life of the project,’she adds. ‘We’ve established a reputation for a specific kind of work and our clients see us as placemakers who can balance the more corporate or commercial aspects with local and community driven interests.’ Clients range from local authorities, developers who are interested in building a sense of authenticity, cultural partners, museums and grassroots

5. Urban Physic Garden, London © Mike Massaro

11HA ECOLOGICAL PARK created at Countesswells, Aberdeen

educational organisations such as Mandela8 that has commissioned a memorial for Nelson Mandela in Princes Park in Liverpool. ‘The Mandela8 memorial project in Liverpool is very much the vision of a grassroots community where Wayward had very intimate and intense engagement with local stakeholders,’ says Ring. ‘It is a space for education and reflection that responds to the garden that Mandela created in prison, and telling the story of how his garden was a key symbol in his resistance and endurance. Part of that is looking at how a community can care for a permanent memorial. Practices such as KLA and Wayward pioneer models of working and new thinking. ‘We work quickly, often in small, interim spaces that can act as small testing grounds where we can innovate and then adopt ideas on a larger scale,’ says Ring. ‘For example we are now developing larger versions of our Urban Physic Garden in London, and created a satellite of small DIY projects alongside the permanent Mandela memorial, in the form of a series of oil barrel gardens that children can make.’

The wood and the trees Landscape architects are increasingly forging opportunities to educate and influence clients, for example commercially-driven developers. ‘We are trained to look at context and how systems work, and these are skills are becoming ever more relevant as people become more aware of how the way they live impacts their environment, and vice versa,’ says Ben Palmer of OPEN. ‘If we explain properly how we can add value they can take often take this on board.’ At Countesswells, a large new settlement of over 3,000 homes, schools, employment and community facilities in Aberdeen, OPEN is working with Stewart Milne Homes to create a new 11ha park that revitalises existing watercourses and creates an ecological park running through the heart of the new place. ‘This is a private scheme but one that is built around a quality streetscape, landscape and public realm,’ says Palmer. ‘You may have to work to convince the client that their upfront investment is worthwhile but it’s our job to demonstrate what the benefits could be and thereby gain their trust.

It’s often down to finding the right client at the right time.’ ExA is a horticulturally-driven practice working in the context of climate change, where research and experience is changing the form and shape of city planting. ‘We try as a practice to qualify the value of what we are doing, because the idea of increasing natural capital is at the heart of our practice ethos,’ says Parker-Loftus. ‘Not all species are suited to urban planting, but also, conversely, we are looking at which tree species survive and thrive in our changing urban environment and integrating those species into planting schemes. For example you would not have considered planting the Styphnolobium japonicum, or Japanese pagoda tree, in central Manchester ten years ago. ‘There is a constantly evolving palette of what we use and where in urban settings. As a profession we have to stay abreast of these changes.’ From masterplanning to planting, landscape architecture covers so many skills and touches on such a huge range of disciplines, that the future can only offer exciting opportunities.

Improve your skills with Landscape Institute CPD Digital skills, landscape-led planning, natural capital accounting, human skills, plant health. Explore the 2019 programme: landscapeinstitute.org

LICPD www.landscapeinstitute.org events@landscapeinstitute.org

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Talking heads – how was it for you? Other professionals discuss how they have – or could – work with landscape professionals.

The Academic Ed Wall is academic leader for landscape at the University of Greenwich and writes on landscape architecture and urban design. ‘While the speed at which technology is developing can seem excessive, new technologies are merely tools that allow us to see, measure and record in different ways – and with which we can develop proposals. It can often feel that there is a dominance of digital imagery in the landscape industry, but there will always be an aspect of training and practice that includes handdrawn work and analogue techniques. We encourage our students to engage with social media, such as the collective blog www.thelandscape. org, in order to showcase their design projects and explore different design processes. In the end you still have to understand the complex physicality of a site by spending time there, and there are limitations to digital – it takes the same amount of time for concrete to dry whether you design by hand or on computer.’

The Client Rose Jaijee was Walthamstow Wetlands’ co-ordinator for Waltham Forest Council and now works as a consultant. ‘Most people’s experience of the public domain is determined by the quality of the spaces they move through and linger in. Yet the design of new spaces that emerge as a result of new development is often an afterthought. A successful project in my view is one that fully integrates buildings and landscape

design, placing an equal emphasis on standards, quality and long-term management. Also key to success is taking the time to understand the existing distinctive landscape character and building on this to create a sense of place and reinforce local identity. Landscape design is fundamental to shaping our relationship with our environment and creating places we want to be in. The process also offers a unique and important opportunity to challenge the assumed divide between cities and nature by creating space for wildlife and access to nature within the urban environment.’

The Planner Katie Wray is a town planner and assistant director at Deloitte Real Estate in Manchester, where she leads on heritage planning for a diverse range of projects. ‘I like to see landscape architects involved in the process from the beginning, although unfortunately this does sometimes depend on when the client chooses to get them involved! Being enthusiastic also really helps. Often we are relying on the landscape architect to bring strong, tangible public benefits to the project through a well-designed landscape scheme. To achieve this, a strong and detailed understanding of the brief and good liaison with the architect and planner, along with the client, is key. When the project is a landscape scheme in itself it is even more important to understand the brief and all the planning objectives. An ability to write well and explain the design development and design intent of your scheme is also very valuable and will make the planner your friend for life!’ 43

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The Project Director Rob Kingdom is project director for Hull City Council’s 2017 City of Culture legacy project, Hull: Yorkshire’s Maritime City. ‘Queen’s Gardens is a series of sunken gardens at the heart of Hull city centre designed by architect Sir Frederick Gibberd in the 1950s from an old dock that was once Britain’s largest piece of inland waterway. As part of the overall project to provide a new setting for Hull’s maritime heritage, we want to restore that hidden dock in the city centre and create a thoroughfare for students and an open events space, so we as a client need meaningful consultation that can carry the local population and statutory consultees along the way. The landscape architect has to have persuasive powers, to be able to explain drawings and to show stakeholders how we have adapted our proposals, and also work closely with highway engineers, major landowners and architects.’

The Architect Howard Miller is a chartered architect and director of Howard Miller Design in Liverpool, with expertise in projects that are a hybrid of architecture and landscape design. ‘People assume that social media is the magic bullet to getting work, but older people generally hold the purse strings and they perhaps don’t use social media as much. Nor can social media replace being embedded within a community long term. I have found initiating a competition entry and putting together a team of other disciplines is a good way of being asked to collaborate on other projects.

I would be very careful going down some routes, for example pro bono work, which can exhaust the time of a small business. If you are going to do something for free, make sure you have a written agreement stating exactly where your services end. If you aren’t getting paid, what else can they offer you? Publicity? A portfolio piece? A referral to paid work? Payment subject to the work winning a bid for funding? Be explicit about what you expect them to do in return.’

The Artist Victoria Pratt is an artist and creative director of Leedsbased Invisible Flock, an interactive arts studio creating site-specific digital and participatory projects all over the world. ‘How do you keep all the stakeholders in a city happy? For us the collaborative approach is always the best way forward and – depending on the project – we work with scientists, academics, students, urban designers and landscape architects, who could certainly be participants at workshop and pre-planning stage. There are always interesting collaborations between fields, to find creative ways of understanding how a place is used. There are so many layers of people who use and think about a public space and we can’t take these deeply embedded, emotional attachments for granted. Sometimes it’s difficult to have the conversation but artists are good at getting stuck in and talking to people – we are almost like activists and can be bold in our approach. Our projects are more of a provocation or conversation with a community, taking it in a more powerful, responsive direction than a commissioned artwork perhaps would.’

Often we are relying on the landscape practitioner to bring strong, tangible public benefits to the project through a well-designed landscape scheme 44

F E AT U R E By Tahlia McKinnon

Hal Moggridge leads the celebrations at the LI Graduation Ceremony 2019 1. Hal Moggridge, guest speaker and Adam White, president of the LI getting to grips with a Colvin and Moggridge plan showing “Gale Common artificial hill of pulverised fuel ash from two power stations in Yorkshire.” 2. View of the lecture theatre Images © Paul Upward

On 21 March, a lively crowd of landscape professionals congregated at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, joined by their mentors, colleagues, friends and family. The event was held in celebration of the 146 individuals achieving LI Chartership status, in addition to the 12 delegates awarded with LI Fellowship. LI President, Adam White, opened the ceremony with some warm words, welcoming attendees to the landscape profession and urging them to own their new ‘superhero’ status when tackling lack of innovative outdoor spaces for children. Adam also spoke of the ‘global family of landscape’, in reference to the spectacular ‘green’ projects he had witnessed while on business in Singapore.

To follow was a truly inspiring speech delivered by landscape legend and guest of honour, Hal Moggridge, a former president of the Landscape Institute, and a hugely successful landscape architect with international acclaim. Hal discussed both the impact and longevity of landscape architecture as an industry, presenting numerous case studies by example, including a project led by Sylvia Crowe. Hal also touched upon the consistency of gender balance within the profession, and highlighted the ways in which different factions of landscape could contribute to an exciting vision for the future.

In light of recent debate, both speakers stressed the significance of working to tackle climate change and show support for the student ‘strike’ movement.

F E AT U R E By Diana Chrouch

Diana Chrouch is a personal branding and marketing consultant and director of Chrouch Consulting. She has worked extensively with landscape professionals.

Standing out from the crowd In a digital age – with a wealth of information at our fingertips – it’s quick and easy to find out about colleagues, collaborators and clients. So how do you make sure your personal brand shines? Branding consultant Diana Chrouch offers some advice ...

hether you are employed or self-employed; work in the residential, commercial, heritage or other sectors, the strength of your personal brand is an important element in supercharging your career. A good personal brand is a valuable asset that differentiates you in a construction industry where competition for top commissions for landscape architects can be keen. Misunderstandings by key stakeholders about the pivotal role of landscape architects – even by other professionals in the sector – can be an aggravating factor. A strong personal brand can also go a long way towards getting you the recognition you deserve. Not only does it promote the important role of landscape architects, but also showcases your own specific range of skills and achievements. As a consequence, you can benefit from 46

raising your profile and also paving a pathway to more opportunities and greater success.

Why should you care about your personal brand? Well, we all have a personal brand – whether we deliberately cultivate one or not. Think about it… We can now find out something about almost everyone through digital media, with just a couple of mouse clicks. So it makes sense to develop a good personal brand that you have some control over.

mystified by the purported need for personal branding. And they have frequently complained about being bamboozled by the range of jargon and definitions they have to wade through to explain personal branding. To address this, I have developed a user-friendly equation to condense and clarify the key elements of personal branding. There are two main elements of a personal brand – the individual’s image, and their reputation. In turn, these elements work together to give your personal brand its value. To put this all together simply:

What is personal branding? Personal branding is the practice of marketing yourself and your career as if it were a product, with its own identity, reputation and value. As an experienced personal branding consultant, I have worked with a range of professionals and business owners that have been

+ Image

= Reputation

Personal brand value

90% of customers

trust the reputations of people recommended to them by someone they know

Image

Reputation

Value of personal brand

Your personal brand image refers to the values and personality that you convey and, in turn, would like others to perceive about you. This is a wide concept that stretches to include issues such as: –– the value of your professional credentials including your qualifications, skills and experience; –– the way you present and communicate about yourself, your professional skills and credentials; –– your soft skills – in other words, the way you behave towards your customers and colleagues.

So, how do you build a personal brand? How do you approach making sure that you – and your work – stands out from the crowd? How do you build a personal brand that is recognised, remembered and respected by your professional peers, clients and other stakeholders? 1 Build your image. Remember that you are your own personal brand ambassador. Unlike a company brand, where the focus is largely on the product or service, the focus in personal branding is squarely on you. You have control of it. However it’s not about selling, but about influencing perceptions of you as an individual and professional in order to benefit your career or business.

F E AT U R E

Personal branding. Where do you start?

2 Goals

Be your own brand ambassador

Set career or business goals

Define your personal brand attributes – focus on what is unique and special about you, your skills and experience.

Define the industry position, achievements and income levels you want to achieve.

Consider the kind of impression that you want to build and the target market you want to reach.

Set goals around what you’re passionate about. Make your goals measurable, or set milestones so that you can monitor your progress.

What is important to your clients? Make sure you know, but keep it authentic – be yourself. Don’t forget the importance of conveying personal qualities e.g. someone who cares and truly wants the best for their clients. Ensure that your social media, business card and other marketing materials are consistent with the impression you’re aiming for. Remember that you’re your own brand ambassador – your personal and professional conduct is also part of your image.

Plan for the short, medium and longer term. What special skills or experience would you like to develop? Decide which target audiences you want to reach. Focus on specific sectors, niches, or industries as applicable... Build a network of industry contacts and champions.

3 Marketing

4 VIP toolkit

Marketing action plan

Treat yourself to a VIP toolkit

Develop and share your expertise to build trust through a proactive marketing and outreach plan.

Take your personal brand seriously. Get good quality tools, including:

Aim to inform, influence and demystify. Use a variety of activities to engage your target audience and promote your personal brand, including your logo, business card, social media, website, a blog, podcast and PR and speaker engagements. Share expertise via written and visual content. Develop your networking skills. Face to face relationships are a powerful way to build trust in your personal brand. Ask for and share testimonials. Engage with and follow industry influencers.

A professional photograph (head shot). A portfolio of your work – digital, print and video. Be prepared to impress with an elevator pitch that focuses not just on your skills, but how customers trust and rate you. Practise it. An up-to-date LinkedIn profile. Social media – focus on quality, not quantity. Business cards. CV. Create and share a short bio. Create a press release template that’s ready to amend with news updates about your career and projects. Blog – showcase your work, share your expertise and curate useful information from others. Vlog – consider showcasing your expertise and portfolio by video. Be the expert.

Diana Chrouch is a personal branding and marketing consultant and director of Chrouch Consulting. She works extensively as a personal branding trainer and speaker, including with a number of landscape professionals. She chairs the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the Worshipful Company of Constructors.

1 Your personal brand

s a e d I f o l a Festiv

Transforming landscape – challenging boundaries Bring your family and friends and celebrate the Landscape Institute’s 90th Birthday at our Festival of Ideas. Further details on page 67/68 and on the LI website.

Friday 7– Saturday 8 June 2019 Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

F E AT U R E By Lesley Malone

Lesley Malone is the author of Desire lines: a guide to community participation in designing places (RIBA Publishing, 2018)

Places for people Community-led approaches to placemaking are creating new roles for landscape professionals, calling for more focus on people-centred design and new ways of working, says Lesley Malone.

istorically, formal training for built environment designers tended to neglect community engagement and was unlikely to prepare practitioners for the role of running consultations or developing community participation programmes. A paternalistic top-down design culture prevailed, within which end-users’ views were presumed rather than canvassed. Placemaking is now considered to be about people as much as place and, at its heart, is meaningful community engagement. If peoplecentred design is to happen, people-centred consultation and participation programmes are essential. Practitioners are increasingly rejecting top-down approaches in favour of more socially-engaged practice that can offer effective responses to local needs and aspirations. And landscape professionals are now involved in community-facing roles as enablers and facilitators, which call for a strong set of people skills in addition to design ability. Public expectations are changing

too. Residents with considerable knowledge and skills get involved in shaping local developments, and feel – quite reasonably – that professionals should view them as partners in planning and design processes. Groups like civic societies, heritage groups, community networks, and neighbourhood planning forums are also often significant players, who expect (and, in some Local Planning Authorities, are required) to be invited to participate in pre-application discussions. In fact it’s wise to ask local groups at the outset to help plan the engagement process itself; they know the kinds of approaches that are likely to work and those that aren’t. So how can landscape professionals become more effective in understanding what local people want and need, and working with them for the common good? Community engagement is an art and a science. It requires a yin and yang-like balance of complementary skillsets: interpersonal, and technical. Human skills of communication, collaboration and trust-building,

and human qualities of care and empathy abound within the landscape profession. It is full of people who are good at being human, so that’s an excellent starting point. I perceive a shortfall on science and technical aspects, however. Firstly, community engagement calls for a research mindset if a programme is to yield meaningful information. Secondly, it calls for technical proficiency in systematically analysing the data generated (all those Post-it notes, flipcharts and stickers on maps are actually research data). Designers can create better participation processes, and get more out of them, when they assume the role of social researcher: something like an anthropologist or social scientist, or a street-level observer like Jan Gehl, Jane Jacobs or William H. Whyte, for instance. Thinking like a researcher means working to a clear research strategy and objectives, methodological rigour in collecting and analysing data, ethical practice and an awareness of the inevitability of bias. All of these would take most engagement programmes to another level in terms of data quality, insight, and design outcomes. I know that ‘methodological rigour’ isn’t a phrase that will set many landscape pulses racing, but it is key to creating people-centred participation programmes that result in good community outcomes – which should have rather more appeal. It means, for instance, that strategies for engaging with local people will be more impartial in their conception and more thorough in gathering and interpreting information. It also means greater evidence-based design and more transparent decision making, authenticity, inclusion, and knowledge building. Greater methodological rigour doesn’t mean less creativity or empathy; it means getting maximum value from the exercise, and bringing maximum benefit to the design. Most of all, it means that the voices that need to be listened to can be heard more clearly. 51

F E AT U R E

Future skills in public space design: designing with people, not for them My recent book Desire lines: a guide to community participation in designing places (RIBA Publishing, 2018) provides a toolbox of research methods and advice on thinking like a researcher, intended to help designers plan participation programmes that involve designing with local people, not for them. It’s written with the modest aim of creating greater human happiness and health through better-designed spaces that reflect human needs. Sensory and social experiences in the streets and spaces that we navigate affect mood, stress levels, interactions and behaviour, for better or worse, both in the moment and cumulatively over time. There are serious mental health aspects too; the feelings of alienation, vulnerability and isolation that often arise in inhospitable urban environments are associated with depression and anxiety. Fortunately, designers can readily access virtually all the knowledge they need to design for maximum user enjoyment and mental wellbeing, to create places where people feel more healthy, safer, more positive, more comfortable and more socially connected. So why not use it? And what better way to generate this knowledge than by offering meaningful participation in planning and designing those spaces? Designers of public realm who are keen to develop more user-centred approaches can find inspiration in fields such as digital and consumer product design, where user satisfaction is paramount and design is highly research-driven. It is worth considering how something as ephemeral as an app or website or manufactured product will be subjected to lengthy usability testing, in which the prototype is refined and retested to achieve optimum functionality and user appeal, and only then will it be released. Interestingly, these fields begin with working on functionality and ease of use, and only design the look and feel once these are finalised. 52

Designers can readily access virtually all the knowledge they need to design for maximum user enjoyment and mental wellbeing, to create places where people feel more healthy, safer, more positive, more comfortable and more socially connected.

Contrast this with a public space: a highly costly product with a lifespan of decades, which can significantly affect the fortunes of a local area and its communities. Yet it can be designed and built with little input from its intended end-users, no prototyping or usability testing, and with no insight to its likely success. William H. Whyte’s words are highly pertinent in this context: “It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.”

Lesley Malone is the author of Desire lines: a guide to community participation in designing places (RIBA Publishing, 2018), which aims to help designers achieve higher standards in consultations and community engagement. With a background in social research, communications and information, including seven years at the LI, she is now expanding her diverse consultancy and freelancing portfolio. She tweets at @tangentials.

F E AT U R E Peter Durant and Micheline Mannion

Micheline Mannion Studio is a London-based design studio, with work including art direction, identities, publications, exhibitions and digital and a special interest in exhibition design.

Creating your ideal place Ebbsfleet Garden City comes to life with public engagement in action...

he largest of ten Healthy New Town pilots, Ebbsfleet Garden City pledged to create ‘radical but realisable’ proposals through its Landscape Design Ideas Competition, run by the Landscape Institute in 2018. As a result, Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (EDC) commissioned Micheline Mannion Studio to create a public information and engagement display in Bluewater Shopping Centre. Shoppers were asked ‘what is your ideal place?’ and given an invitation to ‘create your ideal place’. The display was based on the winning ‘HALO’ entry for the Landscapes for Healthy Living competition, led by Bradley Murphy Design (Landscape, Summer 2018) and the highly commended design by Churchman Landscape Architects for its New Landscape Guides to Ebbsfleet project. The stand’s exterior invited the public to create their ideal place by considering what their natural environment should contain: a place to connect? Explore? Discover? Play?

Exercise? Socialise? Create? Relax? Learn? or Grow Food? The interior contained detailed information on the Ebbsfleet Garden City project and other competition shortlist entries, via the lightbox and iTable. The display’s drum interior included an 8 metre panoramic of HALO’s proposals, alongside an ideas wall. Prompts and postcards, based on the nine themes, were included for feedback, with an iPad digital survey, creating an environment for visitors to reflect, express and create their sense of an ideal place. The stand was on display from January 9 to February 5, 2019. Team Exhibition Design: Micheline Mannion and Peter Durant Competition winner HALO = Model for Growing a Healthy Infrastructure Landscape Practice: Bradley Murphy Design (Team Leader) Architects & Masterplanners: JTP Engineers: Peter Brett Associates Artist: Sebastien Boyesen

1. Overview of the display showing the drum interior with the HALO panoramic visual. 2. iTable showing shortlisted entries, plus details of what is happening in Ebbsfleet Garden City 3. Create Your Ideal Place Here – overview of the ideas wall and survey iPads zone 4. Detail of postbox for idea cards responses All photographs © Peter Durant

F E AT U R E By Fiona Shaw

Fiona Shaw is an award-winning business journalist and publisher of Ethos magazine.

1 1. Moscow’s Garden Ring flows faster and is a safer and healthier environment, following Strelka KB’s Moscow Street programme. 2. ‘Before’: up to 16 lanes of traffic wove their way through parts of Garden Ring. Images © Strelka KB

The new pioneers Across the Russian Federation, straddling Europe and Asia, a comprehensive new plan is transforming not just the physical and cultural landscape, but citizens’ relationship with place. The Moscow Street programme blends minute attention to detail with big data to create a forward-looking, historically sensitive plan for the Russian capital’s future.

rban consultancy Strelka KB led the project, which is now being rolled out across the country. Strelka KB’s origins lie in the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design. Founded in 2009, the nongovernmental organisation’s aim is to change the cultural and physical landscapes of Russian cities by taking an experimental approach to education, developing human capital and applying research to real problems in Russian cities. The Institute founded urban consultancy Strelka KB in 2013. Its approach focuses on the city as an integrated system, developing Russian cities to meet the demands of the knowledge economy.

Dasha Paramonova is CEO of Strelka Architects, part of Strelka KB. She explains the background. “An analysis of 3,500 streets allowed us to extract a typology, based on parameters like the width of street or height of buildings, historical area, speed of traffic, number of lanes and amount of pedestrians. We extracted ten types of street – although there is a list of unique streets which don’t fit these types. “We developed an approach with five main principles – safety, ecology, uniqueness, diversity and comfort, that each street should respond to. Soviet norms only responded to geometrical parameters, never taking into account ecology or diversity or identity.”

Design updates run the risk of being “rather superficial,” she says. “Simply replacing pavements or lamp posts is not transforming or introducing new scenarios for visitors, or thinking about how this street will operate in the future and what it brings to the environment. It relies on the vision of a specific designer – it doesn’t take into 55

F E AT U R E

account the city as one entity.” Detailed research created a common strategy, says Paramonova. “When an official chooses a street to update, they pick precise solutions that should be implemented. The designer is only responsible for certain visual elements but the function of the street – its future operation mode – is already in the document.” Moscow Streets’ criteria factor in historic and cultural sensitivities: “We developed a catalogue creating guidelines for the design of certain elements,” Paramonova says. “For some elements, like historic lamp posts, we developed the design with the Museum of Moscow Lights, matching them to streets according to their width and height.” The project started with some of Moscow’s major thoroughfares, including Novy Arbat, Tverskaya Ulitsa and the Garden Ring. Because, she says, “it was important to show how it worked as a network. It wasn’t enough to redesign only one street, we needed to show how it works together as a complex integrated system.” Strelka KB invited both professionals from all over the world and local young architects to pitch design ideas. “For the international group we operated as a client, providing detailed briefs. We chose unique streets that needed special design – it was important to introduce to authorities, clients and local designers high-quality street design. This is knowledge that we do not possess here and it’s something that we have to bring to raise the quality of local designers,” says Paramonova. Design briefs were based on complex analysis. “We started with an analysis of data that each street produces – the most important part of this was anthropology. Firstly, observations and the results of surveys and interviews, with a deep reading of the user’s precise territory. Then digital anthropology – deeper and wider understanding of well-used streets – what people appreciate them for; what they care about and so on. Besides that we do field research – volunteers sketch out visual noise and disruptive elements – pedestrian flows and traffic flaws were counted and the diversity 56

3. New cafés, shops and planting have brought pedestrians back to Garden Ring. 4. There are now places for people to sit, meet and chat amongst the 3,000 new trees along the Garden Ring. 5. Hussein Bin Talal Park in Grozny is one of the first contemporary public spaces in the Russian Caucasus. Images © Strelka KB

THE LARGEST URBAN REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT IN POST-SOVIET RUSSIA

of commercial activities.” Throughout, the project blazed a trail by introducing a new discipline to an emerging profession in Russia. “With local teams we gave the opportunity to young architects to try themselves in a new type of design, public space design,” says Paramonova. “But also an opportunity to do something significant in the city.” Under the guidance of the brief, “we controlled their work; trying to bring it to another level,” she says. “Strelka KB has its own architectural department, with many young architects around 25‑27 years old, who were taking part in designing large scale projects.” The Garden Ring is a ten-mile road encircling the centre of Moscow. Last replanned by Stalin in the 1930s, lime trees that had shaded the road made way for his socialist realism, accelerated industrialisation and

the advent of the car. Strelka KB’s masterplan has seen a narrowing of the road to reintroduce trees. Banks and offices have given way to food, retail, and service businesses; 3,000 new trees minimise road dust and pollution, keep street-level temperatures cooler in the summer and generate oxygen. “The increase of sidewalks is a consequence of decreasing the lane widths,” says Paramonova. Reducing lanes to 3.5m freed up 16% to expand pavements. “It’s not necessarily a decrease in the amount of lanes,” she insists. Creating space for public areas whilst reducing the overall speed limit has seen a 56% decrease in traffic accidents with injuries – alongside a 12% increase in the average speed of traffic flow. Across the city, 7,000 new trees have been planted, with utility

223 PUBLIC SPACES covering more than 1,200 HECTARES in

40 CITIES with a combined population of

28 MILLION PEOPLE

lines relocated underground by the Clear Skies element of the project. Pedestrian traffic has grown 23%, with 36% fewer undeveloped locations bringing cafés and restaurants. “Supervising local architectural offices’ work during the execution of detailed documentation for construction was the most complicated part,” admits Paramonova. “It was commissioned by the client in offices which have a standard approach to design. They were really struggling with some of the new elements. You couldn’t plant a tree in the ground in Moscow – you could only put them in planters which are hard to maintain, especially in winter. It’s a breakthrough. With old pipes situated in the ground, even if an area was empty you couldn’t plant because there could be nearby communication. “To avoid those limits we created the root barrier. One of the main achievements has been changing attitudes towards greenery across the whole city. It’s the best tool to introduce the achievement of public space design because everybody appreciates it.” Public engagement was very much a Strelka KB initiative, she says. “We tried to get locals to talk about the project to avoid misunderstandings when it came to construction, but

Dasha Paramonova

It was important to show how it worked as a network. It wasn’t enough to redesign only one street, we needed to show how it works together as a complex integrated system.

it wasn’t easy. Now it’s absolutely common that you discuss the project. You have to.” Yet battling bureaucracy remains an international standard. “All over the world, but in Moscow especially, each street has at least 40 city government departments, responsible for different parts; one’s responsible for this pipe; one for this tree. One is responsible for the street; one for the I-don’t-know... you have to negotiate with ten or more different representatives. And they all start from the fact that it’s against existing restrictions. It was important that at least one solution like the skate spot happened. When you have a precedent, you can say ‘it was done. It is successful. Let’s follow this.’ Negotiation, conversation and support and will of client; of the city,” she says, were vital. Krymsky overpass is the site of the new skate spot, developed by Strelka KB with renowned Norwegian bureau Snøhetta. A former car park was transformed into a new social feature, reimagining the space as a two-level amphitheatre. Its floor is filled with special coloured concrete and the overpass shields skaters from the weather. It is important, says Paramonova, to change the stereotype that things aren’t possible.“You create a little

park, but it’s not clear whether people will use it. Although we based it on the analysis, there’s always a chance something was missing. But I believe it’s a simple and basic phenomenon that you observe. You bring the bench and you immediately have people sitting there. It does work like this… these parks did start appearing.” The principles and processes of Moscow Street have been exported from the streets of the capital to the Russian regions. Russia has 656 industrial cities, of which just 17 are responsible for nearly 40% of the country’s GDP. The Future Cities programme uses existing regulations alongside strategic long-term planning and global standards, to create liveable cities and increase the country’s capacity for future economic development. The programme will address 223 public spaces, from streets and squares to embankments and parks, covering more than 1,200 hectares in 40 cities. With a combined population of 28 million, its scale is vast, creating public space across the country for the first time. It is the largest urban redevelopment project in post-Soviet Russia. “We worked in more or less the same way,” says Paramonova. “We did a complex analysis, created

F E AT U R E

a brief and invited design execution by a local architect, or via a competition, based on these parameters,” she says. Future Cities has transformed both opportunity and individual relationships with the city. Paramonova herself says “The experience of using public space is something I didn’t have before. I can imagine myself walking in Paris and being a tourist, but in Moscow I deliver myself from work to the office without actually living in this space. I never had a request for public space before I started to design it. You can’t create a request if you don’t have this experience. You bring the bicycle path or some exercise equipment and people understand that they can do it, even though they haven’t thought about it.” It’s also notable for its approach to public engagement, as the first large-scale public engagement in the Russian/ post-Soviet era. Under Future Cities, 44,800 residents were polled, while creating partnerships with private and public institutions, ranging from city government to volunteers. Expedited by the arrival of the FIFA World Cup in summer 2018, it began with 15 cities, raising the bar in planning and developing public space. Belgorod, in Eastern Russia, has a population of over 350,000. Largely rebuilt after World War II, its public spaces hark back to Soviet times. The abandoned Vezelka river embankment is an example of changing attitudes to space across the country. Polls designed to determine the public spaces were crowdsourced, and the resulting scheme created an embankment with zones, connected by promenades and cycle paths. The central zone is a plaza with a public meeting space, which became a Fan Zone during the World Cup. In Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, Hussein Bin Talal Park is one of the first contemporary public spaces in the Russian Caucasus. Future Cities gave residents the opportunity to review plans before work started, a new experience in post-Soviet territory. Its adoption proved so enthusiastic that local youths cleared construction debris at the new skate park, eager to skate as soon as possible. A reservoir, sports field and prayer rooms feature; businesses including cafés and a 58

restaurant sprang up. The area’s Ahmat Arena was used as a training base during the World Cup. Strelka KB’s intervention has included design and construction supervision previously unheard of in the country. Ideas were communicated direct to the construction team, and overseen by architects, to make sure that design intentions were followed. Two years on, those first 15 cities – blending international design influences with local context – have given dozens of new architects a chance to work on large scale projects and millions of Russians a new perspective on the cities they live in. “Design implementation should introduce people to new scenarios and experiences they might have as a citizen,” says Paramonova. “That’s why it’s important to get their response, but also do something they have never asked for. In Moscow, I was a car driver for 20 years, but now

I walk and cycle and use Uber. I would never have imagined myself doing this. But I enjoy it and I’m happy that I have this diversity. “Common space has the capacity to unite us, whether it’s shopping or sport or just walking. It gives people the opportunity to see each other. You understand you are actually part of the city – you’re a citizen. When you understand that there’s a space you are actually entitled to use – a high quality street or a nice park or pleasant territory – you have a right as a citizen. It’s important for your sense of dignity and modern citizenship. It’s the relationship between a city and the people that live there and I really appreciate that you are changing people’s relationship to what surrounds them.” Paramonova is emphatic, “When people feel they are relevant; then can demand something,” she says. “They become engaged in the place that they live.”

6. A reservoir, sports field and prayer rooms feature in Grozny’s Hussein Bin Talal Park. Businesses including cafés and a restaurant have sprung up. 7. Strelka CA and Kosmos’ Nike Box in Moscow won the ‘sport’ category in the 2018 ARCHMARATHON Awards. Images © Strelka KB

7,000 NEW TREES

planted across Moscow

56% DECREASE in traffic accidents with injuries in Moscow

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Landscape Journal - Spring 2019: The Human Skills issue

Articles inside

Why building a library is a sign of faith in the future

Growing professionally

The Three Cs: The digital skills you need for future success

The new pioneers

Creating your ideal place

Places for people

Standing out from the crowd

Talking heads: how was it for you?

Being bold

The bigger picture

Collective Vision

Centrepiece

How can we support volunteers to learn heritage skills?

How can we reap the rewards of thinking smaller?

How can landscape projects be grown from bottom to top?

Where will the money come from?

What does our next generation need to think about?

How do we win hearts and minds?

Being Human: Laura Schofield

Being Human: Serena Welton

Being Human: Phil Henry

Being Human: Ujwala Fernandes

Being Human: Elaine Cresswell