F E AT U R E By Ian Houlston and Stephen Carter 1. A recent housing audit found many developments which fail to respond to context, and have no character or sense of place. © Place Alliance
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A matter of time England has a rich diversity of landscapes, each a record of how people have related to their environment over generations. But in too many places this diversity is being eroded with homogenous development, devoid of vibrancy or life. Ian Houlston and Dr Stephen Carter argue that every site can respond to the local context and express our cultural heritage. A tumbled country Interpreting the landscape is a science that emerged in the second half of the 20th century, starting with W. G. Hoskins’ groundbreaking The Making of the English Landscape1. Hoskins observed that there was not just one English landscape to explain “…but as wide a variety as could be found anywhere in the world…”2 adding that each landscape had its own character, 24
making England “…a tumbled country with few large tracts of sameness…”3. He reasoned that diversity arose from the fashioning of the local scene by men and women according to their needs. This was subsequently enshrined in the definition of landscape in the European Landscape Convention (2000). However, there is a growing threat to those landscapes. In his essay “Non-Places” on ‘supermodernity’4,
Marc Augé describes the alienating everywhere/nowhere spaces where the individual, like the space, is anonymous. His neologism ‘non-place’ perfectly describes the widespread, transactional urban and peri-urban landscapes of out of town shopping centres and business parks. Most significantly, it also describes ubiquitous new housing which may appear to offer the homes of our dreams, but proves an isolating and
W.G. Hoskins, (first published 1955) The Making of the English Landscape 1
W.G. Hoskins, (1973) English Landscapes 2
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Ibid
