BRIEFING: MAKING COP26 COUNT
UK Landscape Architects Declare UKLAD is a part of Construction Declares. One of its founding members provides an update on progress. Andrew Grant
Grant Associates
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f we don’t change the way we think, plan, design and act, then the world as we know it will be gone. I think we are all trying to figure out how we as individuals, landscape practices and institutions can respond to this crisis. In late 2019 I got a call from Peter Clegg, one of the founders of Architects Declare, to say they were encouraging
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other professions to establish the equivalent campaigns under the Construction Declares banner, and to ask if I would be able to organise a UK Landscape Architects Declare (UKLAD) group. Within a few days, I had made contact with a number of other practices, and it was clear there was a big appetite to establish such a campaign – one both independent from institutions and sponsors but also representing a collective opinion between landscape practices. Whilst wanting to echo the Architects Declare and the subsequent Engineers Declare commitments, we recognised the need to shift the emphasis towards matters that have greater relevance to us as landscape professionals and to fill
the gaps left by the other manifestos. Our list of commitments came through a collaborative review between the initial group of founding signatories, and I consider it a powerful call to arms for the landscape and environmental design world (read it on the https://uk. landscapearchitectsdeclare.com site). Within UKLAD, we now have a Steering Group of four landscape architects representing different perspectives on the profession. These are Lise Benningen from Grant Associates, Carolyn Willitts from CW Studio, Carwyn Thomas from Colour, and David Finch from Churchman Thornhill Finch. Since going live in 2020 we quickly gained support, and at the time of writing (in July 2021), we have 146
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