Category Archives: Landscape Architecture

Context-sensitive landscape architecture in China

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Tange River Park

Having criticized the lack of context-sensitive landscape architecture in China, it was a pleasure to find a contrary example: the Tanghe River Park Red Ribbon project:

  1. it is beautiful
  2. it is undeniably of its own time
  3. it is in sync with a long tradition of Chinese landscape architecture: the red colour, the dragon curves, the composition of walks with planting and water

So: well done to Professor Kongjian Yu of Turenscape 俞孔坚教授土人!

Old China had elegant concubines with bound feet strolling in lang corridors. New China can have fleet-of-foot girls bursting with energy as they race through the urban landscape.

Context-sensitive design is a problem for every country – or rather, one should say, for every region. Samuel Johnson remarked, on April 7th 1775, that patriotism is “the last refuge of a scoundrel”. Little did he know how nationalism was going to ravage civilization in the next two centuries. For landscape architecture, it is not so much that it should be “Chinese” in China as that it should be regional: there should be different approaches in Jiangsu, Guangdong and Xinjiang, relating to culture, climate, history, vegetation, geology, hydrology and habits concerning the social life of outdoor space. There can be no part of the world with such a severe shortage of landscape architects as China.

See also: landscape architecture competition for Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China 2009-2010

Long grass and mown grass

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Long grass and unmown grass at Bramham Park

The English summer of 2008 has had an unusually good mix of sun and rain. Perhaps a bit too much rain actually, but it has been very good for grass and it is a pleasure to see how many more gardens make a feature of the contrast between long grass and mown grass. Twenty years ago one only saw this effect at Great Dixter and in gardens which made a feature of daffodils or bluebells or another favoured flower. Today you can even find patterns of mown and unmown grass in London’s parks – the impetus to this came from David Goode at the Greater London Council and from the Urban Wildlife Group which Chris Baines co-founded. The popularity of grass in gardens has also been influenced by Piet Oudolf and a general enthusiasm for planting ornamental grasses in gardens.

Context-sensitive garden design

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Hort Park is in Singpore but it could be anywhere (photo Steel Wool)

Ken Yeang, the world-famous Malaysian architect complains that ‘Pursuing a kind of national architecture is a dilemma imposed by foreign architects’. He says that the Americans and Europeans can’t do it ‘Therefore, why should we define a national architecture, but these developed countries cannot?’. He is wrong. The architectural style known as International Modernism is really a North European style which just happens to be widely used in a context-insensitive manner.

For garden design and landscape architecture there is a far stronger case for a context-sensitive approach. Countries, regions and small localities have different geology, different climates, different hydrology, different flora, different fauna, different histories and, above all, different ways of using outdoor space. So why on earth should there be an International Style of Garden Design? The only possible excuses are the general lack of professional education in garden design and, in the case of landscape architecture, the general ignorance and lack of interest in design theory.

Curiously, the nearest thing to an agreed principle of landscape architecture is that ‘designers should consult the genius of the place’ (the genius loci). It is a great principle. But it has to be carefully considered and ‘though the genius must always be consulted she does not always have to be obeyed’. What most designers do is take a quick glance at the local character, find out a little about soils, find out some more about climate – and then do what they planned to do in the first place. The people should shout them down.

Resin bound gravel

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Resin bound gravel (left) and unbound gravel (right)

The University of Greenwich has re-done much of its paving with resin-bound gravel on its Maritime Campus. It has one the most scenic campuses in Britain and certainly needs to be ‘paved with care’. But was resin-bound gravel the best choice?

Some of the pedestrian paving, usually adjoining buildings, is done with a beautiful riven sandstone. It comes from Yorkshire and has the local name Yorkstone. This is an excellent material. Other pedestrian paving, often running through grass areas, is ungraded gravel. This too is a good choice, though it is hard to fathom why they used granite instead of the local flint.

Most of the new paving on the campus is resin bound and uses a small-diameter flint gravel aggregate (2-4mm). For the central roadway this was a good choice. A bitumen macadam basecourse supports the weight of vehicular traffic. But the road is used as much by pedestrians as by vehicles and it was well worth the extra expenditure on resin bound gravel to hide the bitumen.

But I can’t see the point of having used resin-bound gravel for purely pedestrian walks or for the new car parks: (1) it costs a lot more money (2) it is impermeable and therefore works against Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS) objectives (3) it does not have that nice crunchy sound you get from gravel (4) it looks phoney – like a plastic imitation of gravel (5) it is out of keeping with the historic character of the Maritime Campus – where unbound flint gravel is the traditional material.

What is the difference between garden design and landscape architecture?

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Residential garden design - or landscape architecture?It’s worth looking to see what Wikipedia and Britannica have to say on this question. And I have to say that the Wiki entry on landscape architecture is a lot more useful than the Britannica entry on garden and landscape design. Britannica only let you have a quick glimpse at their text before a big black screen tries to sell you a subscription. But you have enough time to discover that the text is badly written garbage. Here is a sample: “Efforts to design gardens and to preserve and develop green open space in and around cities are efforts to maintain contact with the original pastoral, rural landscape. Gardens and designed landscapes, by filling the open areas in cities, create a continuity in space between structural urban landscapes and the open rural landscapes beyond. ”

The Wiki entry ( at 10.40 GMT on 1.7.2008) is so much better, or at least so much closer to my own view, that I suspect the author of having made good use of the Gardenvisit.com website. It states that: “Both arts are concerned with the composition of planting, landform, water, paving and other structures but: (1) garden design is essentially concerned with enclosed private space (parks, gardens etc), (2) landscape design is concerned with the design of enclosed space, as well as unenclosed space which is open to the public (town squares, country parks, park systems, greenways etc)”

Compared to Europeans, Americans tend to be a bit sniffy about garden design. They see it (as in the Britannica quotation above) as a subsection of garden design. This makes garden designers inferior people, because they can only do a fraction of the work undertaken by landscape architects. The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) only introduced a professional award for garden design, actually called “residential design” in 2005: ” The ASLA 2005 Professional and Student Awards program features a new category—Residential Design—drawing more than 120 entries in its inaugural year. Cosponsored by Garden Design magazine, awards in this new category will be presented on Monday, October 10, during the ASLA Awards Ceremony. A special luncheon honoring all award recipients, their clients, and professors will be held following the ceremony.”

Personally, I see garden design as much closer to a fine art than landscape architecture. Art is for art’s same and gardens are for garden’s sake. Landscape architecture is often for a public or private body with a shedful of axes to grind. It is similar to the distinction between painting and graphic design or between sculpture and product design.

Towards a Greener London

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Green carpet, green chairs and green light - seen on London's South Bank on 12th July 2008As the author of a an old report on Towards a green strategy for London, I should be pleased to see a sudden and dramatic green turn on London’s South Bank. And I am. Green is a good outdoor colour, kind to the eye and calming for the nerves. But I would also like the Greater London Authority to adopt a serious Green Strategy for London. ‘