Greening the greenback: the US green city renaissance

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Green cities in the US refer not only to an attempt to integrate the environment into the concerns of city planning, but also attempts at greening the economy of these cities. The measures that are applied to rank the cities include:

*public/private incubators for clean technology industries

* renewable energy

* advanced transportation

* advanced water treatment

* alternative fuels

*green building

*energy efficiency


It is said that “these indicators gauge, for instance, which cities’ public transit, renewable energy, local food, and development approaches are more likely to either limit or intensify the negative economic and environmental impacts of fossil fuel dependence.” Although these goals are admirable, they are really only concerned with a soft green economy, and don’t go close to the total economic transformation which seems to be called for if cities are going to continue to thrive into the future as places for human settlement. 

Patrick Blanc green walls are beautiful – but are they sustainable?

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Patrick Blanc has made a great contribution to the technology of green walls, with beautiful results. But do they make useful contributions to environmental and sustainable design objectives? I do not know and would like to hear of any scientific evidence and environmental impact assessments. My guesses are (1) Patrick Blanc’s green walls use more energy for pumps/materials/manufacture than they save through insulation (2) more of Patrick Blanc’s green walls use tapwater than use rain which has fallen on the site (3) Patrick Blanc’s green walls make useful contributions to noise attenuation and dust capture (4) the contribution of Patrick Blanc’s green walls to biodiversity is negligible (5) one could achieve more environmental benefits, though less beauty, by using climbers.
The above example is on the Athaneum Hotel in Picadilly, London.
Stephen Alton shares my scepticism.

Garden designs at the Hampton Court Flower Show 2010

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Happy hippos at Hampton Court Flower Show 2010

Happy hippos at Hampton Court Flower Show 2010

One does not see too many Hippo Gardens, and they don’t win many awards, but at Hampton Court in 2010 we were pleased to find ourselves much more in agreement with the garden design judges than at many shows. It confirms our usual advice to clients: if you want a good garden design then you should employ a good garden designer. Such people may have no training or any training – but more often than not you will find that they have, like the 2010 winners, completed educational courses in landscape architecture or garden design.

London's Peace Garden and Democracy Village in Parliament Square UK

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OK, it’s a mess.
But what should a ‘Parliament Square’ be used for? Parliament-related activities, obviously.
London’s Parliament Square is a traffic island. When not being used for protests, it is empty.
So why not designate Parliament Square as an area for political activity. The activity should be orderly, as in the Houses of Parliament, but there should be free speech, as in the Houses of Parliament. And there should be an Outdoor Speaker to give varied political groups chances to express their views.
We have had years of talk about pedestrianizing Parliament Square – and I favour the idea. But I don’t want the Square to become a sales venue for international coffee chains. Relating the use of outdoor space to the use of adjacent indoor space is often a good principle and this is a wonderful place to put it to the test.
The above photograph, taken today, is of the Peace Garden and Democracy Village in Parliament Square. The protest began on 1st May and the Mayor of London won a court injunction to get it removed last week. An appeal is expected and then the tents are likely to be removed. The handsome statue brooding over the scene is of Benjamin Disraeli. He is famous for his wit, for extending the franchise and for making Queen Victoria the Empress of India. What would he think of the current Afghan War and the protest? I guess he would be against the war, on pragramatic grounds, and against the protest, because it is a mess. But if it could be an orderly Garden Protest, I think he would regard it as an enrichment of our democracy, as would I.
The below photograph, also taken today, shows that London’s police force is a much more liberal institution than it used to be. Multi-everything is the new political correctness.

The Renaissance Garden in England by Sir Roy Strong – book review

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Covers of the 1979 and 1998 copies of The Renaissance Garden in England by Sir Roy Strong

Covers of the 1979 and 1998 copies of The Renaissance Garden in England by Sir Roy Strong

I have been slow to review this book – the hardback (left) was published in 1979. The paperback (right) was published in 1998 with a statement from the author that ‘I intend to rework the whole subject, incorporating all that has happened in the last twenty years’. So my comments may be of use to the author.
(1) Put dates on the front cover
The present title may be compared to a book on The Great War in which you have to read half the first chapter to discover that it is really a book on The Great War 1914-16. Strong writes on page 13: ‘In this book I am only going to take one period and one thread. The period stretches from the accession of Henry VIII (1509) to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 and the thread is the evolution, design and meaning of the palace and the great garden’.
(2) Revise the book to include the century from until 1642-1742 (or more)
This is when Renaissance ideas had most influence on English gardens – as shown by Kip and Knyff’s topographic drawings. One could be disappointed in a book on The Second World War which only covered the period from September 1939 to the fall of France on 22 June 1940. As Kip and Knyff show in Britannia Illustrata, English gardens in 1707 were much more ‘Renaissance’ than ‘Baroque’. They had aignificant ‘Baroque’ aspect but it was never dominant. The avenues in the Kip and Kynff drawings half-hearted additions to fundamentally High Renaissance plans.
(3) Prefer the cover of the paperback edition, despite its parenticidal cropping (see the original)
As Roy Strong notes, on page 211, the garden of Packwood House (as used on the cover of the 1979 hardback edition) is ‘long famous as a garden planted in the 1660s, it was in fact, a mid-Victorian re-creation’. Apart from the question of it being a highly dubious ‘re-creation’, even the original is outside Roy Strong’s period

(4) Remove the book’s silly dedication
It reads ‘IN MEMORY OF ALL THOSE GARDENS DESTROYED BY CAPABILITY BROWN AND HIS SUCCESSORS’. The most significant Renaissance gardens discussed by Roy Strong are Hampton Court, Whitehall, Nonsuch, Kenilworth, Theobalds, Wollaton, Wimbledon, Richmond. Hatfield, Ham House, Worcester Lodge, Dowsby, Northampton House, Twickenham, Chastleton House, Gorehambury, Moor Park Herts, Wilton, Arundel House, Danvers House. A little historical investigation, aided by a pocket calculator, could reveal that >10% of these gardens fell victim to the landscape movement.