I am writing this blog entry as I sit on the coach heading home from a University trip to Liverpool. We spent the day exploring some of the city’s main urban spaces and meeting some of the landscape architects involved in their construction. It is the latest in a series of visits that I have made across the UK including trips to Sheffield, Nottingham and London. In doing so I have seen some excellent examples of landscape design and gained fresh ideas about my own work.
The course programme at the University of Gloucestershire incorporates a variety trips throughout the year which are designed to support our current assignments. Most projects are introduced with a site visit to the local area and usually take place within a morning or afternoon session. Day trips are used to explore further a field and have included trips to Liverpool, Slimbridge Wildlife Wetland Trust, Wye Vale Nurseries, and industry events such Ecobuild. These trips often include a guest speaker who is able to talk about their involvement with a particular project or organisation. The longest trip of the year takes place in October and lasts for a full week. This trip is usually abroad, and has included Berlin, New York and Barcelona in recent years. Although not compulsory for conversion students we are welcome to attend.
The Landscape Institute showcases a broad spectrum of over 100 case studies on its website. Many of these projects are winners and runners up of the LI awards and a good place to start looking for places to visit. Planning personal trips does take more effort but can be just as rewarding. Doing this has given me a much stronger understanding of what makes a successful landscape and the type of landscape practitioner I want to become.
I was introduced to Andrew Stonyer via my course director at the University of Gloucestershire, where Andrew has been working as a professor of fine art. He is a sculptor who has taught, exhibited and completed commissions in Turkey, Holland, Canada, the USA and here in the UK. His interests lie in the exploration of kinetic imagery and are always transcribed through the geometry of the circle and the square.
Andrew asked me to work with him on a commission for the North Cotswold Community Hospital, Moreton in Marsh. A number of key locations within the newly built hospital had been identified as potentially benefiting from artists’ involvement and Andrew had been asked to a submit a proposal for the main entrance commission. When I first met Andrew he had already established a clear idea of the sculpture he wanted to create on the site. It would hang in front of the main entrance, and consisted of four individually rotating discs. Each disc moved at a different speed so that the sculpture would constantly be changing its form and shape throughout the day. The timings of these discs had been carefully designed so that they would simultaneously fall flush with the main body of the sculpture at the mark of every hour.
Andrew needed my help to illustrate his proposal to the commission board. I created a series of images; the first of which portrayed an idealised view of the sculpture in its location at the hospital entrance. I also produced a number of schematic drawings which demonstrated the sculpture’s function; these illustrated how the sculpture would look at different stages of the hour as well as the proposed dimensions of the artwork. The visualisations that I created became an important part of the design process and they allowed Andrew to make decisions about the scale and colour of the sculpture in relation to the surrounding landscape. For me, this was the most rewarding aspect of the project, as I was able to see the influence that my drawings had on the final proposal. I look forward to finding out the results of the competition soon and hope to work with Andrew again in the future.
Landscape Architecture is an incredibly addictive course and if you are anything like me it will engulf much of your spare time. This seems to be a fairly standard response to design-led courses, where projects can always be developed further and students take a real ownership of their work. As a conversion student you may well face the additional challenge of having to learn new computer software or improving your plant knowledge. Investing time and effort into developing these skills is the only way to catch up with your peers. The lack of blog entries in the past two months is a testament to the volume of work I faced at the end of the first semester.
As a rule the workload will fluctuate throughout the year, at Gloucestershire University it began at a relatively gentle pace and steadily built towards the end of the semester. The final weeks before the holidays were extremely hectic and all of the students were working flat out to reach their targets. These pressure points are fairly easy to spot and I recommend looking ahead in the course programme to identify the key deadlines throughout the year. I would also advise that you start your assignments as soon as possible, as it is the only way to stay on top of the workload.
Many of the students on the conversion course are attempting to maintain a part time job in conjunction with their studies. At the start of the year this was relatively easy to achieve, but as the workload has increased all of us have struggled to find a balance between work and study. Without a doubt those of us that have more flexible jobs have found it easier to respond to these demands. I manage to work 15 hours a week across the three days that I am not required to be at university, but even this had to be drastically reduced at the end of the semester.
“What can you offer that no one else can? What is your unique selling point?” A relatively straightforward question to ask a group of budding landscape architect students, yet between us we struggled to come up with a satisfactory answer. It turned out to be very simple, “working with living materials, plant knowledge and planting design is our niche area”.
Developing this intricate knowledge of plants and planting design takes years of experience and is a daunting prospect for those of us starting out from scratch. I began by talking to John Bennett, the subject technician assigned to Landscape Architecture at the University of Gloucestershire. He suggested I start with the 32 native trees to the UK, beginning with the one we happened to be standing next to Silver Birch (Betula pendula). He encouraged me to take a hands on approach and study the individual features of each tree in detail. The best way to get this ‘hands on’ experience is to get outside and mix with other horticultural enthusiasts. Whether this is spending more time in the garden or volunteering with a local wildlife group; there are countless opportunities available. I have just discovered a variety of courses at my local country park which cover topics from ‘winter tree identification’ to ‘foraging for fungi’.
A simple book on plant identification is essential. I attempt to identify a couple of trees each day in my local area and consequently my house is now covered with twig and leaf litter. To find out more about the trees you have identified then I recommend looking at Barcham Tree’s website. It has an online glossary that provides detailed information about the characteristics and planting requirements for hundreds of trees.
I must admit that my attempts at tree identification are not always successful, but my knowledge is definitely improving. Even some of the most successful landscape projects are forced to learn by an element of trial and error. Sometimes planting will fail for unforeseen reasons and it is up to us to learn from these experiences and improve our knowledge for the future.
The type of preparation that will benefit you the most will depend on your professional background and the experiences you have already gained prior to starting the course. From the current conversion students at Gloucestershire University, some have been working in design for many years, whereas others have little design experience but are skilled horticulturalists. To help identify what is best for you, I recommend talking to current landscape students about what the course entails.
I began my own preparation by familiarising myself with some of the current debates in landscape architecture. I obtained a reading list from the course Director who was able to suggest some good introductory texts as a starting point. The Landscape Institute also has an excellent website where you can find current news stories and some interesting case studies. To gain greater access to this website and receive their quarterly landscape journal, it is possible to join the Institute at a discounted student rate. Talkandscape issue regular twitter alerts on behalf of the Institute and is a quick and easy way to stay abreast of current affairs.
Many of the landscape students I contacted spoke of the challenges they faced in learning some of the computer software used on the course. In particular, programmes such as Autocad, Photoshop and Goggle Sketch Up tend to be industry standards. Having never used these programmes, I felt this was something I needed to get to grips with before I started the course. There are numerous ‘teach yourself’ books available, as well as some excellent online tutorials, which will teach the basic functions of these software programmes. Better still is to get some work experience within a landscape practice. I was lucky enough to get this opportunity following a conversation with a recent graduate. It offered a much more rewarding way of learning some complicated programmes and gave me a real insight into how I might one day use them on a professional basis.
Landscape Architecture captivated me from the very beginning. When I first heard about the profession I could feel the excitement building up inside of me. I felt as though I had finally found a profession that would genuinely interest and challenge me in equal measure. It would let me develop my passion for the environment, and it would give me the opportunity to make a real difference to the world that I live in.
I have always been fascinated by the ‘outdoors’ and geography was always my favourite subject at school. It was an accessible subject which I could experience just by looking out the window or by going for a walk in the local area. There was little doubt that I would go on to study the subject at University and ultimately teach it at secondary school. I genuinely enjoyed teaching about both the built and natural environments, but I grew increasingly frustrated with the simplistic nature of geography at this level. I missed learning about the more complex relationships that exist between people and place and the conflicts that can arise between the two. Landscape Architecture fills this void by allowing me to engage in debates about how we should manage our landscape and improve public and private spaces for the future.
Simply learning about the environment is not quite enough for me, I want to have an active role in shaping it for the future, for other people to enjoy as I have. Arguably this desire to shape the landscape began when I was working as a part time gardener. My employer was a retired gentleman who spent his time meticulously planning every detail of his grounds; from seasonal flower beds to large scale projects such as the construction of a new water garden. I loved working with the environment and the thrill of watching projects develop into something that was both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Landscape Architecture will give me the chance to shape the landscape around me and ultimately the chance to help change it for the better.
