Author: Damian Holmes

What does a landscape architect do?

Landscape Architects design outdoor spaces (and sometimes indoors) from small gardens to large highways and they play an important role in every city in shaping its spaces. Landscape architects can formulate city policy, undertake an environmental impact assessment, create a masterplan for a natural area or heritage area or a new city, design plazas, malls, streetscapes, parks most landscapes that you see will have some design input from a landscape architect. Landscape Architects work with many other design professionals including urban planners, urban designers, architects, engineers, horticulturalists, arborists, surveryors, heritage consultants, construction managers, construction workers, artists, designers, lighting consultants and many more.

Most Landscape architects spend many hours in the office thinking about concepts and formulating ideas with some field work during site inventory and also during construction.

Landscape architects who focus on design concentrate their design skills on the arrangement and style of the space including the paving, planting, furniture, structures, water features, drainage, land forms, roads, signage(ci), and lighting.

Landscape Architects not only design they work in many other areas and specialisations including planning, park management, construction management, research, heritage or environmental conservation and many more.

Invisible City: Exhibition South Shanghai Railway Station

海世盛楼Invisible City

Invisible City is an exhibition comprising of eight International artists in the South Railway Metro Station in Shanghai. It coincides with the World Expo 2010, incorporate art interventions and addressing the relationship between the urban dwellers and the modern phenomenon of Shanghai at the specific time the World Expo, through a process shaped by research, educational programmes and artistic practices.

Curator：汪单 Wang Dan

Executive Officer：陈文佳Chen Wen Jia，黄松 Huang Song，张羽洁Zhang Yu Jie

Participating Artists: Aline Veillat(CH), Anna Boggon(UK), Bignia Wehril(CH),

Gao Fu Yan( CN), Tim Gruchy(NZ), Jin Jiang Bo(CN), Li Xiao Fe(CN), Luo Ming Jun(CH)

Workshop: Body Mapping/ Amspace Shanghai

Dance Movement Therapist: Yang -Wei Ting, Hsieh-Meng Yi

Location: Connection between Line 1 and Line 3 South Shanghai Railway Station

Dates: 2010.09.06-2010.09.30

NOTE: These are photos I took recently and I am not involved with the Exhibition







Low carbon cities are the way of the future for China

The Low carbon city has become a popular topic in recent times and is an important concept and idea for urban design. Developing low carbon cities is important as energy use, economy and environment are all connected and determine the prosperity of a city.

A low-carbon city is more complex than using alternative energy such as solar and wind but also requires designing a city efficiently to maximise the energy used. Cities can design cities to be efficient with appropriate land use, integrate transport system, efficient electricity and water use, using locally produced food and construction materials and integrated project management to reduce waste and rebuilding. To become a low carbon a city needs to integrate sustainable design and construction techniques for urban design, architecture and landscape architecture into their master planning process.

With new cities being planned in China for the next 20 years, China has the opportunity of developing and using the latest theories and techniques in low carbon and eco-cities to become the world leader in urban design. By developing and using efficient sustainable design for infrastructure, architecture, and urban design China can create liveable cities that will become the example for the world.

Research & Education is fundamental in implementing low-carbon cities. Universities need to lead research and development of low carbon city design with the best techniques made available to its students and also to the public through professors presenting at conferences. The theory and findings of research are only useful if it is put into practice in the real world.