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Why do we accept mediocrity in landscape architecture?

Recently, I have watched videos with Bjarke Ingels, Rem Koolhaus, Fabrio Novembre, Marc Newson, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Karl Lagerfeld and many others to gain more of an understanding of idea generation and design in various industries. What struck me during watching these videos is the willingness of society (and some designers) to accept mediocre design as something that will just occur as part of the marketplace and mainstream design realm. So why is it that we accept this mediocrity in the design profession and its not just architecture or industrial design but it seems that mediocrity is more and more prevalent in recent times in all design industries.

Does it necessarily need to be this way? Personally it seems that many have gone down the ‘path of least resistance’ and that the ‘market’ is influencing the way we design as a shift occurs towards developing markets and away from developed economies. Design standards seem to have been calibrated to the market and aiming at the lower level  to meet the standards of these immature developing markets with iteration after iteration of the same design to the point where is has become ubiquitous.  Where this can be seen more evidently is in the car industry where Porsche, Rolls Royce, BMW, Audi, Lamborghini, Bugatti have produced numerous ‘special editions’ and variations of the same model with very little design development for developing markets such as China.

The same is occurring in landscape architecture where the same design language and style is being used over and over again with little departure from the previous design. Some may see this as a firm/person developing a signature design language, I personally see it as lack of design energy and also a lack respect for the intellect of clients. Landscape architecture should respond to the culture, place, climate, terrain and numerous other elements that influence the design process to develop a unique concept that will create the best design for that site no matter how big or small. I understand that in China there is often little time to analyse, understand and design with the extraordinary short deadlines but I think we owe it the community, client and most of all ourselves as landscape architects to design something to the best of our design ability and to shun mediocrity.

Lower costs increases access to technology

Access to technology and the growing divide between the haves and have nots has reached a turning point with the development of the $100 laptop, the $50 tablet and now the $25 computer. This constant reduction in the cost of technology is allowing governments, schools, charities and businesses to provide access to technology that we all take for granted.

The challenge now is access to information, many of these organisations have to create networks to access the internet, thankfully wireless technology is cheaper as we move from CDMA to 3G to 4G LTE making the previous technology cheaper thus allowing organisations to take advantage of the lowering price of the ‘old’ technology. What is old to us is very new to them and allows for more people to gain access to information (the commodity of the 21st Century).

Children in an Urban World

Unicef recently published THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2012 – Children in an Urban World on scribd in digital format. The report gives us some background on the urban environment and the ever increasing number of children living in urban slums around the world. Usually when we think of poor children without access to water or food we often think of those in African nations in drought and famine ravage areas, but there are more children without water and food in urban environments.

The Unicef report outlines that as many as 1.6 billion people will be living in urban slums by 2020 many of whom will be children. As urban designers and planners we often are unable to come to terms with this problem, but we can try to ensure that when we design new cities or reinvigorate old ones that we understand the consequences of our design decisions.

Migration is a large part of China growth and urbanisaton with many families separated as one or more parents have to move into a city to obtain work to feed and house the family, this is nothing new and has been happening for centuries, but now migration is occurring across the world at an ever increasing rate and many children will be left behind or required to live in less than ideal situations. When designing cities we have to incorporate all types of housing and education facilities that provide access at a reasonable price for new residents to be able to afford.

In China there are many cultural, economic and social issues around the migration of rural residents to the new and existing cities across China. The current migration is the largest population shift and the fastest urbanisation of a nation that we will probably ever see. Children and their future will be a key part of the China as it comes to grips with an ageing population. China’s children their health, education and contribution to society is key to a successful China in the future.

The Unicef report raises many issues including Health, Water, Food, Education, Safety (road deaths of children is high due to the change to an urban environment) and as designers we need to address these issues which are primary issues we need to address but we also realise that we need to provide children with areas to explore, play and dream to become the worlds next artists, designers, scientists and more. I encourage people to read the Unicef report or at least the executive summary to understand the issue of children in our ever urbanising world.

What’s in a name? Companies that use country of origin to become ‘international’

There is a growing number of landscape firms in China, some are foreign, some local and many a mix (often referred to as sino-american or sino-australia, etc). The company names are interesting to read some a very simple and aimed at a certain market, others keep their name from abroad or just create a literal translation of their name in Chinese. There is however a disturbing trend of ‘international’ firms in China that are international in name only. These are the chinese firms that register a name in Australia, USA, Canada, UK or another country and state that they are an international company. This is disturbing to me as many do not have any international staff or qualifications but are utilising the simple business registration laws in overseas countries.

Many of these firms are in a ‘rush to the bottom’ by alluding to clients that they are international – they maybe in a legal sense but not culturally or in their design approach. The reason many developers and governments engage international firms is to gain the broad experience and talented staff that many international firms have at their disposal. This is not to say there aren’t good local chinese firms with talented designers – there are many. However, the illusion the ‘international’ companies are creating will in the long run hurt their company, the country they supposedly represent and the landscape design industry in China. I am not disturbed that they are using international names or countries as selling point, I am disturbed that they are harming landscape architecture in China, which is very young although China has a long history of garden and landscape design, the landscape architecture profession is relatively immature.

Sustainable Landscape Architecture Part 4: Can standards and certification create sustainable landscapes?

At last I got round to finishing my blog posts – Part 4 and 5 of Sustainable Landscape Architecture Series.

Although I believe that standards such Sustainable Sites and certification such as LEED AP can contribute to advancing landscape architecture and creating sustainable landscapes they also become a crutch that we point to and say it meets X,Y,Z criteria then it is sustainable. The problem is they may be ‘sustainable’ for when the standard or certification was formulated but as we all know technology, education systems and people change.

I believe that to create sustainable landscapes you have to analyse and evaluate the landscape in the moment in time and then with all the information at hand you then formulate an approach to create a sustainable landscape. Beginning with a certification or standard as the starting point for sustainable landscape design is fraught with the danger of creating a landscape that meets your expectations as a designer (and the certification organisation) as a sustainable landscape but fails miserably to meet the expectations of the users and thus the user don’t use the space and thus the space is not sustainable as no one is using it. This is true of many urban spaces, of course natural forests or spaces are inherently sustainable ecosystem although they are rarely used. So there in lies a conundrum. Many spaces we create attempt to replicate a natural ecosystem so we view them as sustainable but if we create a space of materials and plants that may not be ‘natural’ or an ‘ecosystem’ is it still not sustainable if the usage rate of the local community is high. I think that in an urban setting sustainable landscapes need to used to be sustainable, if they aren’t used you have basically wasted, time, energy in construction, energy bound in materials and so on to create a space that may be technically seen as sustainable. This is were I basically take issue with certification and standards, they often are not flexible and usually out of date as soon as we publish them.

To create a sustainable landscape we have to realise that as designers we need to assess and truly understand the landscape before we lift a pen, click a mouse, or swipe a tablet. Standards and certification assist and sometimes lead the design direction in the creation of sustainable landscapes but its the designer and the design process that create the best sustainable landscapes.