Lyudmila Beloded, landscape designer, director and founder of Beloded Landscaping bureau
Expectations and reality
Behind many mistakes in life and work, which, as we see in retrospect, could have been completely avoided, a deficit of emotions is hidden. Our environment — the spaces of post-Soviet cities — is still far from ideal. Very often, people choose new housing based on bright, visually attractive advertising. And the more emotional this advertisement is, the more willingly we believe it.
Architectural companies, developing a package of visualizations and advertising graphics for the customer, try to give the project the most attractive appearance. They surround the buildings with images of huge trees, overgrown perennials. Everything blooms at the same time (which is impossible in real life), vines entwine the walls and roofs of gazebos, happy people rest in the shade of scattered exotics. Today, there are many tools that allow you to create the most realistic picture. But, working on a visual image of an ideal jungle, architects invade the sphere of responsibility of landscape architects. Moreover, the majority does not see this as a particular problem.
Garden Bridge is a garden bridge across the Thames in London. Unrealized project by Heatherwick Studio, Arup, Dan Pearson. Image source: Arup, Heatherwick Studio
However, they exist, and these are our common problems. People paid for a beautiful picture, and when the time comes to move into new apartments, instead of oceans of green, they see fragile young saplings in yards that do not create shadows, but require resource-intensive care.
Sometimes a beautiful "sales" animation is more expensive than a consultation of a landscape specialist. Therefore, I urge our architect colleagues to coordinate similar issues with us. Advertising visualizations form one level of expectation, but in fact the client is faced with a reality that is not so attractive yet. Deceived expectations are always painful. And when disappointed clients pour negativity on the developer, he redirects it to landscape architects and designers.
Four honest decisions
How to solve the problem? There are four ways.
There's a — honestly warn that the visualizations show the project at the stage of +5 years from the moment of delivery. I will say right away: this approach is not very good when it comes to commercial projects. Usually, investor clients are not ready for a long wait. Especially if they invest money in future housing at the foundation level, they have to wait for a return for several years anyway. But if we are talking about projects whose goal is the ecological regeneration of post-industrial areas and their conversion into public spaces, then a presentation describing each stage with references to how the area will look after 5, 10, 30 years, on the contrary, attracts people's attention . Such an approach makes them empathize and turns them from bystanders into like-minded people. A good example is the "Metro-Forest" project of the Thai studio Landscape Сollaboration. An abandoned area of 2 hectares in Bangkok, near Suvarnabhumi International Airport, has been transformed into a city park, which is also a demonstration site where adults and children can observe the process of ecological regeneration, the development of tropical trees and shrubs - both endemic and and introduced species. Thanks to visualizations, park guests can find out how the trees will change after a few years. The process of their maturation is a component of the entire concept.
"Metro-Forest" is a landscape park in the post-industrial zone of Bangkok. Authors of the project: Studio Landscape Сollaboration. Image source: landscapecollaboration.com
"Metro-Forest" is a landscape park in the post-industrial zone of Bangkok. Visualizations demonstrating the stages of plant development. Authors of the project: Studio Landscape Сollaboration. Image source: landscapecollaboration.com
The second way, which is more justified in our situation, is to immediately plant adult plants on the site. If we warn in advance that the project image, which is presented in the visualizations, will be achieved only after a few years, then this is certainly correct and honest. But one should not forget about the cost of care, which will have to be provided for a young garden within five years. And problems with survival are typical for young trees. In the first years of life, they are most susceptible to diseases, sensitive to drought, frost or anthropogenic factors. An adult tree grown by specialists in a nursery is a plant with a healthy and reliable "digestive system". Yes, there is always a risk. But survival of young seedlings and adult trees, which are supplied with a lump of earth, is not comparable.
Advertising visualizations often form an unreasonably high level of expectation
During one of our last visits to Berlin, we visited the square between the Reichstag and the Bundeskanzleramt, where Angela Merkel's office is located. The post-modern office building, which became a symbol of political transparency, was built according to the project of architects Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank at the turn of the 7th century, simultaneously with the glass dome of the Reichstag. The philosophy of the architectural concept is based on the famous sentence of Heraclitus Panta rhei - "everything flows". The landscape around the office had to support this idea, as well as fit into the historical context of the government quarter ensemble. The garden and park design of the Civic Forum was developed by Lützow XNUMX Garten- und Landschaftsarchitekten. A series of narrow linear lawns, a "lattice" of fountains and rows of trees form a structured, rhythmic space. Surprisingly, the design of the "Civil Forum" is both formal and conducive to rest and relaxation. This place quickly became perhaps the most popular public area of Tiergarten.
The square in front of the Bundeskanzleramt, Berlin. Joint project of Axel Schultes Architekten and Lützow 7. Photo: Rolf Heinrich. Image source: Wikimedia Commons
In order to emphasize the panta rhei concept as much as possible and demonstrate the change of seasons, the landscape architects chose maples for landscaping, which create an extravaganza of color in autumn. I asked our guides - the organizers of the Deutsche Landschaftsarchitektur-Preis 2019 competition - how high was the survival rate of these maples and what was the percentage of losses among the trees? It turned out that none of the trees had to be changed. All settled in successfully. A significant component of such success is the age of the trees. Saplings of already adult maple trees were used, which immediately provided shade over the benches.
By planting adult plants, you can avoid negativity and disappointment
Grown plants from nurseries cannot be cheap. Therefore it exists third solution, which is also fully in line with modern world trends, and is more economical — it is the creation of arrays of perennials in combination with accent adult trees. Today, we have a huge assortment of planting material at our disposal, and you can choose stable shrubs that will successfully create a green volume. Similar solutions with arrays of monocultures are successfully used in urban projects when it is necessary to green up large areas relatively quickly - these are meadow projects of new wave gardeners. But, as I told earlier (Read more in the article "A low-maintenance garden. A dangerous myth that is so easy to believe" in volume 14 of PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA. — Note ed.), a more economical approach does not mean cheap or free.
Public square in front of the multi-functional complex Galaxy SoHo in Beijing. The landscape design was developed jointly by Zaha Hadid Architects and EcoLand Design Group. Image source: i.pinimg.com
The fourth solution — this is the rejection of gigantism and the reduction of green zones to reasonable limits. If you choose between a huge burned-out unkempt lawn with pitiful withered trees and a local but well-kept pocket park, then it is logical to choose the latter. Recently, speaking at the Minsk Landscape Forum, James Hitchmow, a specialist in naturalistic plantings and a professor at the University of Sheffield, compared the size of parks with the degree of satisfaction of citizens. Figures show that small green areas, pocket parks, which are located right at home, bring the greatest joy.
In pursuit of the WOW effect
All other techniques used by our developers and architect colleagues are often balanced on the edge of moral and ethical norms. I do not think that architects and developers, placing colorful advertising billboards at the start of construction, want to deliberately deceive clients. We are not living in the evil 90s, and everyone understands the danger of reputational risks. I would say that they often try to deceive nature or the laws of economics. As you know - in vain.
Young seedlings are often planted unacceptably densely. For example, during the greening of the new public territory at the ROSHEN factory, very young birches were planted to simulate a green massif with a violation of the agrotechnical interval between trees. Most of these birches will die, as they will have to compete with each other for sun, air and root space as they mature. It is no accident that plants are planted at technological distances in nurseries and then transplanted several times to form a compact root system. And in this case, the architects placed the plants in unfavorable conditions at the project stage. The temporary aesthetic effect of "paper design" will lead to long-term problems in this mini-community of birches. Similar design decisions arise from the conditions of austerity.
Attempts to deceive nature naturally turn into failures
Our municipal gardeners still continue to experiment, buying seedlings with an open root system for pennies. They naively believe that these nameless twigs will "perhaps take root." Long-term experience of similar experiments proves the opposite. I repeat once again: if an adult plant is planted in a prepared planting hole with irrigation and aeration systems, the chances that it will take root successfully are almost 100%. An adult tree does not need as much moisture as a young one. Watering will be required only in extreme weather conditions, and the economy of resources is also important.
"Metro-Forest" is a landscape park in the post-industrial zone of Bangkok. Authors of the project: Studio Landscape Сollaboration. Image source: landscapecollaboration.com
Even if the budget is quite modest, there is always an opportunity to choose in nurseries not exotics, which really cost thousands of hryvnias, but varieties of local trees that are undeservedly ignored. For example, varieties of poplars have been bred that do not bud, grow quickly, keep their shape well and even withstand cutting. There are ash trees, the foliage of which acquires a stunningly beautiful wine color in autumn, there are hornbeams and elms, which we do not value without reason. In short, there is a solution for every budget. And he will be prompted by a specialist.
Cooperation + trust = a successful project
Facaps and failures on the "green" front, some of which are the result of insufficiently dense communication between developers, architects and landscape architects, seriously discredit our profession, first of all.
The presidents of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) and the International Union of Architects (UIA) signed in 2006, and in 2012 renewed and confirmed the Memorandum on cooperation between the two professional associations. The document recognizes the "distinctive nature and position of two unique separate and complementary professions: architecture and landscape architecture." Despite their proximity, each has a clearly expressed specificity.
Projects of the XXI century. complicated No person, no profession is considered completely expert
In collaborations between architects (when several studios are working on the project), the roles are usually clearly assigned - someone is the leading principal, and someone is the subordinate - local. When we talk about the joint work of an architect and a landscape architect, this approach is excluded. Everyone is a specialist in his field. Yes, we live in a globalized world, but our growing universality only increases the importance of narrow specializations. When the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) discussed the topic of collaborations with neighboring architects and engineers, one of the participants in the discussion expressed a general opinion with the words: "The world is complicated. Projects of the XXI century. complicated Not a single person, not a single profession is recognized as a complete expert."
Increasingly, landscape architects work as part of a large project group, hand in hand with architects, engineers, lighting and acoustics specialists. And the best result is achieved when all specialists are involved at the pre-project stage. This allows you to avoid costly mistakes, deceived by the expected. In addition, collaborations are an incubator of innovative engineering and design solutions.
Damian Holmes, publicist and founder of the World Landscape Architecture magazine, wrote in an article about collaborations: "To achieve success, you need respect, a collegial spirit between all team members and the understanding that we are all people who are genuinely in love with our work."
The project of the Maggie Oncology Center of the Royal Oldham Hospital is conceptually based on the synergy of nature and architecture. Photo: © Tony Barwell
From the point of view of budget economy, delegating landscape design to professionals is also beneficial because specialized studios not only have experience in detailed planning, but also resources — established connections with proven suppliers of planting material, nurseries, and subcontractors. Their developments save time, and also eliminate unjustified expenses. At the same time, the architect can concentrate on what he does best - he is good at designing.
Architects know that there are no typical sites and typical contexts. Every situation is unique. In the same way, there can be no typical methods of landscaping. This means that the expert opinion of a specialist is necessary. Especially when it comes to a commercial or public facility. Unlike individual estates, such objects will inevitably compete with surrounding buildings. Almost a good half of the success and vital value of the entire commercial project depends on the quality of the design of the outdoor area - whether it is a terrace, roof or patio.
Professional collaboration is a tool for quantum leap
We live in an era of complex but ambitious projects. Now everyone is anxiously following the stages of the implementation of Pier 55 - a completely fantastic joint project of Thomas Heatherwick and landscape architect Matthew Nielsen.
Pier 55 is an informal but established name for the new Diller Island Park, which is being built on stilts over the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan in New York. Entertainment tycoon Barry Diller and his wife, fashion designer Diana von Furstenberg, invested $250 million in the project.
Construction of Pier 55 in New York: concrete piers will support the park over the Hudson. Photo: Michael Young. Image source: newyorkyimby.com
The innovation of the park, designed to eclipse the famous High Line promenade, is that the hilly area of 1 hectare will "rest" on 132 glass-shaped concrete supports, each of which is simultaneously a container for a tree. In addition to trees, thousands of perennials will be planted here. The project involves the construction of an amphitheater for 700 spectators, where musical, choreographic and theatrical productions will be demonstrated.
The idea of landscape architect Matthew Nielsen was inspired by the biodiversity of Acadia National Park in the state of Maine (Acadia National Park). Each of the four raised corners of the structure will demonstrate a special typology of the landscape. Despite the fact that the conditions in the park above the Hudson can be considered extreme for plants, Nielsen selected endemics resistant to cold winds and droughts, which are guaranteed to withstand all the vagaries of the weather.
The collaboration of professionals is a guarantee of quality for investors and developers
The very fact of cooperation between MNLA and Heatherwick Studio for investors and the authorities of New York became a guarantee of the success of the project, which for several years was in a frozen state due to disputes about the status of the territory. In mid-2019, the construction of the supporting structure of Pier 55 finally entered its final phase.
Thomas Heatherwick, founder of Heatherwick Studio. Photo: Olivier Hess
This project was developed by Thomas Heatherwick in parallel with an equally unique proposal for London. But the Garden Bridge, despite the fact that it was actively supported by Boris Johnson (at that time the mayor of the capital of Great Britain), was never implemented.
Residents of London, having learned that part of the funds for the construction of the bridge will be allocated from the budget, blocked the project. Garden Bridge was not saved by the authority of garden designer Dan Pearson, who planned to create a unique environment on the bridge, planting 270 trees, 2 bushes and more than 000 perennial plants, ferns and herbs, or colorful visualizations.
Pier 55, New York. Joint project of Heatherwick Studio and MNLA. Image credit: Pier55 Inc./Heatherwick Studio
The material aspect for the citizens turned out to be more significant at that time. But I believe that the insufficient transparency of the work of the Garden Bridge Foundation, which was created to manage the project, played a role here. Therefore, when it comes to urban social objects or those implemented with community funds, it is necessary to invite a public relations specialist to the interdisciplinary team, who will perform his work as responsibly as an architect and a landscape architect. Communication is our everything.
Road map for GLAU
Recently, I was elected to the board of the Guild of Landscape Architects of Ukraine (GLAU), and I hope that I will be able to convince my colleagues of the need to protect our profession and create standards. Both professional and practical, such as the standard landscape project, with a description of all stages of work. But first of all, it is necessary to compile and coordinate with specialists of related professions a glossary, so that during interdisciplinary discussions we can communicate, understanding each other.
Landscape architects are equal members of interdisciplinary teams
We need to strive to raise the level of education and ensure that the landscape architect profession is officially included in the classifier - I previously raised these questions in the article "Identity crisis in the "green" sphere." Landscape architect and professional challenges" (pread more in the article "Identity crisis in the "green" sphere. Landscape architect and professional challenges" in volume 15 of PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA.). Recently, such a concept as "express project" appeared and became popular. This is a quick outline, which does not allow for the elaboration of the context and conditions. It happens that the customer, for whom the priority is not the quality, but the cost of the service, agrees to unskilled or low-skilled labor. But let's be honest: this is an imitation of intellectual work that leads to discrimination in the profession.
Also, we must become more united and generous — more actively inform each other about new technologies and materials, share practical experience with their use — be it new street furniture or containers made of concrete, or new mounts for plants in difficult terrain. Perhaps we should rationally spend time and effort. For example, he does not waste time on lectures on plant protection or how estimates are made. Yes, it is important, but it is not about architecture. Landscape architects must position themselves as equal members of interdisciplinary teams, and in some cases - as leaders.
Garden Bridge is a garden bridge across the Thames in London. Unrealized project by Heatherwick Studio, Arup, Dan Pearson. Image source: Arup, Heatherwick Studio
In addition, there is a need to create an expert service that can act as an arbitrator in resolving conflict situations or provide advisory assistance when it comes to city-wide and social projects. I am sure that our professional community can and should perform a social function, as similar associations in other countries do.
