Landscape Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

Chapter 5
An environmental discipline

Romantics and Transcendentalists

The roots of contemporary environmentalism can be traced back to the Romantics, who turned their backs on an industrializing world to find solace and meaning in nature. A case can be made for claiming that the poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850), who designed his own gardens and those of friends, and whose Guide to the Lakes was really a disguised plea for the conservation of a cultural landscape, was also a landscape architect—although the job title had not been invented in his day. Wordsworth was one of the first to identify the problems that picturesque tourism brought in its train. He had celebrated his native Lake District for its beauty and its seclusion, but once it became popular there was little to stop people of means, such as industrialists and merchants from burgeoning industrial cities like Manchester and Liverpool, from building large houses there, destroying the very qualities they had found attractive in the first place. The artist and critic John Ruskin (1819–1900), who also owned a house in the Lake District, railed against a proposal to build a railway line through the area, fearing that there would soon be ‘taverns and skittle grounds around Grasmere’. In 1884, Ruskin gave a powerful lecture at the London Institution in which he claimed, through observations made from his home at Coniston, to have detected a new weather phenomenon, the ‘plague wind’ or the ‘storm cloud’ which emanated from Manchester, then the most industrialized city in the world. Ruskin later descended into madness, but it is difficult not to see his odd mixture of meteorology and apocalyptic prognostication as a forecast of our present ills: air pollution, global warming, climate change, and extreme weather.

The Romantics were an influence upon the American Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, whose writings in turn nurtured the early American environmental movement. The Transcendentalists sought to pastoralize an increasingly technological and urban society. They also believed that the wonders of nature, including spectacular landscapes, were divine and should be treated with respect and awe. Frederick Law Olmsted read and was influenced by Emerson and Thoreau—so much so that one commentator, Lance Newman, has described him as a ‘Transcendentalist engineer’. Olmsted was the one who took Transcendentalist ideas and put them into practice. In addition to building pastoral parks in cities, he worked with the naturalist John Muir (1838–1914) to secure the protection of the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of redwood trees in California. Through Olmsted an element of environmentalism was woven into landscape architecture from its inception.

Environmentalism

Perhaps it would be better to describe Olmsted as a proto-environmentalist or a conservationist, if only to reserve the label ‘environmentalism’ for the broad philosophical, social, and political movement which emerged in the 1960s. Another proto-environmental prophet was Jens Jensen (1860–1951), a Danish-born landscape architect who settled in Chicago where he worked for the city parks department before becoming an independent consultant. Observing the spread of urban Chicago, Jensen felt that there was a danger that the inherent character of the Midwestern landscape was in danger of being lost. His contribution to environmentally inflected design was the naturalistic ‘Prairie Style’ garden which made use of indigenous plants and materials, and drew its form from close observation of the regional landscape. He often included wetland features which he called ‘prairie rivers’ and ‘council rings’ which were places for people to gather within the landscape. In 1935, when he was 75, Jensen founded the Clearing in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin, a school which taught a holistic curriculum embracing art, ecology, horticulture, and philosophy.

In 1949, another mid-westerner, Aldo Leopold, published his A Sand County Almanac. Leopold, a forester and an expert on wildlife management, was Professor of Game Management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He put forward the idea that human beings have a duty towards the land: his much celebrated and often debated ‘Land Ethic’. In his formulation: ‘A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.’ However it was the publication of biologist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring which really raised public awareness of environmental issues. The book showed that chemicals introduced to control insect pests in crops could kill the birds that fed on the insects—the spring was silent because the birds were dying.

The word ‘ecology’, once attached to a specialized and statistical branch of biology, was soon on its way to becoming the banner for a whole worldview, one which recognizes the complexity and interdependence of the natural world and which, to borrow a phrase from Leopold, ‘changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it’.

The lessons of connectivity were driven home by the ‘Earthrise’ photographs taken by the crew of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. The earth shone like a bright blue marble against the void of space. It looked beautiful, but also vulnerable, and like a voyaging spaceship it had to carry all its life-support systems on board. A year later, a Scottish-born landscape architect called Ian McHarg (1920–2001), teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, published the most influential book ever written by anyone from the discipline. The book was called Design with Nature and it sought to place landscape architecture on a scientific footing. It identified foolishness like building houses on floodplains or among shifting sand dunes, arguing that instead of going against natural processes, we should design with them. As we will see, many of our contemporary ideas about environmentally sustainable design can be traced back to Design with Nature. However, McHarg’s ideas can themselves be traced back to approaches to design which have emphasized an empathetic approach towards nature, such as the English Landscape School, rather than approaches based on attempts to dominate and control. McHarg was unusual in that his theory had cosmological and metaphysical dimensions, but could be distilled into a step-by-step method for landscape planning, which began with a detailed survey of such things as geology, soils, climate, and hydrology.

Environmentalism was born in protest against the harm done through human industry and exploitation of industry. Back in 1991, the environmental scientist Tim O’Riordan drew a distinction between ‘technocentrist’ and ‘ecocentrist’ environmentalists. The former were optimists who felt that existing economic and social arrangements were capable of dealing with environmental problems, whereas the latter, who included Deep Ecologists, Gaianists, Communalists, and Red-Greens, held that some redistribution and decentralization of power was necessary. This more radical strand has emerged again in recent anti-Capitalist demonstrations. Whatever the personal views of individual landscape architects, it is clear that the practice of landscape architecture, taken as a whole, is more of the managerial kind. The underlying belief is that human relations with nature can be improved through planning, design, and management, not that the world first needs a revolution. Although McHarg is often referred to as a rigorously ecological thinker, ultimately he too was advocating reform rather than revolution and an eventual accommodation between human beings and nature. Design with Nature was a textbook for this kind of work.

Bioregionalism and the locally distinctive

Many landscape architects have embraced the notion of bioregionalism, which is akin to environmentalism. The term, which was coined by the counter-cultural activist Peter Berg in the 1970s and promoted in the 1980s by the journalist Kirkpatrick Sale, refers to a movement which shares environmentalism’s aspiration to live in harmony with nature, but which puts great stress upon the local. Bioregions are defined through their physical and environmental features, including their soils, flora and fauna, landscape characteristics, and watersheds. Although cultural factors are also important, bioregions are not defined by political or administrative boundaries. For some environmentalists, humanity can seem to be the enemy, but bioregionalists see humans as residents of bioregions, and they work to reinforce the connections between human societies and place. Needless to say, this ideology stands in blunt opposition to those globalizing trends in advanced capitalism that tend to make everywhere more like everywhere else. In LifePlace the Californian landscape architect, Robert Thayer, reflected on what bioregionalism might mean for everyday living and explored the possible social benefits of re-inhabiting the natural world on a local scale. His book was part memoir, part lifestyle guide. It suggested that we should learn to connect with our local surroundings, living closer to the land, eating locally produced food, and living in houses designed to fit their regional context.

In general, landscape architecture has always elevated and celebrated that which is locally distinctive. This stems, I believe, from the requirement to ‘consult the genius loci’ which derives from a Classical tradition that special places had their own local deities, such as naiads and driads, but really means ‘pay attention to the existing qualities of the site’. Using local materials and indigenous plants is, as Jensen saw, a pathway towards harmonious design which respects characteristics of place. In the Netherlands, Thijsse strongly criticized existing park practices for distancing humans from nature. He argued that a new type of park was necessary, one which could make people aware of the richness and diversity of their local landscapes. This could be achieved, he argued, by bringing the flora and fauna of the countryside into the town for everyone’s edification and enjoyment. He promoted the idea of the ‘instructive garden’ building the pioneering example at his own home in Bloemendaal. Later J. Landwehr, the Director of Parks for Amstelveen, a dormitory suburb of Amsterdam, used the term heempark (home park) to denote parks which predominantly featured native wild plants. Landwehr created what is still the best known example by creating a waterside park and naming it the Jacques P. Thijsse Park in honour of the innovative botanist. The home parks were a significant influence upon landscape architects around the world. Dutch ideas about native planting were introduced to Britain by Alan Ruff who taught at the University of Manchester. His ideas were widely taken up in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly, as we saw in Chapter 4, in some of the English new towns, and it became customary to refer to the ‘ecological approach’. In many ways this chimed with Modernism, because plants were to be selected not for their showy flowers or shiny leaves, but for the role they would play in an ecosystem. The argument was that native plants were plentiful, cheap, and easy to establish and maintain. Native trees, such as alder, willow, birch, ash, and oak, could be planted in large numbers to create ‘structural woodlands’. Formal qualities were not of much concern, indeed the approach was almost anti-design and there was a strong belief that it was the users of these landscapes who would ultimately determine their form. As such plantations grew, the benefits they provided, which included shelter from winds, opportunities for recreation, support for wildlife diversity, and resources for education, would all increase, while the cost of managing the woodland would get less, something that could not be said for ornamental plantings in manicured parkland. Many of the techniques developed during this period, which included methods for establishing species-rich meadows and wetlands, soon became landscape architectural stock-in-trade, so much so that the idea of a distinctly ‘ecological approach’ lost much of its meaning. However, it also prefigured many contemporary ideas, such as green infrastructure, ecosystem services, and even landscape urbanism, which I will discuss in greater depth later on.

Landscape ecology and ecosystem services

The next major development was the emergence of landscape ecology in the late 1980s. This was an understanding of ecology at the scale of the landscape. It emphasized pattern and process, and many of its key concepts, such as matrix, patch, corridor, and mosaic, are spatial. A ‘patch’, for example, might refer to a wood, a meadow, or a marsh; a ‘corridor’ could be the banks of a river or even the verges of a motorway. In Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions, Harvard ecologist Richard Forman hypothesized that ‘for any landscape, or major portion of a landscape, there exists an optimal spatial arrangement of ecosystems and land uses to maximise ecological integrity’. In short, planning and design were not just matters of aesthetics or amenity. The way that landscapes were laid out could make a difference to the way they functioned ecologically. To take a simple example, a major new highway cut through a woodland could isolate a fragment of the wood and, in the event of numbers of a particular species declining, it would be hard for the species to repopulate the disconnected patch. Landscape ecology provides the scientific understanding to back up our intuition that the fragmentation of habitats through the expansion of human development is a bad thing. Thus, when landscape architects are asked nowadays to give advice on a development project, their brief will not be limited to aesthetics or the convenience of the proposals for human beings, but they will also have to consider its consequences for habitats and ecosystems. Through their design they may seek to maintain or improve the existing levels of ecosystem connectivity. Fortunately many of the features which favour species diversity are also those which appeal to humans, such as large parks, wooded riverbanks, or footpaths constructed along disused railway lines. In addition, landscape architects have become proficient at translocating habitats. A mature hedgerow, for example, can be carefully dug out and replanted in a different location. Species-rich grasslands can be lifted and transferred to carefully prepared receptor sites. Such methods are sophisticated echoes of the techniques used by 18th-century landscape improvers like ‘Capability’ Brown, who would often translocate mature trees to create more pleasing views for their wealthy land-owning clients. They are sometimes criticized, however, on the grounds that transposed habitats do not thrive as they might have done if left in place.

Although many environmental philosophers have attempted to defend the natural world by asserting that it has an intrinsic right to exist, it seems that arguments based on human wants and needs are usually more persuasive. These arguments are labelled ‘anthropocentric’. They include the argument that nature is the source of many aesthetic and spiritual satisfactions. Rather more pressing perhaps is the thought that without the intricate web of nature and the multitudinous contributions of a sweeping range of living things, human life itself would not be sustainable. One formulation of this argument is found in the notion of ecosystem services. In many respects, this has been understood since at least the time of Plato, who warned about the perils of deforestation and soil erosion in his book Critias, but it appeared in its present expression with the publication in 2005 of the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year study involving more than 1,300 scientists worldwide. The problem has been that many of the services which ecosystems provide have appeared to be free. Placing a monetary value on them allows them to be entered into economic calculations. There can even be a market in them, although some environmentalists baulk at this neo-liberal way of thinking. New York City, for instance, pays for water services in the Catskills and Delaware catchments, and this is considered a good deal when compared with the cost of building and running water purification plants. The services are extremely extensive, ranging from the pollination of crops by bees, to the provision of foodstuffs and medicines, carbon sequestration, the purification of water and air, and the decomposition of wastes, but also non-material benefits such as places for relaxation, recreation, and spiritual uplift.

The concept of ecosystem services is potentially very significant for landscape architects and landscape planners. For much of its history, landscape architecture has struggled to throw off the notion—associated, no doubt, with its origins in landscape gardening for an elite clientele—that it is a discipline mostly concerned with taste and aesthetics, and thus something superfluous or superficial. Unsurprisingly, landscape architects have never thought this, indeed it is for many a passionate vocation, but the message about the importance and centrality of the discipline has sometimes proved difficult to convey. However, if it becomes well established that ecosystems provide services, and that these services can valued at astonishing sums, and if it also becomes evident that these ecosystems are embedded in the landscapes we inhabit, then the services of landscape architects should be more in demand than they ever have been.

Regenerative design

The idea that landscapes can do things for us was captured in the idea of ‘regenerative design’ advanced by John Tillman Lyle (1934–98) who was a professor of landscape architecture at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Lyle was the author of Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development and the principal architect for the Center for Regenerative Studies at Pomona, where a community of faculty and graduate students developed a community which produced its own food and energy and treated its own wastes, thus demonstrating that it was possible to live within the limits of available resources without causing environmental degradation. Lyle drew a distinction between two ways of living, which he called ‘degenerative’ and ‘regenerative’. Degenerative living uses up limited resources and fills natural ‘sinks’, such as the atmosphere, lakes, rivers, and the oceans, with damaging waste products. It is a linear process, a ‘one-way throughput system’ heading toward a dystopian future. Regenerative living, on the other hand, provides for the continuous replacement of the energy and materials through forms of recycling. Lyle shows how the landscape can be modified to incorporate regenerative systems. Infiltration basins can be constructed above aquifers to help them to recharge. Solar collectors can be positioned where incident radiation is high. Grey-water from activities like doing the laundry, dishwashing, and bathing can be reused for irrigating crops. Lyle’s books are bursting with suggestions, and many of these ‘neotechnologies’ (to borrow his phrase) have been put into practice at Pomona.

Many of the technologies collected by Lyle have now found their way into mainstream landscape architecture practice. A good example would be the design of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS), sometimes referred to as Water Sensitive Urban Design. In traditional drainage systems, water is channelled away from the site in pipes and sewers. In many old urban systems sewage and storm-water share the same conduits and this can have unpleasant consequences if capacity is exceeded. Manhole covers blow off and the streets are treated to the delights of faecal fountains. As global warming disrupts weather patterns, deluges of rain and the associated damage from extensive flooding have become more common. Sustainable drainage systems use vegetated swales (broad ditches) and filter strips to slow down runoff, while permeable surfaces and infiltration devices such as soakaways, rubble drains, and infiltration basins help water to percolate into the ground, reducing the risk of flooding (Figure 6). The principle is to dispose of water, as far as possible, on site, rather than to pipe it somewhere else. This is characteristic of many regenerative technologies, they are small scale but widely distributed. If the aesthetic problem which challenged 20th-century landscape architects was how to accommodate a relatively small number of giant dams and massive power stations, the challenge now is how to site hundreds of thousands of wind turbines and solar panels.

6. This golf course in Durango, Colorado, won an Honour Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2007. It incorporates a hierarchy of constructed wetlands and swales to collect and purify water before it reaches existing wetlands and streams