How a landscape architect can save the world

::Image via lemmy-forum

A few months back the Landscape Institute launched a student video competition on the theme “How can a Landscape Architect save the world?”. Some of my fellow students from the University of Gloucestershire entered and their video can be seen here. I did not have the time to enter the competition, but nonetheless spent some time thinking about what my entry might be.

Answering this question requires first of all identifying the threat landscape architects need to save the world from. For many obvious reasons I decided I would centre my entry on the threat of global warming.

There are many ways in which a landscape architect can “save” the world from climate change: He can help redesign coastal areas which may be under threat from rising sea levels; he can use sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) to reduce an increasing flood risk; he can also design green roofs and parks that will help reduce the heat island effect in cities and the energetic cost of heating and cooling buildings. He can even directly influence the amount of fossil fuels used in transport by designing communities less reliant on cars and where key amenities are accessibly by foot, bike or public transport.

All of these solutions no doubt help in the fight against climate change. However, many of these “technical” solutions do not solely depend on the intentions of the landscape architect alone. Integrating a SUDS system within a sustainable mixed-use development for example, may only be possible once an effective engineered solution such as porous asphalt or permeable paving has been developed. Likewise, there often needs to be political and economic incentive for these these visions to become reality and these technical solutions to arise. To some extent, without them the landscape architect is powerless.

The influential novel Silent Spring is credited to have considerably contributed to bringing environmental concerns to the forefront of the public conscious. The book stemmed from a friend of the author noticing a decrease in the number of birds and the amount of bird song in her neighborhood shortly after the beginning of the intensive use of pesticides. This is a very tangible way of taking stock of environmental change. One key point here, however, is that her friend was only able to identify this issue because she was used to hearing and seeing many birds during spring. I doubt many city dwellers would be able to notice such a change should it take place nowadays. The point is that we can only react to something if we are aware of what it is; if we are aware of what is changing and what we are loosing. It is only once we are conscious of this change that the will and the desire to resist it can arise.

Many of us live detached from our natural environment and are protected from most of the changes in our natural settings. I am currently living in the centre of Brisbane, where there was high rainfall a few months ago. I was initially completely unaware that only a few kilometers away, many roads were cut off because of flooding, as in numerous other areas around Brisbane. For most of us to realize the effects of climate change and it's consequences, we need to be in touch with our natural environment and be able to appreciate what we risk loosing.

By interacting with our natural and built environment, the landscape architect has a key role in accomplishing this. By making us aware of our natural environment and in creating places where we connect to it and marvel at it, the landscape architect has the ability to allow us to appreciate what we have, what we risk loosing and most importantly, make us want to protect and conserve it.

To me, this is where a landscape architect can “save the world”. The landscape architect can help create the context where increased awareness and concern about climate change will emerge and consequently bring about the political and economic change, as well as the technical solutions needed to fight it.