Damian Holmes

Well, I decided to relaunch chinalandscapearchitect.com as two separate blogs – chinese version and an english version. They will cover the same topics and posts with the text translated into Simplified Chinese from English and will be focused on Landscape Architecture. I have done this for two reasons

1.   The chinalandscapearchitect.com (chinese version) (english version)  blog could be more detailed about landscape architecture and China. I want to use chinalandscapearchitect.com as a tool to educate Chinese and English speaking people about Landscape Architecture. The basics and the detailed areas of landscape architecture from design to site management. Often Landscape Architecture blogs are too focused on one specific location or area (eg design, technical, plants,) without offering definitions or ideas that stimulate people to further explore more areas of landscape architecture. Landscape Architecture is my passion and has been seen the age of 10 and I feel that I need to share my knowledge with people so they can further understand Landscape Architecture and what landscape architects do.

2. I can have the freedom on my personal blog (damianholmes.com) to explore topics that relate to everything in  World from business to everyday things. I felt pressure that my personal blog has my name on it and I would have to be solely focused on Landscape and my professional career to promote my business SUSTAIN.DS.

Last week I went to Shenzhen to meet with some potential clients for some urban design and landscape architecture projects. All went well and should hear some news soon. I saw some parts of Shenzhen on my trips to and from the airport and whilst sitting in my hotel room looking over Shenzhen. I lived in Shenzhen for 18 months in 2006-2007 and I with this visit I saw that the city had changed, not greatly(well probably more than most cities in the world) but it still had changed with new elevated train lines and shell like train stations sitting above the road. I also saw large amounts of road works with new flyovers.

So what did I learn about the city and China from the trip?
I actually had a realisation when looking out over Shenzhen that was reinforced by a recent comments by government officials and that realisation is that China is still modernising and still has a long way to go and it’s current level of modernisation cannot be measured by large cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. Although Shenzhen is a young(barely 30 years old) and modern city, it is still modernising and improving especially in the areas of transport, culture, and infrastructure.

During my 5 years of living in China I have had the opportunity to live in Shanghai most of my stay. Shanghai is a city that has remade itself and some of this remaking/modernising was for 2010 Expo and other pieces are part of the city’s 2020 plan. Living in Shanghai can often make you become lost in the new modernised city and forget that the rest of China is still modernising or beginning to plan to modernise. Large areas of China are modernising at a great pace with high-speed rail and new highways linking cities but it is not just these elements that make a modern nation. People’s lives and cities they live in are still in need of modernisation whether this is new roads, housing, parks, greenways or bicycle infrastructure. The other realisation is that there are still many millions of people who will move from rural areas to new cities that have not even been planned yet. For those who live in China, this may seem as obvious, however I think as an urban designer and landscape architect, I have to keep a good macro perspective that large areas of China are still in need of good planning and modernisation. How to best service these areas is through current practices but also education of the new graduates entering the profession from small technical colleges to large research based universities.

Modernising of China is not just designing for existing cities but also developing new design theories and tools for future cities.

View of Bujizhen, Shenzhen from my hotel

View of Shops selling pottery & ceramics

View of Bujizhen, Shenzhen from my hotel

Over the past two years with the Global Financial Crisis hit nearly every nation across the globe and as a result landscape architects where laid off in large numbers. This was hardest felt in the USA due to lack of work and collapse of the home building market.

Governments from USA, UK, Canada, Australia, China and many other countries kick-started their economies with Financial Stimulus packages which has given some firms more work but has created just enough work to sustain the staff they had kept on.

At World Landscape Architect, however I have noticed in recent weeks that results for tenders and competitions seems to appear on the web more and more frequently.

Will there be a shortage of landscape architect with economies picking up and more work coming into companies? Well if we go back to late 1990’s to mid 2000’s there were many reports of shortages of experience staff at landscape architecture firms in UK, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, North East Africa and some parts of Asia which was driving up salaries and as a recent article by Mark Smulian at Planning Resource raised the issue that CABE has fears that a shortage will occur again….

Like planning, landscape architecture has never really recovered from the 1990s recession. People left the profession or chose not to enter it, leaving a gap in experience. CABE fears a repeat in this recession and say a minimum of 550 new entrants a year are needed on landscape courses.
[SOURCE: Planning Resource]

Will there be a shortage remains to be seen but the outlook looks good for landscape architects currently unemployed with more work and projects appearing daily and the growth in sustainable design and trend of developments and cities incorporating ratings systems such as LEED ND and Sustainable Sites. Also there is a large amount of work that will be generated with the explosion on new cities in Asia and North Africa and the renewal of many towns and cities throughout the UK and USA. Therefore, if your unemployed there is hope yet and if your employed help push your local Universities and Professional Institutions to keep promoting the profession even more so during the current times of stagnant or slight growth to encourage more students to go into the profession and encourage those thinking of leaving to rethink their long term careers.

By Damian Holmes

SIDENOTE: The article by Mark Smulian at Planning Resource titled ‘Greening our cities‘ is a great article that looks at the role of landscape architects, our strengths and weaknesses.

CROSS POSTED AT WORLD LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

New York Times recently published When Parks Must Rely on Private Money by DIANE CARDWELL concerning the struggles of cities to fund the construction and maintenance of parks throughout the USA. Many parks are funded through selling of land or revenues generated by carparks or taxes from new nearby developments and others are funded by residents and companies donating funds in return for naming rights or plaques. Cardwell cites examples of parks that have been constructed with the use some private funding including Millennium Park in Chicago and the Highline and with the tradeoff causing issues in some cities.

The article stimulated a few ideas I have had during my career. I find that funding of new or redevelopment of parks is a often a fine line between private and public funding, which often blurs the line between public and private space. Private funding often causing issues with residents because of naming or commercial activities in the new park that create a private area.

An ever-growing trend for cities around the world is to justify the cost of construction and maintenance of parks through inclusion of private funding or commercial activities such as paid parking garages, retail shops, restaurants, or areas that are commercialised for entertainment(concerts, festivals, etc). How to strike a balance between private and public funding is very complicated process for each city and requires research and consultation.

Many cities find it hard to redevelop parks with the use of public money as it is often controversial as parks are sometimes seen by residents as non-essential. Residents see hospitals, schools, and police as essential services within the community whereas parks are seen as non-essential and that public monies would be better spent on other services. To avoid this cities seek private funding in return for naming rights or a commercial development on or near the  park. Now the question is how far to go with private funding and how much is the park compromised by accepting the funding in return for naming right or commercial development?

This issue of public and private funding will become more and more prevalent around the world as developers of retail and residential developments blur the line between public and private space by creating spaces in developments that are town squares and parks that can be accessed by the public. This blurring will cause some confusion with city residents as to what is public space and what is private. It also raises the question – Are developers going to develop parks and maintain them or will it always remain the domain of the local government?

Private development of public parks as apart of residential developments or commercial developments, which are then handed to government after certain period is already occurring in some parts of the world. Will this become a growing trend across cities for small and large parks? Or will it remain only in residential developments?

CROSS POSTED AT WORLDLANDSCAPEARCHITECT.COM

Susan Szenasy posted on Metropolis an article titled “United We Stand” in which she recalls some government officials giving encouragement at a recent NeoCon East annual trade show that there is “a new day for government design”. Szeasy goes on to talk about the importance to design of the recent $5.5 billion allocation to General Services Administration and the Department of Defense’s $7.4 billion reconfiguration funding.

However the point I found most interesting in Szenasy’s article was the GSA signing of a new accord with AIA, ASLA, IIDA; in which they have pledged to collaborate to achieve design excellence. I find this encouraging that professional associations have come together.

Currently, there is change occurring not just in the short-term with the Global Financial Crisis, but it seems more and more that sustainability, the environment, and climate change is becoming more important to the world. I feel that we need to move forward with new ideas and be armed with new tools especially in the area of urban design where cities are shrinking in the USA, new eco-towns are being built in the UK and new mega-cities are being designed and constructed in China, India, and Africa. Now is the best time to seek out other disciplines for collaboration not just for the networking and possible work opportunities but for the greater good of the profession. As Landscape Architects I know we often seek collaboration with other disciplines whether they are internal or external of our companies, however I think that as we head towards a new decade we should make more of a commitment to further collaborate with other professions to improve your knowledge and their knowledge so that together we can create a better future.

By Damian Holmes

Read the full article that inspired this post at the [SOURCE: Metropolis - United We Stand]