Damian Holmes

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

Recently, I went to my local Xinjiang Noodle shop for lunch. I ordered my usual and sat down inside on a stool. As I sat there looking around at the full tables, I wondered why is it so many people come here. Now to explain the scene, Xinjiang Noodle shops often have three or four large pots of water boiling away and someone inside the door making noodles and passing them to outside to be cooked.

So why do people come here? This shop is not elaborate and some would say not that hygienic – so why is it that its full at lunch and dinner? Is the location? Is it the price? Is the food?

Honestly, I think it is a combination of factors – price, food, authenticity and drama.

The Price
The shop is a ‘cheap eat’, however there are several restaurants in the area that are just as cheap. That being said if they charged more than 15RMB(about $2.00USD) they would loose customers quickly.

The Food
Xinjiang food is different from most Chinese food and noodles are speciality so people come for the noodles.

The Authenticity
The shop is authentic with pictures of animals and fields in Xinjiang on the wall, but the people is what makes it truly authentic.

The Drama
People watch the guy make the noodles for each order from the dough they made in the morning. You see and hear long thin noodles being banged and twisted on a table or watch him carve wide noodles from dough with a blade flying into a pot of water as he yells at the waiters inside who are joking with each other.

The noodle shop has no pretences, no veneer, nothing hiding the process from the customer, we can see, smell, and hear our noodles being made.

So what can we learn from the Xinjiang Noodle Maker? Authenticity and drama are key to attracting customers time and time again. Too often in business we hide the process or core ideals from the customer because we are fearful that they might not like what they see. However, we could generate more business if the customer could smell, hear, and see how authenticity of your brand.

How does this apply to you business? Think of all the examples of businesses that create authenticity and drama. I can think of a few other examples:

• chocolate/icecream/waffle shops who show people making the process of  creating their product
• whisky distilleries and vineyards  who give guided tours from above the working floor on gangways
• museums and art galleries showing experts restoring pieces
• nurseries showing plants in hot houses or trees at different stages of production
• film studios opening lots with people on set
• milk tea shops in Malaysia
• Richard Branson’s many PR stunts – although showy they are authentically Virgin
• car companies giving guided tours of  factory floor

there are many more examples. So the question is how can you create drama and authenticity for your customers? Does your production process enable you to showcase your product? Can you create drama that represents your companies brand in an authentic way? Can you create a unique experience for customers? Can you get someone passionate from manufacturing or engineering to attend a trade show rather than just sales people?

Of course, you have to careful when applying this idea across a whole brand as it can loose its authenticity. There are some examples where this has occurred with a brand making an authentic and dramatic experience into a formula which is then scaled across a brand that has then lost its appeal with the customers as it became too ubiquitous.

Got any comments or ideas? Email me – damian@damainholmes.com

I just came back from Green Drinks in Shanghai and there was a mix of Chinese and Foreigners (about 30/70) and it was interesting to see the crowd. It has grow immensely since the first green drinks last year at URBN hotel when about 25 people jammed into a room. Tonight the presentations were from Brian Wang and Amanda Leung of FACE PLAN. Amanda is running an interesting project in her spare time taking Foreign Architects to regional universities and schools in China to give lectures about their work and run a small workshop or charette.

Each time I go, there are more Chinese and that often makes me feel good that young Chinese are interested and its an opportunity to connect, but I also wonder how many events held by Chinese green NPO that I don’t know about. Am I missing opportunities to connect about ideas and how China is going? I’ll have to look into how I be apart of these groups. Somehow I feel anxious that the next grassroots green/sustainability movement in China will happen and I won’t really know about until I read it a few articles in the English Daily paper or Blogs. I think that this feeling is also felt by some expats in China and surrounding countries.

I am looking into how I can be more involved with China’s move to a sustainable way of living. I currently run my own landscape architecture studio with sustainability as the core ideal. I have to think , learn and educate about how China can be more sustainable and green. Although, I have seen the focus in China shift from basic green ideals to more sophisticated ideas and practices but this is has occurred mainly on the east coast of China.

So can it happen? China has the people, the knowledge and the speed to do it, lets hope Copenhagen brings something more than just rhetoric and green washing and the green movement continues its groundswell in China.

Wow, time flies. I didn’t realise its been 3 months since I posted something. Funny thing is that I have posts in draft form on here but they are mainly rants.

Also I haven’t been able to find the time to get my thoughts together as running three industry blogs (worldla.com chinalandscapearchitect.com UAElandscapearchitect.com) and trying to start-up a new business is not ideal and running Tweetups & Shanghai Twitterville (although thats not that time consuming)

Something is going to give soon, think it will be one or two of the blogs as they haven’t made me any good money in a long time. Not that is what I started them for originally I had another 4 landscape architecture blogs but closed each one due to time.

However, maybe its time to get serious about getting them to the next level as ezines or pro blogs like inhabitat or treehugger. But, these have teams of people and companies behind them. Something to think about and will make a decision about by the end of 2009.

Also I took some interesting photos of the USA while was there and of the ever changing Shanghai which i have to add to a Picasa stream and place on here.