Securing perimeters: 7 links on designing for security

 

1. Free download from the Design Council: Designing out crime: a designers’ guide.
2. Ecobuild conference, Architects, planners and the post riot city, Thu 22 March, 11:15–12:15.
3. Secured by Design 3D toolkit including dwelling boundaries, landscape planting and street lighting scenarios.
4. Landscape Institute urban green space case study: Angell Town Estate, Brixton.
5. An article on The Dirt about bomb-sniffing borders and thorny hedges: ‘Plants Go on High Alert’.
6. This Big City with a US perspective on residential security: Can Gated Communities be Considered Socially Sustainable?
7. Related External Works blog post: “Designing out crime”, street furniture and soft landscaping.

Boundaries, fencing and connected landscapes

The relationship between fences, walls and barriers in public and private landscapes, and the need to design for ‘openness’, is not necessarily shot through with compromise.

Green infrastructure and crossing boundaries

The Landscape Institute’s Green Infrastructure position statement sets out a view on planning, design and management that takes into account ‘serious environmental, social and economical challenges’, and that recommends treating natural and built environments as ‘multifunctional’ and interconnected.

Shared spaces and smart surfacing

“Shared space” is an urban design concept championing multipurpose public areas that are safe, walkable, human-scale and economically vibrant, in which cars, buses, bikes, commuters, shoppers, residents and flaneurs co-exist in perfect harmony. Or at least in a kind of self-organising, flocking order. It throws up some interesting ideas and stimulating puzzles, not only for landscape architects but also for the manufacturers of construction products.

Shared roads and cycle tracks

The New York City based Urban Omnibus website features a rich and detailed article, “Cycle Tracks and the Evolving American Streetscape”. It’s written by David Vega-Barachowitz, Sustainable Initiatives Program Manager at the National Association of City Transportation Officials and coordinator for its Cities for Cycling project.

In the article he charts the history of designated bike lanes. They range from early experiments like the California Cycleway, an elevated toll road built in 1900 just for bikes, through to NYC’s 2007 Ninth Avenue protected bike lane, a figurehead pilot project.

What makes a road?

There are vast differences in types of road – a hairpin bend on an alpine pass is (literally) a long way from a cobbled lane in an English country village. The materials and design vary widely, of course, depending on what is appropriate for the application.

Tarmac and asphalt
There’s an interesting look at the idea of the road itself on cycling blog the Inner Ring. From the earliest history of roads to today’s asphalt, there are several eye-catching points, including the comparison of $25,000 per mile “chip seal” or “tar and chip” method of construction with the $350,000 per mile cost of asphalt.

And the impact of the seasons is as keenly felt in Europe as it is in the UK:

Other parts of Europe see winter damage and subsidence. Some Alpine roads get smashed by coachloads of tourists and subzero temperatures, they are relaid every year. But away from the resorts the frost is left to crack and shatter the road.

Stelvio Pass by Damian Morys Foto, on Flickr

Aggregates
There are also some diverting thoughts out there on unpaved or unsealed surfaces. Where a road experiences low volumes of traffic, it has been found that maintenance costs for gravel roads often exceed the maintenance costs for paved or surface treated roads when traffic volumes exceed 200 vehicles per day.

Landscape architects: is Building Information Modelling (BIM) improving your business?

More than just a buzzword in 2011, Building Information Modelling or BIM took centre stage last year when Paul Morrell, Chief Construction Adviser, announced government plans to have all public projects operating under a BIM framework by 2016.

Following that announcement, BIM has rarely been out of the trade press as more and more companies quickly move to adopt it as a key strategy to win business and improve working practices.

What was noticeable, however, was a lack of coverage and contribution from the perspective of landscape architects.

So it’s good to hear that the BIM Academy at the University of Northumbria are looking to speak with landscape architects who have experience of integrating BIM into their own practice.

They are specifically looking to get a better understanding of the potential requirements of the profession to improve workflows and support greater efficiency and collaboration within the BIM framework.

If you are a landscape architect and would like to contribute to this research, please contact:

Nahim Iqbal, BIM Development Leader, BIM Academy
Email: nahim.iqbal@bimacademy.ac.uk
Tel: 0191 227 4533

The BIM Academy are leading the field in developing research, courses and guidance to support the construction industry in adopting BIM. For further details about the BIM Academy and their work, visit the website: www.bimacademy.ac.uk

Designing swales

Swales are incorporated into sustainable drainage systems for small developments or in rural locations, to provide a limited amount of stormwater or run-off storage. They are typically grassed, or can be vegetated with reeds or other aquatic plants that will absorb or treat contaminated water before discharge to a watercourse.

Lake Superior Stream.org, a resource from Duluth, Minnesota, offers a swales toolkit that covers this drainage feature in some detail.

Getting it right: water management and landscape design

Guest post: Claire Thirlwall is the director of landscape architecture practice Thirlwall Associates. She specialises in river restoration and water management, and also works on more traditional landscape architecture projects. Here, Claire outlines the pitfalls and opportunities presented by water in landscape design and construction schemes.

Water, and more precisely how you manage that water, can be make or break on a construction project. From the water falling on the roof of each building to flood water rising up through the drainage network, dealing with water within your site can be a real challenge.

“Sensitive SUDS” for alleviating flood risk

The past decade has seen destructive floods throughout the UK. With the future set to get wetter, there’s a greater urgency to upgrade flood defence systems and implement the latest drainage technologies and techniques to protect homes, infrastructure and lives.

In the news

The past decade has seen widespread flooding in the UK, almost year-in year-out. Some of the most notable floods occurred in:

• 2000 – the autumn of 2000 was the wettest since records began with almost 10,000 homes flooded throughout England and Wales, causing £3.5 billion worth of damage.
• 2007 – the wettest May to July since records began was recorded in 2007, when the UK experienced further severe flooding.
• 2009 – in November 2009, flooding in Cumbria resulted in catastrophic damage to homes and infrastructure, with the town’s vital Northside Bridge collapsing.

SUDS resources and publications for designers

Designing sustainable drainage systems, whether urban or rural, requires a flexible approach. As with most construction projects, there is no formula. Rather, it is down to the skill and creativity of the designer to come up with a solution to each problem.

As landscape architect Sam Shaw of Ian White Associates advised me: “there is no one definite way to do a sustainable drainage system, as the design will depend on site location, the capacity of the scheme overall, ground conditions and other site-specific factors. There are a range of solutions, from fully urbanised below-ground storage to open, purely rural designs”.

Legislation

In England and Wales, the requirement for sustainable drainage systems is now part of by legislation – in particular, the Building Regulations Part H, which requires that where practical surface water drainage from any building development be drained, preferably to a soakaway or infiltration system. If this is not possible then the next preferred option is to drain to a watercourse, with connection to a sewer as the last choice.

The UK riots: can we really blame architects?

In August this year, sporadic rioting took place in cities up and down the country, starting in London and quickly spreading north to Liverpool and Manchester. The rioting progressed from a reactionary ‘protest’, to opportunistic looting and vandalism. And so began a short-lived stint of national soul searching, asking why and how, before moving swiftly onto who: other than the perpetrators themselves, who is to blame? Parents, our deficit-cutting government, social networks, and even the bankers were amongst the first to be held responsible, until urban planners, designers and architects were once again put under the spotlight.

Looting of a Primark store in Peckham, South London

As the rioting moved north from London, Building.co.uk contributor Ike Ijeh highlighted the correlation between society and architecture in his article The UK Riots: Is Architecture Irrelevant? Architects, he says, “have a clear social responsibility to improve the built environment and nourish a collective sense of citizenship and community.” But can we really blame architects, urban planners or designers?