Designing town centres for walking and belonging

GUEST POST: Agata Szacilowska, Landscape Architect with the Greenspace Development Environmental Services team at North Lanarkshire Council (NLC), describes the design and regeneration of Motherwell’s historic town centre.

In Motherwell Town Centre, NLC aimed to improve the quality, function and appearance of the streets and public areas.

The design was developed through internal and external consultation, and was presented for comments during public displays, on hand delivered leaflets and on the council’s website.

The resulting project involved realigning and resurfacing footways and roads, and installing new street furniture, lighting, street trees and public art.

But its overarching themes were sensitivity to the town’s historic buildings and the movement of people around the public space.

On urban trees moving, climbing and tidying up

There’s a thaw on in Central Scotland and it’s a relief to see a bit of greenery. Bring on the green shoots, literal and otherwise.

UrbanTick reviews a few books and articles that look at the ‘mobility’ of trees in urban design and landscape architecture. They test assumptions about trees’ rootedness, reporting on things like seed vaults, the international migration of plant species, and the industrialisation of tree production.

They include Dominique Ghiggi’s Tree Nurseries – Cultivating the Urban Jungle: Plant Production Worldwide:

Urban green: trees and the city

Ed.ward on Flickr

I was reading BLDBLOG on crypto-forestry in the Netherlands and was wondering if anything quite as exciting might exist in the UK.

Winter wonderlands and other features

Winter garden, Dunham Massey

The UK’s largest winter garden, at Dunham Massey in Cheshire.

Patrick Blanc’s tallest vertical garden, which climbs 33 storeys in Sydney, Australia.

The world’s largest LED lighting project at the Yas Hotel in Abu Dhabi.

ESI references:

• Plants
• Living walls
• Lighting

Plant a tree for Christmas

The National Forest is encouraging online shoppers to go for an alternative, environmentally friendly gift in the run-up to Christmas.

Its ‘Plant a Tree’ scheme lets people pledge support by contributing to the planting of a tree or a group of trees. In return, they get an invitation to a tree planting event, a choice of tree to plant, and a personalised certificate.

The National Forest is a new wooded landscape that covers 200 square miles of the English Midlands across parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire. More than 7 million trees have been planted since it was established. It won the inaugural Sustainable Development UK award in 2008.

Each tree costs £25, which reflects the cost of creating and developing the new woodland, including further care and maintenance of the site.

Parks and happy people

How and why should green spaces feature in urban design?

The Dirt draws together a number of posts that look at the beneficial effects of nature on mood, behaviour, community relationships, and rehabilitation.

It quotes a University of Rochester study: “Incorporating parks and other representations of nature into urban environments may help build a stronger sense of community among residents”.

ESI references:

• Trees and shrubs
• Urban design

ASLA 2009 Student Awards

The American Society of Landscape Architects Award of Excellence has gone to Frederick G. Besançon of Rhode Island School of Design for his project, ‘The White Forest: Density and the Void’.

The project statement outlines, ‘how the simple gestures in the landscape can serve as a place for reconciliation, remembrance, and meditation for the tragedies resulting from the Berlin Wall. The design proposes how the long-term process of healing can be manifested in and be fostered by a memorial landscape acting for both tourist and the Berliner living everyday life.’

The Student Awards Jury noted that project’s materials key was especially effective. It draws together European White birch and Norway maple with asphalt, gravel, decomposed granite, copper and corten steel.

ESI references:

• Landscape architects
• Trees
• Footpaths

Climate change and landscape architecture

Picture: from ASLA

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has pulled together a survey of online resources as part of its Professional Practice facility: “There are a range of landscape architecture-related mitigation strategies that, if employed at mass scale, can help reduce GHG emissions”.

The list covers:

• Site planning
• Open spaces
• Plant selection
• Stormwater management
• Green roofs
• Smart growth communities
• Complete streets

ESI references:

• Landscape consultants
• Trees
• SUDS
• Green roof systems

Air-TREE: could it catch on?

ecofriend picks up on a South Korean designer’s idea for an urban air filtration system based on HEPA filters.

1. Trees act as natural filters, removing pollutants from the air
2. But in cities there are often not enough of them
3. Therefore build some
4. And the bases also double as tree seats

There are more pictures here.

ESI references:

• Trees
• More conventional tree seats
• Air filters

Ancient trees

Patrick Barkham writes in The Guardian on ’The plight of Britain’s ancient trees’ and how ill-treatment and neglect threatens 70% of the ancient trees in Europe.

ESI references:

• Trees