Month: April 2017

A Garden of Joy

I have small children, twins in fact. One day a few months ago, I was in my friend’s South London flat with said twins. It was early morning (too early) and my children were systematically destroying whatever they could lay their hands on. I was clearing up the handiwork of child number one when I noticed the deafening silence of child number two. I spun round just in time to see him cramming a handful of plant fertiliser into his mouth and pouring the last of a bag of compost onto the floor. A and E trip averted, I cleaned up the mess swearing about what kind of lunatic keeps plant fertiliser in a London flat with absolutely no outdoor space.

It was at this point, I opened my eyes. As I began to look around me I saw terrariums, window boxes, containers filled with plants of all shapes and sizes; there were herbs, succulents, cacti and some strangely appealing ikea plant that industry professionals are still yet to identify…this place was a forest; a wonderful forest of greenery everywhere I looked. More than this, this simple South London flat was in fact a garden.

 

This very notion brought to me thoughts of an Urban Gardening Adventures blog I read recently which states simply “to live somewhere without a garden is soul-destroying. Unimaginable.”. His circumstances force him to take the idea of a garden well outside the box and make friends with house plants, cacti and bonsai gardens. You may think this is unusual but with the average UK garden size decreasing, making use of every inch of outdoor space and finding creative ways to have our very own garden is an ever more popular option.

The average British garden is just 14 square metres, with the average garden size for the 25-44 age bracket smaller still at a modest 12 square metres (HTA, 2015). To help you visualise that, it’s about the same size as a standard UK car parking space. Yes really.

Many people would consider a garden of that size inconsequential but counter that with statistics which show that having a well designed and maintained garden (of any size) can add 20% onto the value of a house and suddenly that garden takes on a life of its own.

More specific still, London agents Marsh and Parsons released some mind boggling research showing that the value of a London flat can be increased by an average of 12% by adding a roof terrace and this rises to a whopping 25% in the desirable Chelsea postcode. Their research even went as far as to look at how communal gardens and outdoor spaces also add substantial value, as much as 20% in some areas of London. According to their statistics less than a third of flats coming on the market have a roof terrace or communal garden but they sell faster and at a higher price than similar properties with no outdoor space.

What all of these statistics demonstrate is that actually, no matter how large or small your garden is, it adds an exponential amount of value to your home. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the ones which sell for a premium are the ones in which the gardens are bespoke, beautiful and make the best use of the space.

 

But value isn’t just monetary and gardens add value in so many more ways. The news is full to bursting with research demonstrating the holistic benefits of gardens and the wider great outdoors. You can’t deny it, gardens are good for our mental and physical health, gardens are good for the soul. And that’s why Britains are spending more time than ever before outside and why my friend has filled her entire flat with greenery.

Gardens have so many functions; they give us social space, entertaining space. They are hobbies, play parks, art and sanctuaries. We love gardens, we want gardens and what we are beginning to discover is that a garden can be a much more abstract concept than a six by ten square of lawn behind a suburban home. Here at Studio 31, we see that more than ever. Yes its true that, we design country estates and more traditional large gardens but we also design small spaces, awkward outdoor corridors and balcony roof terraces. These corners and niches tucked between terraces or floating high above the cityscape ignite our imaginations because its our job to define them under that humble but significant noun “garden” and no matter how large or small the garden or how traditional or abstract it may be, a garden, by its very essence, brings joy.

 

 

 

Photo by Jeff Sheldon

How urban trees shape our cities

Last month, the Forestry Commission released a shiny new report entitled “Delivery of ecosystem services by urban forests”. At last there is a report which pools much of the existing research pertaining to urban trees and presents it in an influential yet strikingly analytical read.

In its totality the report hopes to inform future policy on “nature based solutions to climate change, health problems and the challenges of urbanisation”. Largely for the first time, it considers the detail of this, discussing the specific attributes of not only individual trees but also lines, clusters and the broader woodlands. It goes as far as to look at the benefits and deficits of tall versus short, deciduous versus evergreen and broad versus narrow canopy. All of which is something previous research has in the main, failed to do.

But if you’re not a fully fledged tree report reading geek such as I, is there a different way to understand this report? When we talk about ecosystem services, carbon sequestration and noise mitigation, what do we really mean and why should anyone care?

73% of the population of Europe lives in cities (UN, 2014) so it makes sense then that governments would want to consider the well being of that large majority and perhaps also whether their proximity to the natural rather than built environment has an impact on that well being.

This term “ecosystem services” put simply means “the benefits that people derive from nature” (Forestry Commission, 2017) and it may surprise you to know there are many more of them than you might initially think. Take for example “food provision”. Laughable maybe to consider taking to the streets of London to forage for food from the local tree population? But then think of those times in your childhood where your head was buried in a blackberry bush, cheeks purple with the stain of a freshly picked (and consumed) harvest. I see reference upon reference to local mushroom picking courses which advertise wandering the forest floors in search of ingredients for the latest fashionable wild mushroom risotto recipe. Cast your mind to Christmas and the smell of chestnuts roasting at street side stalls and children wrapped up for autumn delicately prising open prickly shells to their reveal shiny brown core. We love to “pick our own”, delight at the prizes nature has to offer and secretly revel in the quiet satisfaction this provides. Chestnuts, pine nuts not to mention the abundance of fruit on offer from trees turns our city streets from concrete jungles to local greengrocers.

That said, some of the largest benefits our urban trees have to offer are not (as in the case of fuel and food) goods but instead services. Our cities are primarily built from brick, concrete, tarmac and similar industrial materials; materials which absorb the heat and reduce the ability for water to escape naturally. The result of this, are cities with increasingly high temperatures and more at risk of flooding. With the great British weather not often the subject of “too hot” complaints, it’s slightly astonishing that heat-related stress accounts for around 1100 premature deaths per year in the UK (Doick and Hutchings, 2013). Trees mitigate against this by providing shade and blocking solar radiation. They also intercept rainfall and reduce surface water run-off thus contributing to flood prevention in urban areas (forestry commission, 2017).

Perhaps more commonly cited than temperature regulation or flood prevention is trees’ ability to purify the air. This report quantifies that, suggesting that management of street trees and woodlands has been found to be a cost effective way of reducing particulate matter (the potentially harmful particles in the air such as soot and dust) compared to technological or policy measures such as the use of greener fuels. With scientists across the globe focused on the task of reducing global warming, smog and the various other harmful emissions we as humans produce, this literature is suggesting that the humble tree is in fact a large part of the answer.

There is a common misconception that any nature that is present in cities should be “left well alone” so that is can be persevered. The forestry commission paper argues that in fact, the careful and responsible management of our trees and green spaces contributes far more to enhancing the benefits that they provide than it does harm to them. It may seem obvious but there is research which actually proves that facilities (toilets, paths, signs) will improve usability and accessibility (Doick et al. 2013) and that the more people come into contact with urban trees, the greater the cultural, health and educational benefits.

The report references similar concepts to the ones we cited in our earlier blog on healing gardens and even goes as far as to state that nature is good for the soul. Well, ok, it doesn’t say exactly that but it does say that sensory elements like the sound of walking on crunchy leaves, bird song and the smell of damp wood after the rain all increase our connection with landscape and in turn our well being. There is a word we came across “petrichor” many moons ago, simply defined as “the smell after rain falls on dry soil” (Oxford Dictionary, 2017). We all know that smell, so familiar it is, that we almost named our practice after it.

Much of this report does appear to state the obvious but the point that would be easy to miss is that there is invaluable importance to doing that; it provides tangible evidence to the commonly accepted anecdotal support and therein provides much needed credibility.

For those who care the less about the wellbeing and environmental aspects that our urban trees provide, there are also a wealth of economic benefits. They boost tourism, provide setting for recreation activities and more indirectly generate employment in the form of arboriculture consultants, tree surgeons and many other landscape professionals.

It makes sense then that there are campaigns in abundance supporting the preservation of our green infrastructure of which trees make up a substantial part; The Tree Council, The Ancient Tree Forum and The National Park City Campaign to name but a few.

The conclusions to this report state largely that a management plan needs to be put in place which provides an overarching strategy for tree planting, maintenance and conservation in urban areas; a plan which considers carefully both the stakeholders involved and the location and function of any given tree. It appears urban forestry is both a science and art and requires both scientists and artists at the helm. However I wonder whether it is not only up to a wider government or even private sector initiative but also up to us as professionals and on a smaller level still, us as citizens of our cities to play our part too. We can use our trees, care for our trees, engage with them, play with them, plant them and protect them. As landscape architects, we use trees in almost every scheme we design and this report draws our attention back to the way in which we use these trees, particularly in urban environments. Are we, as the report suggests, considering the true value of the tree across all its ecosystem services rather than a purely aesthetic tool and if not is there a way to do both?

We think so.

 

 

 

Photo by Ilya Ilford