Custodians of the Landscape
We’ve been talking in the office this week about landscape signifiers and their role within the wider context of landscape architecture. Just a few hundred yards from our office is a red telephone box, commonly held as a symbol of British landscape architecture. Within that telephone box though, is not as you might assume, a retro looking, metal telephone but instead a state of the art yellow defibrillator. Move a few miles west and you’ll find the same red telephone box exterior encasing a rolling art exhibition and further west still another big red box housing a miniature library.
With the rise of technology and the birth of the mobile phone, these beacons of the British landscape have become redundant to their original purpose. However, they hold such cultural significance that instead of removing them, they are being repurposed, re-used and recycled.
When it comes to man-made signifiers things like the red telephone box are obvious. People have a nostalgic affection for them because they say something about the character of the place. They are quintessentially English like the red post box, the London bus or the black cab. They help you orientate yourself in the landscape, they can be part of the infrastructure of a place and create a sense of familiarity. Signifiers however, could be more subtle; they could be ecological and provide us with evidence of the sensitivities or natural significance of a site. Landscape visual impact assessments often look to these signifiers in their many forms to help consider the character of a site and mitigate against any potential detrimental impacts upon it.
In the context of design, only this week Studio 31 designed a space in need of shelter and greater boundary from its wider rural landscape. We could have used a more traditional fencing or hedging method but within the context of this site there were some defining landscape features in the shape of distinctive landforms. Thus we looked to bunding to help shape the periphery of this site. This both fulfilled the client brief and also retained the character of the locale.
As Landscape Architects we act as custodians of the land, we represent its interests and it’s our job to retain the heritage, ecological or cultural significance of the place. That might be a wider social or historical context or it might be singular man made landmarks or iconic natural wonders. Our job is not to work with a blank canvas but instead to preserve, enhance and enrich whilst using the landscape’s existing signposts to show us the way.
Photo by Annie Spratt