Join the debate: why & how should we value our landscapes and places?

Our lives in the 21st century are under increasing threat as our cities overheat, flash floods wreak havoc, forest fires blaze out of control and climate change moves on apace after a summer of increasingly strange weather patterns across the world.

Issues such as population growth, provision of housing, increasing urbanisation, social inequality, increasing obesity levels, digital and technological innovation, food and water security and climate change, do not respect national or professional boundaries.

Governments & business leaders around the world are starting realise that new policy responses are needed. We are seeing around the world bolder ideas for enhancing nature:

• Greater provision of urban forests, national parks and sponge cities concepts to better manage water across China
• Singapore introducing strong regulation to drive resilience and greening of their city nation eg LUSH guidelines for residential and commercial development
• Cities across Europe introducing radical new approaches eg Barcelona Blocks
• Welsh government introducing a new Well-being of Future Generations Act (Wales) 2015 . It is outcomes focused and requires government agencies to work together in allocation of funding and monitoring progress.
• Scotland's government strongly supporting the concept of Natural Capital - hosting every two years the global Natural Capital Forum
• A new 25 Year Environment Plan in the UK will mean that our sector will need to know how to design, plan & manage to achieve net environmental gain.
• Revisions to the new National Planning Policy Framework(NPPF) for England are also including greater attention to landscape issues eg SuDS. In the field of landscape planning there are discussions to be had in regard to the definition of "valued landscapes" and more.

These all represent major opportunities for the landscape profession to use its skills to be at the heart of delivering solutions and interventions across design, planning, delivery, management & science

Debate at IFLA World Congress in Singapore calls for the profession to do more to measure, quantify & value the many contributions it brings to society.

I moderated the main panel session at the 2018 IFLA International Federation of Landscape Architects World Congress in Singapore. The panel included a range of leaders who focused on key themes related to biophilia, resilience & smart cities including:

Prof. Timothy Beatley – Biophillic Cities Network, University of Virginia

Dr. Cheong Koon Hean, CEO Housing & Development Board, Singapore

Prof. Peter Edwards, Future Cities Laboratory, Switzerland

Henry Steed CMLI, Director, ICN Design International Pte Ltd, Singapore

Dr Cheong explored Singapore’s approach to housing and planning - “greening the red dot”. Prof Beatley shared more about the emerging biophilic cities network. They also shared latest thinking about practice related to accounting for ecosystems services. Henry Steed spoke of the ongoing challenges linked to the importance of access to skills, resources and funding to be able to deliver this agenda.

The major message from the international panel is that “the landscape profession must do more to measure, quantify & value the many contributions that landscape can bring to society.”

 “It was interesting to see how important the concept of value and an outcomes focus was to this panel, There was also strong support for our profession’s need to be involved earlier in projects – something a place like Singapore has been doing for quite some time”

Valuing Landscape Conference - London 6th-7th September 2018

Many in the landscape profession have spoken of the need for the work of the profession to valued more highly - to do this we need to explore what new value is created through the interventions of our profession to benefit people, place and nature. There is also a big debate to be had as to how to do this consistently and indeed some who question whether a value can even be placed on this contribution at all.

We will be looking at this very issue at our conference held jointly with IFLA Europe being hosted by the University of Greenwich on 6th and 7th September.

Importantly, we are engaging more across many different disciplines and have more than 40 speakers speakers from economics, arts, surveying, science, planning, governments & more. We will also of course have leaders from the landscape & place professions across Europe and beyond.

We will have experts from cities including Utrecht, Barcelona, Bristol, Milan, Manchester, Berlin, Vilnius, London, Ottawa & more sharing their new ideas and insight from practice.

See our conference programme

We are keen to explore and debate the following:

• How can the profession better demonstrate the value it creates through design, planning, management & science?
• Exploring what aspects of value should/shouldn’t be measured by the Landscape Profession
• A better understanding of how future trends & new regulatory contexts impact our sector 
• What new skills are needed for the future and how can we attract the next generation to careers in landscape & place.

Also speaking at the Valuing Landscape conference will be the newly appointed President of the Landscape Institute Adam White who will say: “There is already solid evidence that points to the fact that good, well designed and implemented landscapes can have a profound effect on our mental and physical health and on our quality of life. With the increasing pressure on our health services this will only become more pressing, yet we still see bad design, poor management and inadequate funding. Health & wellbeing is one area where we as landscape architects can really make a huge difference.”

Perhaps the most important question this conference seeks to ask, lies in how landscape professionals can live up to their promises around connecting people, places and nature and the answer must be by better engaging with local communities from the bottom-up, to inform decision-making and drive best practice and innovation.

Placing a value on the landscape is not simply about money, yet it is often the key driver for those leaders and decision makers across industry who sign off on masterplans and developments. It’s vital we think about the future role we can play.

Sessions at the conference include:

o  Understanding and responding to future trends

o  The evolving definition of landscape value

o  Valuing the intangible – what should we measure?

o  Opportunities around Natural Capital

o  Creating value for people and their wellbeing through green infrastructure

o  Lessons from place-makers around the world

o  Real world case studies and site visits with experts

Want to help us ?

Now is the time for the landscape profession to step up and make a major difference to help society in face of major changes that are impacting people, place & nature. We can't do this alone.

Off the back of this event we want to collaborate with others going forward on the issues being explored - get in touch if you want to help us!

[email protected]