Restless and full of life: Gambia

 Streets of informal urbanism in Bakau

 Wildlife everywhere:

A wet Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis) ready for another dive.

 

Sunrise over Baobab (Adansonia digitata) trees.

 

Atmospheric Tanji fishing village at dusk

Abuko nature reserve, where over 270 bird species have been recorded.

It was not only the sunshine but also observing the environment and local ecologies of Bakau, that bought design lecturer Steve Terry to The Gambia, West Africa recently.  Bakau is a small town at the tip of Cape Point on the confluence of the River Gambia and the Atlantic Sea.  An historically and strategically important transport route accessing the interior of West Africa, The Gambia remains rich in culture and ecological diversity.  Despite some political unrest at the time of Steve’s visit the people of Bakau remained resolutely positive and eager to share the cultural and ecological highlights. 

Steve Terry, Senior lecturer at WUC

Essex landscapes: Hadleigh Farm Landscape Design by 2nd year WUC students

 Dark, grey open skies and rolling hills: typical Essex

 Students surveying the site

A farm family member welcomes our students

As part of Site and Concept studio 2nd year undergraduate Landscape architecture and MA conversion students visited a site at The Salvation Army's Hadleigh Farm in Essex to explore and understand its spatial, topographical, social, ecological, and historical context. Although it was a grey January day, students enjoyed this day long site visit taking photographs and drawing and sketching landscape characteristics for their first site impressions. It is a team exercise, and students will formulate a design brief to include their design philosophy and approach, produce a series of masterplan working drawings and a physical model of the wider landscape for the design process. For final assessment, student teams will have to introduce, interpret and summarise their concept, and present their ideas and design objectives on a sketch masterplan, vignettes of detail areas including planting choices, and cross sections of the site in context. Outcome of the design projects will be presented in May 2017 by students in our design studio.

Dr Kristof Fatsar, Lecturer at WUC