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

Landscape Institute Conference: Landscape as Infrastructure

Landscape as Infrastructure

Landscape Institute Conference, 22-23 June 2017 :

 

 

Images: Ilbin YOON, MA Landscape Architecture student at WUC. Urban Territory Studio Project

 

 

“Landscape is a regulator of endless processes, producer and consumer of raw materials, highly multifunctional and synergistic.”

Pollalis, S. N., 2016. Planning Sustainable Cities: An infrastructure-based approach. London: Routledge.

“Landscape is the primary infrastructure.”

Farrell Review of Architecture and the Built Environment, 2014

 

Landscape practitioners are significantly involved in major infrastructure projects, increasingly playing a leading role. The way in which landscape works as an infrastructure in its own right, as well as the need to rethink conventional infrastructures as landscapes will be at the heart of the LI’s annual conference, due to take place on 22 and 23 June 2017 in Manchester in partnership with the LI North West Branch, Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Manchester.

Day one of the conference will include plenary sessions of around 20-40 minutes each. On the second day we will explore a number of CPD-approved seminars and discussions under the banner of the conference. Day two will also include guided site visits in and around the city centres of Manchester and Salford.

For more information: https://www.landscapeinstitute.org/event/li-conference-2017/