1. Introduction
There has been a growing discussion on an architect’s role as a creative agency within increasingly complex process of value-making. This paper aims to reveal the role of landscape architects in the design and maintaining of a specific London park which aims to promote biodiversity and preserve wildlife. It considers the role of diverse actors as creative agencies in making an urban space for more than human occupants. This research draws on the literature from the social science to consider parks as examples of natureculture hybrids in the city. It also draws on empirical data from research for my thesis to reveal the diverse actors involved in creating and maintaining a park, and how they remake the area through time.
Therefore, the methodology of the research include qualitative data obtained from the in-depth interviews with people in relation to articulating the park, such as designers, officers from the council and members from the community group interested in the spaces of the park; mapping and documentary photography; the study of archival materials and documents relating to the case study; observation of everyday life; and participation of the meetings and activities in the park. The paper consists of two parts. In the first, I am going to outline some key shifts in thinking that form the basis of my investigation, and which also shape design of the park. In the second, I will discuss how these shifts are evident in the making and also maintenance the life of this urban space in South London – Burgess Park.
In my conclusions, I show how design is more than space-making in one time frame. The designer, therefore, is not the sole creator of permanent transformation and a fixed image of what a space should be. They can instead be seen as an agent operating with other agencies of ‘being’ towards a multiplication of agents and diversification of agencies. The creative agent who can be anyone intervenes in the realm of this space to install architecture within it. Landscape architecture thus emerges as a relational practice and a part of everyday making. Given the failure of global and market-oriented approaches, this paper therefore highlights that interdisciplinary architectural, ecological, and relational holistic approaches might be necessary to tackle the complexities in promoting and preserving biodiversity in the urban environments.
2. The concept of nature in landscape architectural discourse
Recent scholars across the disciplines represent an approach to decentering of the human in the age of what cultural anthropologists have termed the Anthropocene—the unprecedented dominance of human being on nature which has caused a planet in crisis (Haraway, 2003; Latour, 1993; Van Dooren, 2014). This poststructuralist critical thinking expresses the interrogation of dualisms that have been deeply embedded within the modern traditions of the technoscience and humanist ontologies, such as between nature and culture, human and nonhuman, animate entities, and machines (cf. cyborgs [Haraway, 1991]).
From this perspective, Donna J. Haraway introduces the theory of “natureculture” in her influential 2008 publication ‘When Species Meet’. According to her, there can be no articulation of nature that does not rely on a corresponding culture as it is cultures that interpret and set nature in relation to them, and as multiple interdependencies existing across their apparent bounds. Therefore, a various “naturecultures” as a knot of relationships and entanglements between living matters and social modes of a range of situated epistemological, material and political connections. Drawing upon feminist scholars, this ‘relational’ alternative in which humans are thought as merely one animal among others might create an ethical mode of engagement with the environment, society, and subjectivity (Braidotti, 2013; Code, 2006; Conley, 2006; Grosz, 2005; Haraway, 2011; Petrescu, 2012; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Rawes, 2013).
Such critical thinking has influenced traditional understandings of ‘landscape’ in landscape architectural discourse over time. The first radical shift in discourse took place in the 1960s, when the discipline turned from nature to ecology. Ian McHarg, in his book ‘Design with Nature’ (1969), used the words nature and ecology interchangeably and suggested various land uses in his designs based on information on natural processes. Across a range of disciplines, landscape has become an approach to urbanization. In the mid-1990s, the theorists-, James Corner, Stan Allen, Mohsen Mostafavi, Charles Waldheim, Graham Shane, Richard Weller, Julia Czerniak, George Hargreaves, Chris Reed, Nina-Marie Lister, and Ciro Najle, who all focused on the relationship between architecture and landscape put forward ‘landscape as urbanism’ as an urban theory.
‘Landscape Urbanism’ was first articulated by James Corner in his research in the mid-90s. His works set forth an explicit critique of landscape architecture’s recent professional projects. James Corner’s critical thinking is interpreted as the critical rationalism approach to North American urban landscapes, which was influenced by J. B. Jackson’s landscape concept analysis in the 1980s. Corner (1999), in his book called Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Theory, indicates the rising interest of how a culture relates to and shapes the landscape instead of creating a new aesthetic form. Landscape urbanism is defined as the integration of landscape architecture perspective, supported by ecological design/planning concepts, which are at the centre of nature and design, into contemporary urbanism.
Whilst James Corner’s Field Operations and its partners advanced landscape urbanism in urban landscapes, others continued to refine the concept theoretically through competitions and post-graduate programs in schools. In The Machinic Landscape and the Landscape Urbanism course of the Architectural Association (AA), held by Mohsen Mostafavi and Ciro Najle, an interdisciplinary approach and practice was adopted by re-evaluating the role of not only landscape but also architecture in the city. The conceptual changes caused by this new ecological approach have concomitant impacts in not only design, planning, and management of ecosystems but also in North American large parks. In 2003, titled “The Large Parks: New Perspectives Conference” held at Harvard University’s Institute of Design (GSD) (Czerniak and Hargreaves, 2003; Lister, 2007).
In 2007, the term ecological urbanism was used in the book Intervention Architecture, and it began as a project at Harvard University’s Institute of Design (GSD). Mohsen Mostafavi (2010), influenced by Félix Guattari’s Three Ecologies (1989), introduced the term ‘ecological urbanism’ as a critique of landscape urbanism. The rise of ecological urbanism has been associated with attempts to reconfigure relationships between nature and city through urban spaces (Mostafavi & Doherty, 2010; Spirn, 2012; Hagan, 2014). In the following years, Charles Waldheim’s publication of Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory (2016) demonstrates the recent formulation of “ecological urbanism,” presenting the proposition as a continuation of the landscape urbanism project.
This thinking has implications not just for how cities and urban environments are recognised as a blend of culture and nature, or for recognising the more-than-human inhabitants of cities in design. It also has implications for how we might think about designers themselves or city makers and, in this light, for recognising a much wider range of makers. Additionally, given that architecture has its own political function (Symeonidis & Gourdoukis, 2023), and it has its own capacity to recreate social structures and enhance them (Garzon and Panzza, 2023), ethical, political and relational dynamics between these makers -human and nonhuman forms of life- cannot be ignored in the making of urban environment.
I am therefore looking at the elements of an ecological design approach and urbanism as the ways of making by the various makers who engage with the shaping of the urban landscape on an everyday basis through my case study. This provides the opportunity to reveal the role of the urban parks as a place of nature within the city, how the actors and strategies/policies affect this role, and what they are. The goal of my research has been to explore both how designers think about the relationship of different actors in the making of an urban landscape over time, and what this means for the landscape itself as it unfolds.
3. Case study: Burgess Park
In this paper, the making of the landscape and its narrative through human engagement are explored in the context of archival research and ethnographic research using a combination of transcribed interviews and observations. As a case study, Burgess Park is one of London’s largest parks, stretching from Camberwell and Walworth in the west to Peckham and Old Kent Road in the east. The concept of the park was introduced with the 1943 Abercrombie plan for open spaces in London after hundreds of dwellings and factories were demolished by WWII bombs. However, the urban development of the park and its surroundings took place gradually (see. Fig.1). Burgess Park thus has been created over the last century by piecemeal purchases of land.
Given the historical process in the management of Burgess Park, The London County Council was the administrative body until 1965. After 1965, it became the Greater London Council. In 1986, the responsibility for Burgess park transferred to Southwark Council. From the 1980s onwards, the increasing popularity of nature and wildlife areas caused a shift to new conservation and definition of open green space. This led to a profound conceptual change in how green spaces were viewed and maintained (Hannikainen, 2016).
In 2008, Boris Johnson announced a funding competition for London parks. In March 2009, it was announced that Burgess Park had won £2 million from the Mayor of London’s Help a London Park scheme [1] and a further £4 million from the Aylesbury New Deal for Communities. In November 2009, LDA Design was commissioned to undertake the major renovation project of the park [2] which has evolved through consultation process with local communities and stakeholders. Even though the design has been not fully implemented, their work transformed a neglected open space into a well-used public park. According to the plan, the park has a number of facilities for a wide range of users. This provides a new recreational space with a range of improved amenities, and green spaces including woodlands and wetlands on a metropolitan rather than neighbourhood scale.
Besides the fundamental improvements to the park, there were changes in terms the council’s policies based on promoting biodiversity and wildlife to build natural cycles for Burgess Park. In 2006, Southwark Council began to prepare a Biodiversity Action Plan containing the Species Action Plans to preserve the natural environment and its flora and fauna; to meet the legal commitments under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act (NERC Act). Meanwhile, Southwark Council commissioned a Borough Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) review and ecological survey.
In 2009, A Phase 1 habitat survey and protected species risk assessment was carried out by the Ecology Consultancy to the existing biodiversity. Following the major applications, LDA Design created their project, which is based on rich diversity of habitats across the park, understanding how the habitats can survive over time if there is a lack of water and food or how they are going to change if temperatures dramatically change [3]. They also focused on design for self-management of the landscape.
According to my observations, and the data I obtained from the documents, they used the trunks as play features, until they start to rot and decay, and then they can become a habitat. This also provides a massive contribution to carbon sink. Besides they kept green wastes, such as the fallen leaves, branches, the dead trees, on site rather than having it taken away (see. Fig. 2). Accordingly, they kept the seeds and compost on the site, and thus, these seeds will germinate and self-fulfil the succession of the meadows. In the master plan, all the surface water passes through some reclaims. Throughout all the landforms, the designers built in swales that would just hold the water and slow the flow. This allows different ecologies to form, and thus, natural species can colonise in these rain gardens.
To improve the soil and the design of meadows in the area, LDA Design worked with horticulturalist James Hitchmough. The north facing slopes were planted with a green compost waste that could take more moisture, while the western slopes were planted with the dry species that were sewn into the builder’s sand, effectively. Therefore, these meadows effectively can form their own plant communities. The park area had been an industrial area before it turned into an open space. The printing and heavy metals were dug out of the park and removed; however, their residues were in the soil. The designers capped off with geo membranes all the old soil and then put new soil on top.
The masterplan has the main mass of Southampton Way woodland, St George’s Way woodland and the wetland which have been vital for local wildlife in the park (see. Fig.3). However, with the revitalised the green space and developments in the park, the value of the land has risen, and this has led to increase regeneration projects and housing densities surrounding the park. Although Southwark Council have been holding some exhibitions to display the projects and meetings with stakeholders, community groups and residents to consult them for these ongoing projects, they might have substantial impact on the Burgess Park in terms of biodiversity and wildlife.
Beyond the self-sustainability, which is considered in the masterplan, there are some community groups who have been supporting the management and maintenance of the park, and who have been engaging with Southwark Council and the developers. These volunteers have different levels of commitment and amounts of time that they can share in lack of expertise and agreement that might affect the landscape. This leads to some difficulties to negotiate due to the complexity and people’s priorities. Therefore, it is aimed to start a discussion on the data that I have obtained from the fieldwork and community groups between 2022 and 2023.
The Friends of Burgess Park is an association of people and other interest groups who are concerned to protect and promote Burgess Park. Their priorities are the planning applications around the park, buildings in the park, and nature conservation. They describe themselves as a community group whose prime objective is to galvanize interest and the needs of the park. Their aims are to build an awareness around what the natural environment is, and how it is maintained and how people can interact. They have therefore gotten involved in the group because of their interest in nature, and gardening, and their curious about what nature can offer them in terms of their mental health.
When the park was redesigned in 2010, a group of volunteers were interested in finding wild food, and thus, the focus was on lobbying for more edible species within the park planting. They decided that it might be another group that would have run food events or charity event, and harvest fruits. The council then gave them a patch of land that the community garden is on at the moment, which is on the derelict site of an old wharf of the Surrey Canal and provided them some funding support with a five-year lease to establish a garden. Therefore, in 2011, the Glengall Wharf Garden (GWG) was all designed by Sue Amos, an expert in permaculture design (see. Fig.4). Following the setting up the garden, she pioneered the establishment of a subgroup funded by the National Lottery, which is called Glengall Wharf Gardening Group (GWGG). The gardening group describe their purpose as creating habitats that are friendly to wildlife and taking care of those aspects of the garden that are important to biodiversity.
Decentring the role of the human designer in creating a park that support biodiverse life can actually be identified in the design. LDA design explicitly set out to create a level of open-endedness in their scheme and to avoid forming the sorts of landscapes that would require ongoing heavy handed human intervention to maintain. Indeed, it takes the view that creating a self-sustaining system is actually key to supporting biodiversity alongside ongoing light touch support that is not just a task for designers but also for community-based volunteers. In the Burgess Park, the FOBP and the gardening group as a subgroup have opportunities to consider the management of the area although none of them are in charge. Beyond the design and construction of the park, my research has involved engaging with community groups, gardeners, fish, brambles and so on through the seasons to recognise the complex interactions between different user-maker-inhabitants of the space.
4. Conclusions
My research has been examining Burgess Park and its remaking process from the mid-twentieth century to the present. It addresses much more recent redevelopment of the park (since 2010) that suggests a renewed understanding of the habitat both for human and non-human entities. This is because the masterplan of the park is based on creating a self-sustaining landscape. It is possible to say that its design emphasises the decentering of the human in the process of making urban space over time. Through the alignment of ideas about landscape urbanism in the city, it is posited that the diverse makers of the park are breaking down the binary between the material/maker and nature/culture. However, the research has also shown that maintenance of the park becomes a combination of natural cycles and human intervention. It leads to a conflict in the everyday making and caring of the urban landscape between human uses and natures which identify a politics of nature-cultures.
In this sense, Burgess Park includes a number of relational ecologies of the environment, political and social dynamics, and human subjectivity forms as the fundamental premise for this study. The extent that maintenance is seen in positive terms of care, that care involves a diverse community – people, earthworms, nesting swans, and so on. It is essential to highlight that these volunteers have different levels of commitment, a variety of agendas, and amounts of time. Indeed, they share in a lack of expertise and agreements between developers and community groups, which might damage the landscape. I argue that caring practices do not necessarily derive from ethical concerns but are entangled with affective and meaningful practical activities consisting of diverse relations between humans/nonhumans. Rather than denying the complexities of care, the complex relations need to be produced in ways that allow human/nonhumans to be promoted in an urban landscape.
Horticulture Week, “London mayor set to announce funds for 10 parks” (6th March 2009), 4.
Magda Ibrahim, “LDA Design plan chosen for pounds 6m Burgess Park revamp”, Horticulture Week (20th November 2009), 6.
LDA Design, Burgess Park Master Plan Final Review, 20th October 2015.