By Neil Turner, Director, Howarth Litchfield
As we move into Autumn and the colours in the landscape change, I am reminded of the value that gardens, landscape and nature bring to design.
I have written before on the changing environment, air conditioning use and energy costs and how we will need to re-design our offices and houses, but I haven’t looked at the impact on landscape.
Planting trees around your house looks great and can also lower temperatures in summer. In addition, it can provide shade and shelter. The leaves on a tree release moisture, which cools the air in summer. In the winter, the tree becomes a wind barrier to protect a building and can reduce heating costs by 10%.
In recent years people have an ambivalent view on trees and landscape. Many towns are losing mature poplar trees in streets, often citing danger or shading. Too often they are not replaced.
Trees add more than landscape to our towns and suburbs. I drove around a modern estate the other week and was so disappointed at the harshness, lack of green spaces and trees – it’s only when you see a place without any, do you truly recognise what is missing.
The desire to build more development in awkward and infill sites naturally leads to the removal of landscape and tress in forgotten parcels of land. As an architect I have worked on many sites where this occurs, but we must compensate and think about what is going back. The current national BNG rules (Biodiversity Net Gain) is a ‘clunky blunt tool ‘in planning that only annoys developers and landowners, rather than encouraging (or rewarding) people to complete well-conceived landscape schemes.
Trees reduce temperature, remove air pollution and sequester greenhouse gases by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Trees improve the air we breathe and provide us with oxygen.
Burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas releases carbon dioxide and negatively affects trees, so reducing emissions is a key step in protecting the quality of our air.
We have some really talented landscape architects in the NE region who continue to amaze me with the clever and ingenious solutions they bring to design schemes, often on tight budgets. Landscape is often one of the early packages to be sacrificed in projects and landscape architects’ resilience is to be applauded.
We should be putting landscape further up the agenda, so it is not based on a maths count of areas but on the quality and added value that it offers. Owners, developers (and architects) need to understand the value of trees, landscaping on their buildings, the wider urban setting and the health benefits. So, trust in your landscape architect and see the difference they can make to a scheme for now and in the long term.
I try to plant an extra tree each year in my own garden and love the variety of traditional willows, alders and oaks, the changes of colour and growth adding vitality to the garden. This year’s choice is a Katsura tree, not native but (hopefully) some lovely colours to come and the promise of a smell of candy floss!
I seem to have become a tree hugger; it happens with age!
Neil Turner, Director, Howarth Litchfield can be contacted on 0191 384 9470 or email n.turner@hlpuk.com
www.howarthlitchfield.com