An award - winning Landscape Architect , Todd Longstaffe - Gowan has a passion for the historical and ethnical potential difference of landscape .
Todd has work across a host of mammoth projects ( both in sizing and height ) in the years since entering individual praxis in 1990 .
He sits on several garden advisory boards , including theHistoric Royal Palaces . As the generator of several books , his latest publication‘English Garden Eccentrics’studies a series of unsung and unconventional English garden - Maker from the last few centuries .
In this interview with Horticulture Magazine , Todd describes his approach to redeveloping historical landscape and shares some of the background that have inspired him throughout the years .
How Did Your Early Interest In Environmental Studies Evolve Into A Passion For Landscape Architecture?
“ Environmental Studies , as it was then call , was a multi - disciplinary environmental designing syllabus at the university I attended , ” says Todd .
“ It constitute the basis for subsequent studies in computer architecture and landscape painting architecture . I decide to specialise in the latter in my quaternary yr .
“ I had always been a bully rude historiographer and nurseryman and had a big stake in spacial pattern . ”
Looking Back At Your Career, What Would You Say Are The Milestones That Shaped Your Journey?
“ The peripatetic nature of my puerility was among the exclusive great contributors to my personal development , ” he explicate .
“ I grow up and was educated in South and Central America and the West Indies and was encourage by my parents to indulge my natural wonder . ”
Can You Describe Your Approach To Conserving And Redeveloping Historic Landscapes While Maintaining Their Original Essence?
“ I bask landscape that are multi - superimposed . This means landscape painting , whether workaday or over-the-top , that are rich in cultural , social and bionomical significance and encourage us to explore and excogitate complex and conflicting legacies .
“ Although I have worked on the conservation of many historical landscapes , I do not strive compulsively for authenticity or diachronic fidelity . I favor evocation as it is , in my position , neither possible nor worthy to replicate with any degree of sure thing before designed landscapes .
“ I consider it is better to conjure the feel of a place . ”
How Do You Continue To Find Inspiration And Stay Innovative In Your Work?
“ I am curious and find myself agreeably stimulate by being uncover to what is unexampled , unfamiliar , unpredictable and incertain , ” he state .
“ One of the most compelling attributes of landscape purpose is the unstableness of one ’s own creations . I love and hug the inherent oomph of bionomical processes and the inevitableness of change . ”
Can You Share Some Of Your Favourite Gardens Or Landscapes, Either One You’ve Worked On Or Others That Inspire You?
“ When I was untried , I was enthralled by the Cerro de Santa Lucia ( Sta Lucia Hill ) , ” Todd shares .
“ This lofty volcanic plug at the tenderness of Santiago de Chile was for a short , but very memorable time , my puerility playground . I was later overwhelmed by the sublimity of Machu Pichu , which I chatter in the recent 60 – when llamas outnumbered tourist !
“ I have always been beguiled by landscapes in decline and enlivened by ruination . They are landscapes of memory and imagination , and they bring up impermanency and the inevitableness of change . ”
How Do You Ensure That Your Projects Are Environmentally Sustainable?
“ As a invention studio , we ’re concerned in the dynamic conservation of ecosystems and landscapes to ascertain the continuity of as many ecologic process as potential , ” he enjoin .
“ To this end , we get together with ecologists and other specialists to guide and inform our proposal . We are furthermore committed to responding proactively to the impact of climate change and to be nature - irrefutable .
“ In as much as we often work on designed landscape of undischarged historic importance , we are keen to manage modification by retain and enhancing primal features of ethnical significance whilst also consider how we can respond positively to the challenge of climate change and biodiversity release , as well as to managed declension , and the acceptance of red . ”
Are There Any Upcoming Projects That You Are Particularly Excited About?
“ We are presently join forces with Historic Royal Palaces in the review of their Conservation Management Plan for the gardens and landed estate at Hampton Court Palace , ” shares Todd .
“ This exercise is not just a perfunctory quinquennial critical review of its management and sustentation prescription , but also the cultural assumptions that bear out it .
“ This admit rebalancing interpretation or evocation of the past with consciousness of the nowadays , take exception plant ways of thinking and feel about the gardens and the wider estate and measure the need for a newfangled approach to visitor conflict and to managing visitant expectations .
“ I have been closely involve with the regal estate of the realm for almost thirty years and look onward to this exciting new chapter in the long - term direction of this exceeding ethnic landscape . ”
What Advice Would You Give To Aspiring Landscape Architects?
“ Be bold and trust your intuition . ”
