Thursday, 7 March 2019 at 6:00 pm – Thursday, 7 March 2019 at 7:30 pm
James Hitchmough - We Need to Talk About Vegetation!
Master of Landscape Architecture Open Lectures 2018-19
Date: Thursday 7th March 2019
Time: 18.00-19.30
Location: Chatham Building, Lecture Theatre 312
Tickets: Free - Available on Eventbrite
Vegetation is critical to the resolution of many of the great environmental and sustainability challenges of the twenty first century. To address these, it is important that landscape architects have an in-depth understanding of vegetation from the very large scale to the very small, including both design and long term management. Most landscape architects think they know something about plants but in reality the depth of understanding is often very shallow. This is a significant problem within a discipline in which most participants have severed their formal connections with biological understanding of the world at age 16. What are we to do about this? its a tough nut to crack, and it may be un-crackable but we need to at least talk about it rather than delude ourselves that everything is good.
James Hitchmough is Professor of Horticultural Ecology, and until recently, Head of Department, at the Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield. His research interests lie in the development of new approaches to planting design in urban places, and what human beings think of this. He is also a practitioner and has worked on many of the major vegetation-focused projects in the UK over the past 25 years, including as the co-conceiver of planting design at the London Olympic park. He travels very extensively to work on international projects, for example in China, the USA and Australia, but mostly to look at vegetation in the wild both as an inspiration and a source of understanding.
To gain a better understanding of his world see his Instagram feed; jameshitchmough
The MLA Open Lecture series is delivered by invited guest speakers, mainly from outside MMU whose work is closely connected to the overarching focus of the Master of Landscape Architecture Atelier projects for the year. In this case, they are entitled 'Reinventing Rurality' and involve a series of speakers whose research or publications look at the challenges and opportunities faced by rural landscapes and communities today from a range of different perspectives. These lectures are also part of a longer term ambition to develop a research project around the theme of the Hyper-Rural. This will sit mainly within the Architecture Research Centre but also involve researchers from a wide range of disciplines including potentially Geography, Ecology, Fine Arts and Humanities. The project will work with external partners in the UK and internationally to explore potential rural futures and the landscapes which these may give rise to. A current MSARC bid has been submitted and further bids are planned to the AHRC and NWCDTP over the coming year. The lecture series is led by Eddy Fox, Programme Leader for Landscape Architecture within the MSA and supported by Ian Fisher. Jo Phillips is the principal research assistant for the Hyoer Rural research project.