The English language is a wonderful medium when used skilfully and thoughtfully but it is terribly prone to lazy lapses into meaningless terms that are open to wide variation in interpretation. That perhaps matters little in informal conversation, where misunderstandings are easily repaired, but there is no place for such carelessness in shaping the world we live in. 

The Landscape Architecture profession, which has supported me and my family for all these years, has played a particular part in both the benefit and harm that flows through the medium of language. At best we are able to describe and specify the ingredients that will transform matter into atmosphere and delight those who inhabit or pass through the spaces we construct. And yet we do little more than mutter and grumble when people in positions of great power and influence refer to ‘the landscaping’ or describe a site as ‘landscaped’: we should be furious, shout and stamp our feet, not because it offends us but because it betrays shallow thinking on the part of those exercising that power.

Consider the view illustrated above, photographed from high on the valley side above Derwent Water in the Lake District: it will be readily acknowledged as a ‘landscape photograph’ but contains the entire town of Keswick, so the notion of landscaping seems incongruous, yet every planning permission for changes to the built fabric of Keswick will contain a landscaping condition: how cognisant of context will those conditions encourage developers and designers to be?

Also try to separate out landscaping in the following photograph of Marsden in the West Yorkshire Pennines: there is no question that the green setting for the mill and church etc. define the character of the whole settlement but none of it was put there as landscaping. The reservoir dam is especially interesting, having been fashioned from the ingredients of its parent landscape into a functioning piece of development yet still feature as landscape in its own right.

The problem is not that the word landscaping has no meaning: rather that there are so many interpretations going on in so many different heads at the same time that nobody really knows what others are thinking. Sadly, most heads will fail to see beyond one of the following: 

- Green plants and grass, perhaps with a path and somewhere to sit

- Something pretty to compensate for poor architecture, perhaps even hide it

- A general tidy up at the end of a construction period 

- An inconvenient obligation, often as a condition of planning permission

- A separate budget item in the cost plan that is often cut 

All of these barely scratch the surface of what ‘Landscape’ truly means. We need our whole industry to embrace that sacred and precious word but also underpin it with a robust definition and other terms that bolster its interpretation. Let’s begin with that definition in the context of built environment: I contend that it fundamentally must comprise the whole scene, to the limit of consciousness in all directions, and include buildings together with all other manifestations of the culture responsible for changing the scene over time. 

It is vital to recognise that the landscape exists before development takes place, so it is impossible for it only to arrive afterwards on the back of a lorry. Construction work of any kind changes that landscape in both appearance and meaning. Landscape also endures, as subsequent changes occur, even if those changes are so profound as to transform a rural landscape into an urban one. We may choose to call it a housing estate, another term for ‘residential landscape’, whilst some wise and tasteful interventions along the way will attract positive labels such as ‘neighbourhood’.

It’s never too early in a project to start thinking in terms of a narrative that will later be used in the Design and Access Statement to explain the reasoning and meaning behind all of the actions involved. Descriptive analysis of landscape at this stage will embed both an understanding of what is meant by the word but also engage everyone in responding to it sensitively and with care. 

Other words and phrases too are needed to convey these sentiments and aspirations; words such as threshold, prospect, and phrases such as gathering space, will begin to imply feelings and emotions by which parts of the whole will be remembered. Conversely, beware of popular planning terms such as landscape buffer, or green wedge, which reduce spaces to negative elements that divide and apologise for something unsavoury nearby: find a positive word or phrase to label every piece of ground.

Public realm similarly ought to come with an explicit definition: I am content with something like “all open space around and between buildings to which the public has legal right of access to occupy or observe”. All too often interpretation narrows it down to just the pedestrian spaces for relaxation, overlooking the importance of vehicular carriageway and building frontages with their attendant influence on the aesthetic of the whole space. Better still, try dropping the jargon altogether and revert to meaningful terms such as channels and eddies: people move through space much like water in a mountain stream, where the channels favour progression towards a destination and the eddies are where life slows down and interesting things can happen (see illustration below of Manchester Piccadilly Gardens).

There is a veritable mountain to climb if we are to change the language used across the whole industry but Planning is arguably the place to start, and nowhere better than the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Landscaping is referenced twice in the current version and landscaped once: not many but exacerbated by the more frequent reference to landscape and landscapes with subtly differing implied meaning. Even more pressing is the need to dispense with the landscaping condition in planning consents: this will require some soul-searching to devise and promote a satisfactory lexicon to displace it.

A simpler remedy would be to ensure that Landscape Architects are universally trained and engaged to guide other professions in how their actions might respond to and manipulate whole landscapes for optimum nurturing of place, ruling out the ineffective retrospective cosmetic altogether.

I have been fortunate in my own career to experience conversations and design opportunities where rich and meaningful language has prevailed. For instance, Formby Pool Trust on Merseyside amended their initial brief for a new swimming pool to be ”well landscaped” in favour of a requirement for “a new park containing a swimming pool”, which is precisely how the community use and treasure the place that resulted.

Regents Park Open Air Theatre in London occupies a hallowed piece of landscape in our capital city but the front of house space had lost its way completely. The concept design discussions hardly used physical descriptions, instead dwelling on emotional responses to atmosphere created in various parts of the site. Modifications were made that capture the energy of performance in the amphitheater and amplify its memory as the audience chatter on their way home through the new ‘horn’ space.

This piece is written in support of the Design for Planet message, the crux of which relies on all of us to care more for how our actions will affect Planet Earth’s capacity to sustain life in its wonderful diversity. We communicate that message both by example and through the medium of language, so that is where care must begin. After all, landscape really exists only in the mind because, existentially, it is just land.

Tom Lonsdale trained as a Landscape Architect then pursued a broadening career in urban design and regeneration. 14 years as Chief Landscape Architect for Manchester led to him forming the highly successful Camlin Lonsdale partnership. His commitment to multidisciplinary collaboration made him a good match for the early pioneering work of CABE and Design Council, so from 2008 he has worked freelance as Placecraft.

In recent years work has entailed extensive mentoring and advisory work, particularly through and often chairing Design Review, with visiting lectures and course review in education. As a Design Council Expert he advised on the High Street Task Force and is a Fellow of the RSA. Commercial work is combined with constant activity in the voluntary sector, currently chairing the Community Partnership overseeing masterplanning work on his home town of Marsden.