News
Building Sustainable Communities for the Future
13th March 2007
The Landscape Institute and Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) have launched a joint initiative to put landscape at the heart of the debate about sustainable communities.
The initiative was unveiled at the Regenex conference in a speech by Dr Gill Taylor, ASC chief executive. Dr Taylor said it was essential to plan for the next ten years and that the professions need to increase their efforts in working together to deliver realistic schemes to allow people to live and work in well-equipped communities.
Key to Dr Taylor’s vision is the need to attract people to work in the built environment; research to assist with informed policy-making; and developing education and training to ensure that landscape architects, engineers, planners and other professionals have the right skills for the job.
The Landscape Institute (LI) has agreed a joint commitment with ASC to develop skills and careers; influence policy and share good practice throughout landscape architecture and other relevant professions.
“Landscape is the context in which development takes place,” said Nigel Thorne, president of the LI. “For successful communities to be created and to survive there needs to be a thorough understanding of the fundamental point that buildings, services, transportation and amenities are all sited within the landscape. Sustainability cannot be achieved without a valued sense of place.
“Landscape architects are key to realising these aims. Ours is a holistic profession, already highly experienced in the multi-disciplinary working which the ASC is prioritising. Landscape architects work with other specialists like highways engineers, economists, planners, community groups and ecologists as a matter of course, so we believe that the joint commitment we have made with ASC has an important part to play in helping achieve our common commitment to creating sustainable communities.”
The Landscape Institute is represented on the ASC’s Learning Steering Group and will be prioritising joint working with the ASC on careers promotion as a first priority.
Source:LI
