ecobuild @ earls court

**** INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!! ****

5 amazing seminars over the last two days at ecobuild. I didn't expect to come back as inspired as I am.....I didn't know where to start so thought a hot bath would be best.

Wednesdays attended lectures were:

Lecture 1 - The Future of Urban Trees with Martin Kelly of CapitaLovejoy as the chair, and introducing an interesting history of London's trees. The second speaker was Martin Ennos, Faculty of Life Sciences at Manchester Uni, presenting The Physical Importance of Trees. Thereafter, Rachel Hine of Essex Uni speaking about Health, Wellbeing and the social importance of Nature, and closing, Jim Smith of The Trees and Design Action Group, talking about What are we doing to protect our trees. Many many interesting facts....flood preventions, iTrees project, ASCCUE project in Manchester, cooling potential and potential air pollution reductions.

The Trees and Design Action Group have a website: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-7KDEHU and are trying to get as many completed surveys in by 30 April 09 with regards to the loss and protection of London's trees.

Lecture 2 - Outdoors Insight: sustainable public spaces, chaired by Liz Lake, of LiZLake Chartered Landscape Architects + Urban Design. First speaker was Dr Bill Addis, Sustainability Strategic Consultant of Buro Happold, Materials Division. (what a mouthful) who presented information about Sustainability and Landscape Design. A good presentation to remind us landscape students to specify environmentally friendly materials over those that arent. Mentioned the Waste Resources Action Plan - a government initiative: http://wrap.org.uk/construction and gave a lot of very interesting examples of recycled materials used in landscape design. Liz Lake was up next speaking about her hottest personal topic - Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems, and thanks to her I now know exactly what it's all about, and from her presentation have walked away thinking of creative SUDS in current projects. Very informative, definitely not dull and some fantastic examples. Next up, Carolyn Steel, author of Hungry City, How food Shapes our lives.

Sadly she ran out of time as she was getting to the juicy bit but she presented some great images of historical agricultural paintings and maps of london representing the major food transport and market areas, still around today. Mentions of Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities of Tomorrow, Thomas More's Utopia, Cuba's Organic Urban Farming and Arup's Dontang project of Vertical Farming. Final speaker was Roseanne Law, Director of Urban Design at Arup, presenting their SUDS project at Upton, Northampton. Again, enlightening the urban drainage issue, with very interesting examples which are so so easily incorporated into urban landscape practice and are long-term money saving, habitat creating and environmentally excellent!

Lecture 3 - Floods 'n SUDS. Admittedly this was the first seminar on my list to attend and was the most dull. I had heard far more interesting speakers and seen great examples so inbetween speakers slipped out quietly. The first speaker was from Hydro International, with some good examples of his company's SUDS products. Second up was Jill Thatcher of DEFRA, speaking about Water Quality and the need for SUDS.

Thursday's seminar:

Lecture 4 - Practical Biodiversity: Making it Happen, chaired by Dr Carol Williams of the Bat Conservation Trust, Project Officer. Matt Shardlow of Buglife - Invertebrate Conservation Trust gave a great presentation about the importance of Brownfield sites, what they are, their ecological importance, what's living in them and some positive examples of brownfields and SSSi's. Next up was Tom Webster of the Campaign for Dark Skies. Not really a topic a young landscape architect would consider but I now realise what an important issue this is. There is too much badly used, intrusive lighting in our cities, creating skyglow, glare and a general nuisance ans those are just the effects on humans. Fauna such as bats and seagulls were mentioned to be affected, they dont know the health effects but their behaviour at least is enough to notice. An example of affected flora was a picture of a London Plane tree with a lamppost set amongst it's branches. During winter, the leaves nearest the light were still attached which meant there was still moisture within the leaves and branches which would freeze and kill it during the coldest months. Slovenia is the first country in the world to pass legislation against light pollution.

Next speaker, Graeme Duckworth of the London Wildlife Trust speaking about the Barking Riverside Project. Very interesting what they are planning to do with this brownfield site along the Thames. Dutch Company Max Wang are the masterplanners. Plenty plenty of SUDS in this site with proposed 40% of all roofs to be living roofs. Positive. http://www.barkingriverside.co.uk/ Last speaker was Kate Vincent, Senior Ecologist of Baker Shepherd Gillespie, talking about Provisions for Birds in [urban] Buildings. This again, not a topic I would have considered but so so glad I am now informed. Because of modern urban buildings and redevelopments, the species of urban birds has been on a massive decline. House sparrows, starlings, house martins, swallows, swifts & black redstarts. Each of these birds use houses for either breeding or nesting and her presentation put forward how we can retrofit existing buildings to include bird friendly designs. This in turn creates biodiversity, internal nesting opportunities for the birds we sadly don't see anymore. Some inspirational examples were the Nottinghill Housing Trust, Islington Borough Council offices, London Zoo and a custom made example at Oxford University Tower. Also see http://swift-conservation.org/.

If there are 5 things I have taken away from these lectures to keep in mind for any future designs:

Professionals need to work together to make good things happen - those of the natural environment disciplines & of the built environment.

The use of lighting in any site: is it neccessary and is it correct.

The use trees, current or proposed: right tree, right place, in NATURAL ground with enough space to grow.

Provision for birds and invertebrate habitat creation [falls into the next category]

Creative SUDS systems.......ensuring people and all other species we share our spaces with have a pleasant, safe and sustainable environment to exist in.

That's me....over and out.