A New Meaning to Outdoors

Excerpts from the interview with Margie Ruddick, a Philadelphia, USA based landscape architect   The role of landscape architecture in shaping societies Traditionally the kinds of things landscape architects do - designing the total environment, including parks, gardens, roads, public squares - were not done by landscape architects – the field of landscape architecture was invented less than 175 years ago. It was not until recently that the general public could see how important landscape architects are in creating civic spaces, for example.   Yet I think it is more a case of landscape architecture reflecting or expressing societies than actually shaping them.   Integrating ecology, culture and economics for conserving/developing wild places. This is a vital need - to integrate income-generating uses into conservation lands, which cannot be supported by the government as a rule; and to use economics to create a system of valuing ecosystem services, meaning how much carbon is sequestered in a forest, for example, or how much storm-water surge is dispersed in a wetland.  These values need to be integrated into planning and design.   Indian Scenario & the need for preserving green spaces & local culture There is a tremendous need for creating effective regulations and guidelines to protect the Western Ghats and other precious landscapes in India.  It seems that there are many visionary stewards who have established independent santuaries, but these cannot make up for the rampant pace at which development is stripping the ghats of its native vegetation. The Wild By Design program running this fall at Shillim will look at how to develop, implement and enforce regulations to preserve the unique habitat and landscape of the Ghats.  The Ghats are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Conservation International hotspot – and yet private developers can buy land, strip it of all vegetation, erect a fence, and build.  This has to stop.   Learnings from global practices We always have to move back and forth between global and local. One universal truth is that forging collaborations with local people, designers and engineers in particular, from the outset, makes a project work better, look better, and ultimately have more meaning.   Realty+ interview in August 2019