Boston Flora

Tag: FOLAR

  • Wednesday, January 21, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Deep Ecology, Online

    The second talk in The Gardens Trust’s online six part course in partnership with FOLAR showcasing women pioneers takes place January 21, individual tickets £8 (members £6). Register through Eventbrite HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks.

    Building on FOLAR’s popular series of Women in Landscape, this new collection of talks brings together insights into the motivations and work of three leading contemporary landscape designers and their teams, alongside stories celebrating the lives and achievements of earlier pioneers.

    Each of these women has pushed boundaries to improve the lives of others. Some have studied and worked in the UK before adapting their knowledge and ideas to suit the unique contexts of their home countries – an exciting process of creative cross-pollination.

    Every generation needs its pioneers, those who make lasting, and at times radical, changes, and who also inspire others to think boldly and act with confidence. Throughout the history of landscape design, there have always been people whose ideas and work transform the way we understand and shape our environments.

    As with FOLAR’s previous series, these talks aim to showcase some of the most inspiring people, projects, and ideas in the field — past and present.

    Talk 2. 21st January: Deep Ecology with Johanna Gibbons

    Biodiversity is hemorrhaging while the urban habitat is expanding more rapidly than any other. In this man-made scenario why is there not more proactive focus on making it full of LIFE, when intuitively the multiple benefits of nature are understood? Jo will focus on building for biodiversity through radical ecological concepts and social justice.

    Johanna Gibbons RDI is Founding Partner of J&L Gibbons, an award-winning landscape practice established in 1986 and Director of social enterprise Landscape Learn. Jo is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute and a Royal Designer for Industry, the highest accolade for a designer, in the UK.

  • Wednesday, January 14, 1:00 pm – 12:30 pm Eastern – Women Crossing Boundaries: Sisters in the Landscape, Online

    The first talk in The Gardens Trust’s online six part course in partnership with FOLAR showcasing women pioneers begins January 14, individual tickets £8 (members £6)

    Building on FOLAR’s popular series of Women in Landscape, this new collection of talks brings together insights into the motivations and work of three leading contemporary landscape designers and their teams, alongside stories celebrating the lives and achievements of earlier pioneers.

    Each of these women has pushed boundaries to improve the lives of others. Some have studied and worked in the UK before adapting their knowledge and ideas to suit the unique contexts of their home countries – an exciting process of creative cross-pollination.

    Every generation needs its pioneers, those who make lasting, and at times radical, changes, and who also inspire others to think boldly and act with confidence. Throughout the history of landscape design, there have always been people whose ideas and work transform the way we understand and shape our environments.

    As with FOLAR’s previous series, these talks aim to showcase some of the most inspiring people, projects, and ideas in the field — past and present.

    The initial presentation is Sisters in the Landscape – Miranda and Octavia Hill with Gillian Darley

    Gillian will talk about how difficult early years gave both sisters an enduring appetite for the value of freedom and access to open ground, all based on the idea that the urban poor richly deserved access to nature. From that we can follow the strands that knit together in the Commons and Open Spaces Society, the Kyrle Society, Octavia’s pet project the Red Cross Gardens (Southwark) and eventually the National Trust.

    Gillian Darley’s biography of Octavia Hill was published in 1990 (Constable) and in a revised edition in 2010 (Francis Boutle Books). Her first book was Villages of Vision – an account of the planned village, with an emphasis on the utopian (Architectural Press, 1975). She has also published a biography of John Evelyn (Yale University Press, 2006) and John Soane (Yale University Press, 1999). In the mid ’90s she was (part time) director of the Landscape Foundation. She was awarded an OBE in 2015 for services to the environment and conservation.

    Get your tickets through Eventbrite HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk . A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks.

    Image: Photo of Caroline Southwood Hill’s memorial seat, Mariner’s Hill, Kent, ©Gillian Darley

  • Wednesday, February 5, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Marjory Allen: From ILA to DIY, Online

    Join Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading for the beginning of an online series of talks in partnership with the Gardens Trust, on six women – Susan Jellicoe, Sheila Haywood, Brenda Colvin, Mary Mitchell, Marjory Allen and Marian Thompson – who all contributed to the expertise, development and awareness of the landscape profession and in so many different ways. A ticket is for the series of 6 talks at £42 or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8. (Gardens Trust and FOLAR members £6 each or all 6 for £31.50). There will be an opportunity for Q & A after each session. Please note that the 6th and final talk in this series is on 30th April. Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards. For tickets visit www.eventbriteco.uk

    Join us in this online series to hear from these special speakers – Sally Ingram, Paula Laycock, Hal Moggridge, Joy Burgess, Wendy Titman and Bruce Thompson – who have each known, worked with, or researched one of these six remarkable women. On February 5, the focus turns to Marjory Allen.

    Marjory Allen wrought change through everything she did. Known, by some, for the Selfridges Roof Garden in London – a relatively new concept in garden design in the 1920’s – it was the impetus for the garden which matters most. This beautiful place wasn’t created for wealthy customers but for shop girls who Marjory believed needed, nay deserved, to breath fresh(er) air and rise above the world.

    Marjory created gardens and landscapes for famous and wealthy people, but she was also a pioneer of spaces for children, not for making beautiful environments for them but for their right to have and make their own places. These Adventure Playgrounds were once described as ‘children’s heaven and adults hell’. It was not how they looked but what they signified and enabled that mattered, essentially risk. Exploring the dichotomy that was Lady Marjory Allen of Hurtwood provides a fascinating insight into the life of a truly remarkable woman.

    Through her design and development consultancy Wendy Titman has been involved in the creation of environments for children and young people in schools, nurseries and children’s centres in the UK. Her research into the semiotics of children’s environments, published as Special Places, Special People – the hidden curriculum of school grounds (Southgate Publishers, 1994) led to a period of international work. Prior to this Wendy was involved with provision for children outside school including the development of adventure playgrounds during which time she had the pleasure of knowing Marjory Allen.

  • Wednesday, January 29, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Mary Mitchell: The Postwar Landscape Architect of the North, Online

    In January, join Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading for the beginning of an online series of talks in partnership with the Gardens Trust, on six women – Susan Jellicoe, Sheila Haywood, Brenda Colvin, Mary Mitchell, Marjory Allen and Marian Thompson – who all contributed to the expertise, development and awareness of the landscape profession and in so many different ways. A ticket is for the series of 6 talks at £42 or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8. (Gardens Trust and FOLAR members £6 each or all 6 for £31.50). There will be an opportunity for Q & A after each session. Please note that the 6th and final talk in this series is on 30th April. Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards. For tickets visit www.eventbriteco.uk

    Join us in this online series to hear from these special speakers – Sally Ingram, Paula Laycock, Hal Moggridge, Joy Burgess, Wendy Titman and Bruce Thompson – who have each known, worked with, or researched one of these six remarkable women.

    Mary Mitchell was a prolific and influential landscape architect during the post war period. Much of her early work was influenced by Lady Marjory Allen’s approach to play which could be seen across the north of England during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Mary Mitchell was Birmingham City’s first ever landscape architect, which was where she began to explore her own convictions over creative, playful and art-filled landscapes, seen most clearly in a number of housing sites that she worked on with Sheppard Fidler, the City Architect. It was also here that she made a name for herself on the international stage as a world-renowned designer before setting up her own practice which she ran successfully for more than twenty years. The full extent of Mitchell’s work and the impact it had on the north of England is yet to be fully understood. This talk will explore Mitchell’s life, some of her creative collaborations, as well as some projects which show her approach to design and what made it so unique.

    Joy Burgess is a lecturer in landscape studies at the University of Liverpool where she is currently carrying out her PhD in collaboration with Historic England. Her PhD looks to tell the histories of female landscape architects in post-war Britain. Joy also works on the editorial team for the Women’s History Network Journal and has recently been a research assistant alongside Professor Luca Csepely-Knorr on the AHRC projects – IFLA 75: Uncovering hidden histories in Landscape Architecture and Women of the Welfare Landscape.

  • Wednesday, January 22, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Brenda Colvin, Online

    In January, join Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading for the beginning of an online series of talks in partnership with the Gardens Trust, on six women – Susan Jellicoe, Sheila Haywood, Brenda Colvin, Mary Mitchell, Marjory Allen and Marian Thompson – who all contributed to the expertise, development and awareness of the landscape profession and in so many different ways. A ticket is for the series of 6 talks at £42 or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8. (Gardens Trust and FOLAR members £6 each or all 6 for £31.50). There will be an opportunity for Q & A after each session. Please note that the 6th and final talk in this series is on 30th April. Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards. For tickets visit www.eventbriteco.uk

    Join us in this online series to hear from these special speakers – Sally Ingram, Paula Laycock, Hal Moggridge, Joy Burgess, Wendy Titman and Bruce Thompson – who have each known, worked with, or researched one of these six remarkable women.

    The third talk in the series will touch on Brenda’s childhood in India and her early practice (1922-39) designing gardens, which she continued throughout her career. Because she was a thinker about landscape, the talk will be interspersed with brief quotations from her writings. She was elected president of the Institute of Landscape Architects in 1951, the first woman to lead a British design or environmental profession. From the late 1940s Brenda shared her office with Sylvia Crowe but practising separately. The talk will illustrate how they, like other colleagues, broadened the scope of the landscape profession in the latter part of the 20th century. Brenda, independent in thought and practice, worked on government sponsored activities, for instance as consultant for large projects for the Central Electricity Generating Board, a Water Authority, a military town and a new university. Committed to continuity, she set up the basis for perpetuation of her practice and its ideas.

    Hal Moggridge was introduced to Brenda Colvin by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, in whose office he had worked after qualifying as an architect. He then became a landscape architect, and in 1969 entered into partnership with Brenda who had retired her practice to the Cotswolds. They worked together harmoniously, and their landscape architectural practice, Colvin & Moggridge, continued after Brenda’s death in 1981 with Chris Carter joining as partner; and still thrives, now under new directors.

    Between 1969 and 2005 Colvin & Moggridge handled 1,430 commissions, varying between large long-term rural industrial landscapes, reservoirs, cement works, quarries, a waste ash hill, and new parks and gardens including consultancy to the Inner London Royal Parks and creation of the new National Botanic Garden of Wales.

    Hal was elected president of the Landscape Institute in 1979. He has represented the Institute on the International Federation of Landscape Architects, was a commissioner of the Royal Fine Art Commission, served on the National Trust’s Architectural Panel, and on ICOMOS Cultural Landscapes Committees. He has explained the practice’s approach in an illustrated book: Slow Growth – on the Art of Landscape Architecture (Unicorn, 2017). He has been awarded the OBE in 1986, the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour in 1999 and the Landscape Institute Medal.

  • Tuesdays, September 7 – March 29, 1:00 pm Eastern Time – Why So Special? Iconic 20th Century Landscapes, Online

    FOLAR and The Gardens Trust are delighted to present a series of weekly online talks reviewing the 21 recently registered Historic England post war landscapes and gardens and their designers.

    The purpose of the series is to focus attention on the ideas, ingenuity and quality of each of these C20 designs. With a brilliant array of speakers including the original designers, academics, landscape architects, historians and researchers plus further insights from head gardeners, residents, site managers and users, we aim to reveal more detail about the design, the designer, how the landscape/garden works, how it has endured over the years, and what its future is like even with Historic England (HE) listing. We also want to discuss availability and access to drawings and papers related to the projects.

    These landscapes and gardens range from private gardens to vast reclamation projects. Throughout the UK many C20 designed gardens and landscapes are at great risk from being unnoticed or under-valued, or they are maintained without any awareness of the original concept, such that sites get swept away, ‘improved’ or built over. We hope that this series of talks will help to change this.

    The series runs from 7 September 2021 to 29 March 2022, grouped by subject and with a week’s break between topics. [and nothing in December] All talks are on Tuesdays from 18.00-19.15 GMT (1 pm in Boston)

    This ticket costs £84 for the entire series of 21 talks or you may purchase a ticket through Eventbrite for individual talks, costing £5 via the links found HERE By clicking through you will also see the complete list of gardens and speakers. The broad groupings are New Town Parks, Commercial Landscapes (including the Cadbury Factory), Public Housing, Semi-Public Gardens, Private Housing, and Private Gardens (Beth Chatto’s Garden is one). A recording link will be sent following each session so you may listen at your convenience for one week after the live talk.