Leading by design

Marc Worner recommends studying the work of leading horticulturalists and designers.

- Marc Worner

Most landscapers react to a client's ideas of their landscape vision by constructing it. This is how we earn a living.

However, if we keep abreast of what our landscape-design colleagues are creating, we'll keep abreast of the latest design trends so the construction of our client's vision exceeds their expectations.

Reflecting on the work of a world renown landscape designer is a good start.

Words of wisdom

Martha Schwartz is an American landscape architect, the founding principal of Martha Schwartz Partners, an architecture firm based in London, New York City, and Shanghai.

To create award-winning landscapes, she, her husband, and a team of 40 explore the relationship between landscape, art, and culture, and always challenge traditional concepts of landscape design.

Schwartz's projects span the globe; from her Dublin Docklands project in Ireland to the Children's Discovery Centre in Damascus.

To quote Ms Schwartz: "It is our goal to create a memorable and significant site for people to enjoy and from which they come away with a special sense of place.

"Utilitarian, functional, hard spaces and corridors have simply dropped off the page. They (British public spaces) are under advocated, underfunded, and underappreciated, and their impoverishment has become what we expect to see in a city.

"Today, cities are growing at a rate never seen before. We will not be able to garden ourselves around serious environmental and social issues.