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Welcome back to the Design Principles podcast. I'm Ben from Bear Architecture here today with Sam from REIT Architects and Gerard from Gerard Dombrowski Workshop, and today on the show we have a very special guest, Charlotte Warren, friend of the pod. So welcome, Char. So Charlotte is a landscape architect from Wellington, currently working at Studio Pacific Architecture, and we thought we'd just bring her on the show to have a chat about landscape and how it could integrate a little bit better with our current architecture practices. Charlotte, why don't you give us a bit of an introduction and a rundown on who you are and what you're about? How you got into landscape architecture?
Charlotte Warren:Okay, hi, my name's Charlotte, to start off with, I'm a landscape architect, and just a quick rundown of exactly what landscape architecture is it is the design of outdoor environments, from the smallest courtyard or back garden through to citywide master plans. It involves the complex integration of cultural, social, environmental factors and relies on collaboration with a whole raft of people, but specifically mana, whenua, architects, engineering professions, ecologists and planners. How I sort of found myself in this space? I don't think I can kind of come to work and sort of think about land in such a capacity without my kind of upbringing as a rural kid. So I I grew up in the Wairarapa, on a farm, and I think that has a huge bearing on how I came to be a landscape architect. I fundamentally have always loved being outside and I've managed to find a profession that if I'm not outside, I'm imagining outdoor spaces always. So it's pretty critical and, yeah, I guess that's something that you and I then have in common, that kind of growing up on the land and perpetually kind of thinking about it a lot.
Ben Sutherland:Definitely. I think about it all the time, mainly around how I can use that land to ride my dirt bike or, you know, your paddock car or get up to travel, and how much more freedom you have growing up on a farm. True.
Charlotte Warren:I'm pretty terrible with machinery, so motorbikes were never my forte.
Sam Brown:Awesome.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, maybe potentially why I've come to be an urban dweller now is because me and vehicles don't really mix. But no, but yeah. And so just quickly on kind of my background to date, I studied down at Lincoln following the Christchurch earthquakes, which was a very incredible time to move to a new city as a fresh-faced 18-year-old and meet people and study with people and lecturers who are all kind of reeling from the loss of their city and that really made me understand the connection that people have to place into their city. And that's kind of stuck with me and is kind of a cornerstone of my practice is really thinking about that connection to place and fostering that. And I'm very fortunate to have studied at that time in that city where the course was just largely tailored around. You know, landscape is memorial and how does the city rebuild it was, it was really formative yeah, that's crazy.
Ben Sutherland:How so did you? Were you enrolled in to study down there prior to the earthquakes? At some point? Did you have kind of like I guess, like second guess your commitment to going and studying down there?
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, well, you can either sort of study in one of the three cities here in New Zealand, either For me growing up in the wider Gulf of Wellington, was much too close and Auckland is a as a farm kid, and so Christchurch felt like a good, a good balance.
Charlotte Warren:But yeah, so the the second earthquake happened in September and I had to make that decision of do I still go? And I I decided to go and I don't regret it for a minute. It was, yeah, it was a fantastic university scene in lots of ways. You know, there was no town, so it was very kind of a lot of flat parties and a lot of fun and a lot of kind of longstanding friendships were formed through that time. So, and then from a studying point of view, you know, all the course was tailored around earthquake recovery, which was which was an amazing pivot. But yeah, from there I've since worked in auckland, london and now wellington, so I've moved around a bit and I think that's kind of given me a good perspective of different ways in which people approach practice and obviously different density. And yeah, particularly seeing what's happening over in the UK really makes you think about what we should be doing here in little New Zealand.
Sam Brown:This might be jumping in a bit quick, charlotte, but it'd be really interesting to know how much of that study, or that time studying Christchurch post-earthquake, is now reflected in your work around maybe resilience or other sort of disaster recovery.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, I mean I've not been kind of lucky or lucky is a sort of difficult word but I mean, obviously, what's happening in New Zealand right now. We see you know the effects of climate change and landscapes needing to respond to that, and and you know how you kind of create safe spaces and spaces that deal with the kind of forces of nature be it massive flood events or or earthquakes is obviously a little bit difficult to plan for. But but the events up in in auckland, the, the flooding over the anniversary, uh yeah, and and the work that landscape architects have done to, um, kind of future-proof some of those more dense urban environments, is is pretty amazing and, you know, continues to be critical as we, as we increase the density of our cities nice.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, that whole concept of densification I guess is is pretty hectic and I can imagine it would have been like a complete contrast. Your work in England as well, as opposed to little old Wellington. What were some of the earnings, I guess, from working over there or working abroad and travelling that you brought back to Wellington?
Charlotte Warren:Well, I think the thing about London as a city is it's a masterclass in that medium density scale. There's a lot of fantastic terrace housing, there's a lot of great apartments, be it kind of you know four story up to what I think less, less a fan of is the 30 story stuff. But it's a city that kind of knows you know, it knows how to do density and it plans for it. It's got great park provisions like public transport, good streets and that that is entirely by design, that is good planning policy and that's a city valuing civic space. And so I guess when you kind of think about how they live over there and trying to bring that back to New Zealand, it's difficult. I'm not advocating for a sort of copy-paste scenario, but there are really good learnings about how we as a society can sort of start to feel more comfortable living at higher density.
Gerard Dombroski:Are there any key sort of decisions that they've made that you sort of look at as being ones that really bring it together?
Charlotte Warren:Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski:How is the city so liveable? And specifically by design, I guess.
Charlotte Warren:From a landscape perspective. You know a huge part of my role was the Greater London Authority had this place-based calculator which essentially you plugged in how many units the development was going to have, you know, be it three-bedroom, four-bedroom, whether that was open market or whether it was social housing, and that gave, based based off, you know, previous developments like an anticipated number of children who would be living on that site and at what age, and that gave you an amount, an area of play space, that you should be accounting for in your development that's so interesting, that collection or that.
Ben Sutherland:I guess they've got a lot of data to draw from, but I can imagine that would be such a powerful design tool to work with. We should definitely need to up our game in that realm, that's for sure.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah so how does that sort of play out on each sort of project scale, like if you've got subdividing a section or something in New Zealand and you're putting eight units on, would you then have to be required to have a little bit of shared public play space? How does that sort of work?
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, I mean eight units is probably of a slightly smaller scale than when this calculator would come into play, but when you're sort of looking at sort of 30 units, that would be when and honestly I can't quite recall the threshold. But I guess it's just something philosophically for us to kind of think about. If you were to prioritize, you know, just the consideration of children living in these urban environments, I don't feel like here in New Zealand we quite allow for that, feel like here in New Zealand we we quite allow for that. I think the psychology is very much that you live in medium density either prior to having children or when children have left home, and then you know that that period in the middle you very much need your backyard yeah, I guess, like there's, there's a discussion there of um, like I guess modernism was an example of architects trying to work with landscape in a very utopian sort of way.
Gerard Dombroski:Let's make the buildings tall and give everyone a shitload of green space and then a lot of those turn to shit. I guess we're urbanly probably not super safe places for people to hang out in yeah like a structured response to that style, like Robin Hood Gardens. Whilst beautiful architecture maybe less favourable public space.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, I think those kind of you know, the tower and the park concepts of urbanism were quite often inherently and quite badly situated sites and what was actually offered on the ground was often, you know, fairly minimal. You essentially had a huge tower and not much else, and then, I'd argue, not much connection to that space.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, really not much to work with.
Charlotte Warren:I'd say it was a failure of the architect to engage a landscape architect in modernism or potentially, lead to its demise.
Sam Brown:That's a good question, then, charlotte. I mean so often and you asked this before we started on the recording like how many of us have actually worked with a landscape architect before? I personally haven't, and Gerard said that he has, but, you know, not in any sort of continuous or meaningful way. I mean, it sounds like we should be engaging with landscape architects from you know the initial stages of a project. I mean, there's a chance, I guess, for you to advocate for yourselves here, but do you want to just sort of outline why the importance of landscape architects and integrating a building into the sort of society well, the built environment rather than it just being like an isolated structure?
Charlotte Warren:yeah, sure, I think as landscape architects we are trained to think about space in a systems way, be it ecological systems or social systems, connectivity, ways of living, those sorts of things, those, those concepts of how land is is is used, are quite fundamental to the way in which we think about design. And so even just to think about it on a residential scale, in the kind of conversations that you know you have with your clients about what clients, about what type of meals they have as a family Are they people who are big entertainers, or is mealtime not a particularly significant thing and that's how you start to kind of shape the design of the kitchen there. It's the same thinking of how you ultimately want to behave on your land. Is that? Do you want to be creating a scenario where you know the idea of you know Tui's visiting you at home and thinking through okay, well, I want to be sitting in my back garden and I want to be able to hear the sound of the Tui, which is, I think, the ultimate dream for any New Zealander who's fortunate enough to have a back garden. But you sort of start to think about those concepts and build out a design based on that, in terms of species, in terms of spaces be it for social or, more contemplative, obviously, production, all those sorts of things.
Charlotte Warren:I think the integration with the site and with the broader context is really critical. But it's that whole piece, isn't it? It's designing spaces in the same way that architects do to live the life you ultimately want to live, and creating that through the lands. The thing that I think our real strength as landscape architects and, amongst other things, is the levels piece. I think, as landscape architects, compared to architects, levels is something we really understand and and really try and work with and utilize. I mean, my life for the past year has been ramps and stairs and integration with levels and all sorts of things, so I've been busy with the detailed design project, but I think that that is, yeah, that's our real strength is that is that systems thinking and and that integration integration.
Sam Brown:You put that really beautifully and it's interesting. I'm sitting here in lake hawaia looking out my window and the landscape surrounding this township is it's breathtaking, it's absolutely stunning. But the township itself, particularly the new development areas that I'm looking at at here, is stark and almost apocalyptic, and it's so clear that landscape's not been taken into account on any site really whatsoever, and it's a shame really, and I mean I'm really coming at this from a residential perspective, but there's so much scope for better engagement with the environment around and it seems like it's almost a necessity that landscape architects are engaged to sort of help better these, particularly these suburban developments.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, this is something I kind of find interesting. Throughout history, when you purchase a property and you intend to build a typical residential house, that really only involves the design and construction of the actual building itself. Never includes a landscape designer of any description, or very rarely. Which is quite interesting in its own right, though, because basically what that means is you have your bit of land and your house is kind of plonked on it, and then, over the year or two, it's up to the owners or the occupants to craft that landscape or sculpture that landscape in a way that they want to, I guess. So there's still something quite nice about that.
Ben Sutherland:I guess it's quite a nice thought. However, as our cities can identify, even in places like how we are, especially with like the medium density realm, you actually have to design the landscaping within that project, so it's meant to be like a little mini replica, I guess they say, of what we, what we use a quarter acre style living but the the developers kind of already contracted a landscape architect and tried to I don't know if it's just to dress up the, the building, or if it's well, I guess it is a necessity for resource consent, but it's just interesting that now we are required to do some sort of design, although it's terrible compared to standalone residential, where you don't have that requirement at all and it kind of just grows naturally.
Ben Sutherland:What are your thoughts on that kind of natural manner of landscaping versus the more planned landscaping shelf?
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, well, I think I guess it depends on the person, doesn't it? Or if you take just a purely standard 7,500 square metre section, the 200 square metre house goes on it and then there's essentially 300 square metres left. So the way of thinking of it is it's like half of the site has been considered in some ways, and what do you do with the rest? And yeah, I think that in so many ways, the kind of integration with architects and landscape architects, it's such a happy marriage.
Charlotte Warren:You know, we, we have quite often very similar training, but I did architects, residential architects in particular. There's, there's just it feels like there is a real opportunity to start to integrate landscape architecture into a residential context, and there's there's lots of landscape architects doing it and there's lots of landscape designers doing it. But I think it's a society valuing that and and what you can ultimately get out of that, because it's kind of like a utilization of half of what you've got, which, from a farming perspective, is this would be a poor utilization of land in some ways but, anyway, but that's kind of one thing.
Charlotte Warren:You know you can get so much out of outdoor environments.
Charlotte Warren:I think if you sort of think about your happiest memories, it's often when you're outside and you know you can really create that with your own space and as as designers we're, we're spatial in the way we think, but actually a lot of society isn't, and there is real value of integrating a landscape architect into your work because you'll find that the outcome isn't what you would have imagined otherwise.
Charlotte Warren:I think the question about kind of medium density environments, that's when things, in particular in New Zealand, are getting really thorny. You know you go and you walk up Mount Iron and you look at what's happening in Wanaka in terms of the spread of sort of those. You know single detached homes at an alarming rate spreading out into what is an incredibly beautiful landscape. You know you have to question at what point when sites, you know, when they get smaller and smaller, at what point would you be happier in an apartment where you could look at the mountains rather than look into a Pinus radiata 1.8-metre fence that's, you know, three metres from your living room window? I mean it's a pretty interesting time. Residential design in new zealand and particularly, I think, down south and in around those lakes yeah, the shrinking, the shrinking lot size is a big concern.
Sam Brown:I mean, you look, you're talking about lot sizes up to 200 square meters, with 150 square meter house on them in some instances, and it's all they have, is that four. You know that four meter circle of outdoor space and that's it really.
Ben Sutherland:But would you prefer that? Environments but do. Would you prefer that or would you prefer everyone to just go out and have their own quarter acre section like? Would you prefer spread or would you prefer densification? That's the thing. Surely densification is a better answer.
Sam Brown:I think so.
Gerard Dombroski:You can't take a city from apartment block to paddock.
Ben Sutherland:No, I 100% agree, there's always going to be a blurring.
Sam Brown:There has to be a blurring, the mountain has to crumble right. So there's always going to be that built-up area in the center of whatever place it be, be it a city, be it a township, around all the facilities and infrastructure and the amenities, and then it's going to always find grain out. But I don't disagree then that I think, and charlotte, you know that the sprawl is the issue. The issue here is that there is no peak, it's essentially a very small mound and then a very, very, very, very, very long sort of decline down to farmland yeah.
Gerard Dombroski:I think there's like a bit of an error in making well, a making houses that's slightly smaller than your section, which is pretty horrible. We all love a pine fence, but I think as well for, like the age of the city, like you get those older suburbs that have trees and like a mix of housing, whereas a lot of these suburbs are never going to have a mix, they're all just going to be spec city like. At least with the older plot layouts they were quite deep. It actually allows for that subdivision over time. So maybe in those outer zones you have larger section sizes that one day, if there's another micro city or another transport node out there that requires densification, then it's less jarring of a bowling the whole city. I think there's discussion around tying landscape architects more into the architecture process is pretty epic and it's definitely something I've started to notice within my practice.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, just because the connection to earth with your building is so integral to the outcome of your architecture. Quite often it gets taken out because it's cost-cutting or value engineering. The client gets you into the job and they've got no money, which is the realities of it sometimes.
Ben Sutherland:But to have a plan in place is pretty important, and a good example of that is the one you're working on for your mum at the moment, isn't it, where you've basically built the house around a courtyard style? I mean, courtyard architecture is definitely a fad at the moment the house is.
Gerard Dombroski:we've called the house the secret garden house just because mum talked about the secret garden story as a kid, so we said this kind of romantic notion of a fence and then through the fence is this magical pine fence so you don't see it from the outside. It looks like a building from the outside when you come inside.
Ben Sutherland:Secret garden.
Gerard Dombroski:Hopefully a magical courtyard which we started planting fairly early on.
Sam Brown:Yeah, that's what I was.
Gerard Dombroski:By the time you get to the end of the job.
Sam Brown:That's what I was going to say. I mean, you've taken a really interesting and pragmatic approach in that you've sort of semi-finished the building and now planting to let it build up. So at the completion it's like well established. I mean, charlotte, how often do you get that opportunity to integrate landscape into the architecture during the construction process, or is it so often not necessarily an afterthought but certainly a post sort of? Building construction approach or thought uh I mean in.
Charlotte Warren:In my case, when I'm working on larger civic realm projects. It's very much at the forefront. It's not, it's not kind of considered this, this phase of work that happens in after architecture. It's very much an integrated thing. But I I mean it depends. I mean in the residential context. What happens a lot these days is that in a streetscape and open space context, the council requires the developer to build those elements first so that the plants are established at the point that people move in. So that is quite often what happens and but I mean, I guess it entirely depends on the client and what they prioritize.
Charlotte Warren:If architecture is kind of and I think maybe that's, you know, that's somewhere I think something that architects could potentially look to develop in that residential context is is thinking of the two in tandem and bringing an landscape architect in at that concept stage. And that's not to say that they'd be engaged to other projects certainly not but that they can start to. You can work together and influence the outcome to create something. That's richer than thinking of the two as two independent pieces, because it is so interlinked that indoor and outdoor space. If you get that right, both at any scale, then the project is so much better for it.
Ben Sutherland:Just out of curiosity, do you see much value engineering in landscape architecture, kind of like for general architecture or a house or something? You may design something, but then over time it gets refined down to its essence, so to speak. Is that like a similar thing in landscape.
Charlotte Warren:Yes, landscape architecture certainly is immune to value engineering, unfortunately. Yeah, it's an ongoing, it is. It is as prevalent in our industry as it is in yours. Obviously, that's you know, you start, you know, if you're thinking just that, that you know same things it's finish of. You know all surfaces, all those sorts of things, quality of of of fixed furniture, plants, both species, selection and grade, the size of plants, depth of topsoil, you know, nothing is immune. It's all considered in that value engineering exercise.
Ben Sutherland:Just interesting because it exists. It certainly exists. I guess this is debatable, but more in the public realm and potentially more in the public realm than I guess that is debatable, but more in the public realm, potentially more in the public realm, then I guess that's not true. Architecture is in the same context, is extremely public as well, but I guess it creates the in-between spaces which is used a lot every day. So I wouldn't have thought they'd be skimping on resilience and material quality and that sort of thing. But yeah, it's interesting.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, well, I mean, it's the difference of material. It might be moving from a natural stone finish to an exposed aggregate finish, or reducing the amount of hardscape and increasing the amount of softscape, which in and of itself is, you know, that's something that landscape architects are always trying to get that balance just right, providing enough hardscape, you know, paving, paved areas, sealed areas to allow whatever social functions you need in terms of both movement and dwelling, but then having as much softscape as you possibly can to, you know, obviously, from an environmental point of view, you know, with planting and regeneration and trying to improve the ecological quality of that area, and then also mitigation of stormwater. You know that's a, that's a huge piece of of landscape architecture and, you know, in the coming years and incoming projects, even now you're seeing particularly, or anywhere really, the necessity for stormwater to be considered in the design.
Sam Brown:I'd be really interested, charlotte, to sort of feed it down a little bit deeper. You just touched on it a little bit, I guess, in terms of your balance between softscape and hardscape, but I'd be really interested to get a little bit more of an insight into sort of your design process and how you come up with those judgment calls and material selections and things like that.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, well, I'm just trying to think of a good example to talk through it. But essentially, yeah, it's always difficult because obviously through the winter months, months having too much softscape, ie too much too much lawn or or planting, can kind of if it's if it's a civic realm project in particular kind of limit the usability of that space through through the winter months. So that kind of encourages more hardscape but then conversely, that has a higher carbon footprint in terms of um, you know the, the buildup and all those sorts of things, and then also limits usability in the summer months. So it's a hard one to kind of it's very site specific and you know the levels conversation always works into it if you're working with like a flat site or a hilly site, if you're working with like a flat site, or a hilly site, but essentially I'm always advocating for as much shaftscape as we possibly can, just from trying to lower the carbon footprint as much as possible.
Charlotte Warren:And yeah, just I think ultimately hardscape is the default material and often it doesn't need to be. I think, particularly when you head over to Europe, even spaces which are much more used here in New Zealand material, and often it doesn't need to be. I think, particularly when you head over to europe, even spaces which are much more used here in new zealand people are very content with gravel and hogging, whereas here we, you know we love exposed aggregates.
Sam Brown:So default surface always and how often are you sort of taking into existing site conditions and or like the history of the site when you're considering those areas as well?
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, always, always, it's very critical and you know, civic realm projects, the engagement, the sort of co-design process with Mana Whenua is critically important and you know that's something as landscape architects we've really built our capacity in, you know, um, in recent years in particular. And so when you, when you attend the institute's awards evening, it's mana whenua who are up there taking those awards and and rightly so, they're, they're integral to the design process and they really shape and enrich a project and, um, yeah, so it's, it's, it's, it's a very important piece of work. But then obviously there's, you know, there's other histories to consider there, in terms of European history as well. So that is a layer.
Charlotte Warren:But yeah, that site assessment from that cultural lens is really significant. And then obviously the ecological lens as well. You know what ecology was there and trying your utmost to try and recreate that sort of providing habitat for birds. You know what ecology was there and trying your utmost to try and recreate that sort of providing habitat for birds. You know, choosing your plant selection. If you get that right, you know you've got your tui and your back garden and that's so special, so it's critical.
Sam Brown:It's interesting. You know you've seen those sort of examples of reclaimed cities where the landscape sort of you know, the city's being left derelict for whatever reason be it post-nuclear fallout or something along those lines and you know nature's sort of reclaimed the city and it's been left to grow organically. It must be quite hard to strike that balance between fabricating spaces and letting it grow organically. It would be interesting to get your take on how you sort of balance that.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, in sort of urban environments, that's a particular struggle because you're also trying to balance, you know, safety concerns and facilitating passive surveillance after dark and preserving sight lines through space.
Charlotte Warren:So they're often governed. You know, creating a lower story which is kind of below 1,200 and then having clear stem trees which is kind of, you know, the canopy starts at two metres high to create safe outdoor space. And I mean that's a critical part of landscape design and a huge piece of my work is, particularly as a female landscape architect is, you know the equality in space after dark really governs design decisions. So it's a really big battle that is getting that right. But ultimately there's a lot you can do in regenerative planting, you know, in terms of improving ecological value and bringing species back. You know, in terms of improving ecological value and bringing species back, we, we know a lot about what birds, how much um area birds need in order to be in, you know, to to habitat in that zone, and we can work pretty hard and go a long way to kind of creating those spaces for them it's amazing.
Sam Brown:I've never really thought about that like two-tiered planting and keeping those clear lines of sight. I mean I guess it's a realm I've not worked in before and yeah, it's just fascinating to hear that you know to that level of detail, you know even the planting and separation and openness is considered at school.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, I've always thought basically exactly what you're talking about. I'm not sure where you're getting this information from about the plants and the species and the bird life and that sort of thing, but I've always thought it would be awesome to have like a map of your region that shows what plants work best, growing in what areas and what percentage currently exists there and you know, like I guess like a bit more data around what could be planted to improve the environment within that region and basically what you're talking about with bringing bird life back and especially like bees and that sort of thing. So it's really cool to hear you talk about that sort of thing and I'd love to know where you're getting that information from, because I've tried to look before. That's. Yeah, it must be pretty deep in there.
Charlotte Warren:No, yeah, Greater Wellington Regional Council has a 12-carat zones within the kind of wider Wellington region, which encompasses the wider upper as well, and the kind of remnant plants that would have been there and that are now there and gives you an incredible list of really good plants to use that are kind of local to to that area. But yeah to you to your point about that pseudo pacific actually prior to my time produced the green work, green network plan for wellington city council and that sort of talks about. You know how big of role actually the private space has to play in people planting the correct things in their back garden and what that can do for increasing both canopy coverage and bird life in our cities. So there is a lot we can do within the residential design space to increase both the ecological value of our cities and the bird life in our cities.
Sam Brown:I'll put a link to that in our show notes. Sorry, just quickly. Yeah, I'll put a link to that in our show notes because, you're right, charlotte, it's a pretty incredible little document.
Ben Sutherland:It's a powerful tool.
Sam Brown:Lots of people don't know where to find it. Sorry, Gerard, go for it, mate.
Gerard Dombroski:The species chat. I find quite a key one. Chat, I find quite a key one. I kind of wish all the architecture kids at uni had to do at least one landscape paper just to kind of give like a little bit of base understanding. I think it would go a long way to helping all this. But around the the species stuff, sometimes I get a little frustrated that some developments only do native plants or something. So I'm a big blossom fan, love a blossom. So in mum's house we've got absolutely chaos. Everything Lots of colour, lots of things going on, as well as natives. We've got cool fire. Where we've got we've got a mini rata or something. But like around around species chat, do you want to give us a little rundown on what's what's your go-to and what are some bangers that we can pull out for?
Ben Sutherland:our projects and don't say egg of panthers do not say anything
Charlotte Warren:I. I heard your um you comment about agapanthus. They're actually. Agapanthus are officially a weed in this country.
Sam Brown:They're really the problem. What about gorse?
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, yeah, they're one of those plants that was kind of bought in and was very popular and now they are. Yeah, they're a big problem, but their their root system makes them very cumbersome to get rid of. So that, yeah they're, they're on my hip list. I'm not an agar panther fan, even when they're in full bloom. I don't. I don't understand their sort of respect value.
Sam Brown:Um, I've found a partner in crime. Team anti agar panthers I stand in solidarity.
Charlotte Warren:But yes to your, to your point, gerard, that's, yeah, the, the grizzolinia literalis, which we sort of colloquially known as the developer's hedge, which has this very hardy it's actually native green, sort of quite waxy, quite bright green waxy leaf. That's also on my hit list. It's called the developer's hedge because it's just been completely overused. It's hardy and it grows everywhere.
Sam Brown:So that's, that's definitely on my hit list I was going to plant one of those tomorrow, should I not?
Charlotte Warren:actually down down south there's a grizzly linear canterbury which has a smaller leaf, that's less waxy and it's actually really I quite like that. I just specifically have beef with the grizzly linear littoralis.
Sam Brown:I can't tell you which one it is.
Charlotte Warren:And then we have spheridated dog plant. Oh really.
Sam Brown:Okay, no sure.
Charlotte Warren:But yeah, I think, yeah, the thing about our native species is they've evolved with the ecology that we've got, so obviously with no mammals. Here in new zealand we have white things to attract, which was white things to attract birds, white flowers to attract birds and blue things to attract lizards or insects. So that's sort of why we have quite we don't have particularly. You know, we have quite a muted colour palette in terms of our flowers. But I'm not opposed to the use of exotics, but I think that the value that you have in terms of improving the ecological value, I think planting should be predominantly native, but the kind of accents of exotics is definitely. I'm not opposed to a cherry either. I quite like a cherry.
Gerard Dombroski:A gingko. I didn't know that colour thing.
Sam Brown:Yeah, that's fascinating, is it?
Ben Sutherland:yellow for bees as well, or did I just make that up?
Charlotte Warren:Blue is a taito. That's how it's pronounced. If that's wrong, ben, we're going to have to cut that out. I think that's how it's pronounced. If that's wrong, ben, we're going to have to cut it out. But yeah, what are some plants that I really like at the moment?
Charlotte Warren:Euphorbia that's probably my favourite. You see that quite a lot. It's a coastal plant and it's just very wavy. I like the plants. I mean maybe it's part of being a Wellingtonian that really move in the wind. So any grasses, you know, we're so lucky in New Zealand We've got such beautiful kerricks. There's a conica, I have a real.
Charlotte Warren:I tend to just know the sort of botanical name, but I put absolutely no energy in my life to the correct pronunciation. So if any landscape architects listen to this, they're just kidding their hands at how she pronounces things, because it's truly it's not a focus of mine, but it should be. I write them, I didn't say them. What are some plant? The plants that I really like? Auckland, actually, I, I must confess, because they're in a subtropical band. They're just a little bit further north. They have access to a few beautiful trees that we don't quite have down here. And then South Island again, I mean that's quite interesting. The South Island because, in particular, where you are, sam, in that they have, you know that quite that real adoption of the deciduous trees which must make being down at this time of year quite beautiful. It's something that's important but it is actually really it's quite nice.
Charlotte Warren:Driving through Arrowtown today.
Sam Brown:Yeah, they're just turning and driving through Arrowtown today it's sort of it's hitting that autumn glow. It is pretty stunning. Unfortunately, in Hawi there are only pines, so yeah. All wild, yeah, wild and pines and a bit of eucalypt um surprisingly I can see out my window, but it's all right.
Gerard Dombroski:I just like deciduous trees. I quite like. Using them in architecture projects is like you can have them near a building but then and use them for their inherent qualities when they lose their leaves or whatever summer shade and winter light. So that's a pretty epic temperature moderation tool, which is kind of why we've got them in the courtyard at Mum's house. We're trying to create kind of like a semi-cool zone so that that kind of creates a chimney effect and then the other sides are hot, so trying to pull air through. So I think there's such a huge toolkit there that I wish I knew more about that you can really use to ground and enrich your architecture.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, absolutely, charlotte. What is your opinion? This is for the Gerard dombroski's of the world. Are you pro architects doing landscape or do you think it's more of a stick to your lane type of thing? Have you? Have you seen a lot of architects? Kind of so much because you know a designer. Designers in general seem to think that you know they can design anything. So, yeah, what's your opinion on that?
Charlotte Warren:well, I think I think you know to. To answer honestly, I wouldn't attempt to design a building, I guess. Well, I guess it's sort of like… it's a tough question.
Gerard Dombroski:Is that a claim? You'll?
Ben Sutherland:make. No, I want this here.
Charlotte Warren:Okay, I'll re-answer this.
Charlotte Warren:I think in my experience and then that comes with working in a big studio and working on big projects is the more exposure you have to people who are specialists in their field be it wayfinding specialists, be it an ecologist, be it an architect the richer the design is because you, as a designer, know your lane really well and although you're trained and you have a sense of things, your skill set only goes so far and so you know, for example, a planting list. We can put together a really good planting list, but if an ecologist is to review that planting list, they'll be able to pull that on by such a way, because they just have that technical understanding and skill set that I don't have. Well, I do have, but they're going to be better at it. And I think that's the same for architects. These architects can kind of eke into the world of landscape architects and some architects are fantastic landscape designers, but we think about things and we approach problems in different ways, and I think the richest projects are ones that involve all of those skill sets.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, that must be quite hard sometimes as well because it is a bit of a blurred line, especially in the residential realm. We've had a bunch of projects where we want to be so involved in how the actual layout of the landscape or the surrounding context works, just so it is integrated nicely with the actual building itself that potentially it has in some areas detracted a little bit from. We had a landscape from an earlier timeframe.
Sam Brown:Charlotte, it was interesting to hear you just talk about wayfinding specialists and ecologists. Are they sort of would you consider them like subsets of landscape architecture? Are they separate consultants that you'd also sort of engage with through the landscape design process?
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, those are entirely different professions, so depending on the size of projects, you know wayfinding specialists is an emerging field, both within architecture and landscape architects. That is just invaluable. You go to an airport and you know when a wayfinding consultant hasn't been on board, because you're running around blindly trying to find your gate. And then there's other airports you go to and the experience is just completely seamless. Or you know when you're navigating through a city and the sign where do I go next? And then you just look up and there's this sign there. That's when a good wayfinding specialist has been engaged and you see that, in particular, some of the work. That's when a good wayfinding specialist has been engaged and you see that, in particular, some of the work that's happening in Auckland, in central Auckland right now, that's the work of really good wayfinding specialists.
Sam Brown:Isn't it?
Charlotte Warren:Yeah. Yeah, it's a really cool field, but they tend to only work on, obviously, wayfinding, by nature, is large in size, so that's when you're working on much, much broader projects. I mean, it's definitely a skill that landscape architects have, but in some cases it's wayfinding specialists. Quite often there's a strong integration with graphic design, so they'll also design the signage and things, and so quite often it's a separate piece. Sometimes it's folded into the scope of a landscape architect, but other times it's a separate consultant.
Gerard Dombroski:To go back a little bit to landscape, do you think landscape architects have much of like an aesthetic language? The only one I can think of is Peter Rudolph, who's, I think, got a very strong visual language.
Charlotte Warren:I guess it's sort of a difficult question. I think there's definitely, I mean, similar to architecture in that there are defined styles, but, and you know, an architect who is designing a home in Auckland wouldn't design the same home that they were building in Queenstown, for example. So it's you know that there might be some linking elements or linking styles, but that site-specific element is quite different.
Gerard Dombroski:That would be sweet.
Charlotte Warren:What was it sorry?
Gerard Dombroski:I'll just throw some schist on it. Yeah, yeah.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, but I think with landscape architecture potentially more so than architecture you're working at typically a much larger scale. So the site and the levels of the site, what it's connecting to you know the demands on it means that architecture or sort of a design style across one practice is potentially harder to find.
Sam Brown:Would you say that you have a, a design, not necessarily style, but like a design flair or something that you look to integrate in all the work that you do? Be it, I don't really know, like a style of seating or style of ramping or planting, or the way you lay something out like is there something that you could draw? Our last discussion was about sort of the lineage of our design and creating like chronology through, uh, design development. Would you say that you've created that through your landscape design?
Charlotte Warren:yeah, I think that's potentially less of a focus for for my work. I think what ultimately drives my work is responding to social or environmental issues and that kind of informs things, potentially more so than a specific design language. I think I'm quite happy for the aesthetic in some ways to be quite site specific. I think landscape architecture, although it is inherently beautiful, I think aesthetic is potentially less of a focus than it is inherently beautiful. I think aesthetic is potentially less of a focus than it is in architecture. I think what kind of you know, functionality and meaning and and those responding to kind of social, cultural, environmental stuff governs, governs the outcome more so than an aesthetic drive. I I don't know if that's probably safe, but there would probably be landscape architects who'd be screaming at this and very much disagree with me, but I sort of think of landscape architecture in that way. It's more of an integration of those other elements than aesthetics.
Gerard Dombroski:It's such a big field, being 99% of the earth.
Charlotte Warren:That's not to say it's all designed by landscape architects, though we're not holding the pen everywhere.
Sam Brown:I heard a claim the other day that the Amazon is like 70% designed because they've found like cultivations of species of plants that are like en masse, that don't make sense naturally, and so that were the massive cities, the mine, yeah also apparently the population of the amazon's decreased by something like 30 or 40. Maybe it's even more than than that.
Charlotte Warren:But sorry, that's a bit of a digression, but I guess what I'm leaning to is maybe the earth is all designed but it's not getting into theology.
Gerard Dombroski:I think the cultures that were in the Amazon were real into soil prep. They could get crazy things to grow there in epic ways when I was doing a large commercial project. Just the soil prep wasn't really considered in the workflow that well and definitely something I'd spend a lot more attention on next, next time, because partially because, uh, the planting all got value engineered out and I couldn't live with that so I decided to plant it all myself.
Ben Sutherland:And how many did you?
Gerard Dombroski:plant. Oh, it was thousands. It was like four or five ute loads on my ute. They're all fairly small because the budget dropped, so the plant size has dropped.
Charlotte Warren:Sorry, sam, just to circle back to your point before about design landscapes. I mean that was certainly the case here in Wellington. You know there were huge cultivated sites that the tribes, the various iwi, were using here prior to colonisation were using. Here prior to colonisation there was massive cultivation fields, sort of you know. Further south of where Te Arau, where the CBD is, you know there was rich wetlands. It was all kind of cultivated to sustain life here in the city. A similar example down in Christchurch where cabbage trees were used across the plains as a navigation field. So there were, you know, iwis across New Zealand had very much shaped spaces to, you know, for their sustenance. So we have that history here in New Zealand and you know that's a huge part of landscape architecture is trying to shed light on that and trying to go some way to making that known to the public. Because, yeah, it's definitely. You know we have that history in New Zealand.
Sam Brown:Yeah, that's really beautiful. That way of finding things is really cool. I think that's fascinating. That is the epitome of a design landscape really interesting to see, you know, to see that maintained somehow on a larger scale, you know, outside of sort of urban projects, and whether that could be integrated into sort of rural environments a little bit more.
Gerard Dombroski:But yeah, that's, the country's gone too far.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, exactly the um but the topsoil thing to ride is also really interesting. And that you know with yeah, that's good, get to the country, it's gone too far, yeah, exactly. But the topsoil thing to ride is also really interesting in that, you know, with large-scale greenfield development here they sort of just rip the top 300 mil of topsoil off, scrape it all back and then Start again.
Charlotte Warren:Yeah, it's a real problem and it's such a. You know those. You know I'm not an architect, but those you know, those concrete slabs that you know we build houses on these days. It's not how we used to, you know, yeah, but from an environmental point of view, the kind of treatment of topsoil here is very kind of elementary in our understanding of it. And there's, you know, there's work going on and there's learning going on and I'm very much at the first front door of it. But, yeah, that preservation of topsoil and how it can be more sympathetic in urban development is the next hurdle, both for architects and landscape architects.
Ben Sutherland:There's a great document called Kiss the Earth. I think it's Kiss the Earth or Kiss the Ground. It's so interesting. Everyone should watch it because it's absolutely mind-blowing about soil degradation. It's going to have a huge impact on on our crops and potentially less so in this country, significantly noticeable in america, but yeah, that soil was key.
Charlotte Warren:Takes a very long I think a centimetre of topsoil was grown a year in terms of the creation of the humus layer and how that works and so you really have to protect it and you don't value it enough. But maybe that's kind of the farming side of me the preservation of topsoil and how special it is, and my dad spends a lot of time trying to get that just right, to get the crops and the plants humming. It's so critical and, yeah, in urban environments we can do much better.
Sam Brown:I'll link that Kiss the Ground film in the show notes as well. Yeah, awesome.
Gerard Dombroski:Do you have any landscape architects that you look to for all right, just for froth or for reference or for inspiration?
Charlotte Warren:awesome job, yeah oh well, maybe, sam, to your point of the aesthetics. There was a landscape architect who I was introduced to his work at university and I still just think it's so amazing now. His name's Kung Chang Yu. He is a Chinese landscape architect who his whole philosophy is this idea of big, beautiful feet, and so basically what he means by that is in China, historically, it was very beautiful to bind the woman's feet, which aesthetically was beautiful but had very poor function, and so his whole idea is that big, functional feet are beautiful too, and so to create landscapes that are beautiful and functional, ie having a production value in terms of land or having a stormwater attenuation value. And I think that really speaks to me and potentially that's my real upbringing, but that idea that we need to create these multifunctional spaces that meet both our needs and the environment's needs Beautiful. You should look at his work. He's amazing, he does fantastic stuff. Amazing, that sounds awesome awesome.
Ben Sutherland:Well, thanks so much for coming to talk to us today. Charlotte and I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation. I'm sure these guys did as well yeah, I've learnt a lot.
Sam Brown:Actually, it's been really insightful, thank you let's wrap it up there sweet as always.
Gerard Dombroski:Thanks to Jacob for the sound, connor for the drawings and Ben for the producing. I just cut out all my own stuff and also if you have any questions or topic ideas, we would love to hear from you, so feel free to message on the Instagram or our email, which is info at designprinciples.
Sam Brown:Info at designprinciplespodcom. And just a quick shout out and thank you to the NZIA who have been supporting us over these last couple of weeks. It's nice to have the I guess the National Architects Club, for want of a better term advocating for us and hopefully they continue to do so. And yeah, once again, thank you very much, charlotte, awesome, thank you. I'm out.