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SV. Your practice amalgamates landscape, art and urbanism. How do you see the three diverse and vast fields interrelated?MS. Having worked in the field for over 30 years now, I feel that the interrelationship between these three topics has come to me over time. I came out of art and followed the earthworks artists (like Richard Long and Robert Smithson), where I observed that their artistry and manipulation of land created monumental icons that reverberated into the landscape - that is how I got started on it. Now, when I have a greater and diverse experience with the scales of spaces, I can see how the whole suggestion of art inserted into a landscape, and particularly in that of the city, can have immense positive effects. As the world has become more urbanised and the quality of life has improved, it has become a subject of importance in sustainability that the emotional and psychological impacts our surroundings have on our individual psyches are tremendous and immeasurable. Therefore, in terms of making cities a place of choice for people to live in, the regard for design, art and artistry in making wonderful places to integrate socially and having a green environment for overall health of a city is extremely important. As a side note, I was told by a colleague of mine in China that the government has decided to focus on people’s happiness. In a cityscape, happiness is in fact a product of feeling of well-being, public open space and general landscape of the city. Thus, there is a great amount of inter-relatedness between landscape, art and urbanism.

SV. Do you think landscape design can aid activation or regeneration of derelict or defunct urban centres? How?MS. Not only do I think it can, I know it can; because of the work we have done in the past. Redesigning an urban space is a great catalytic function around which things can start to happen. These landscapes can really play a big part in urban regeneration. For example, we did a project in Manchester, UK as a result of a bomb blast in 1995, where a series of left-over roads and spaces in between the buildings that were not really designed were converted into a public plaza. It is called the Exchange Square. It was designed to be a gathering place, having

ManipulatingLand

Martha Schwartz is a Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and teaches advanced design studios focusing on urban sustainability. She is also a Principal of Martha Schwartz Partners, with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and London. Her practice works internationally on a wide variety of project types and scales, focusing on developing sustainable strategies and public realm design. The practice is at the forefront of working collaboratively to develop sustainable strategies for new and regenerating cities. Schwartz has over 30 years of experience as a landscape architect and artist and has worked together with a variety of world-renowned architects.

Martha Schwartz, Principal, Martha Schwartz Partners, talks about her practice and her ideology in a dialogue with Sarita Vijayan, Editor and Brand Director, IA&B, elaborating on the connection between landscape, art and urbanism.Photographs: courtesy Martha Schwartz Partners

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To know more about the work and practice of Martha Schwartz Partners, refer to the article titled ‘Rejuvenating the Landscape’ by Hina Nitesh.

melting pot for different cultures and allow people from different socioeconomic backgrounds to amalgamate as citizens of the city. So, the urban scale landscape and public realm that is needed to create healthy cities and citizens should be the focus of landscape architecture.

SV. Why do you think that an investment in the public realm can help rejuvenating the cities at present?MS. It is clear that the state of a landscape or a park affects the properties that are around them. Any upgrade in these spaces upgrades the value of adjacent buildings. Therefore, investment in the public realm translates into an investment in individual property values as well as creating positivity amongst the people for being in the city. Many cities are competing for populations; in Europe, for instance, the urban population is depleting. The ex-mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, knew that to make London the top business capital in the world, he needed to attract people from everywhere; and get them to London by choice. Therefore, he focussed on keeping the public realm of London beautiful, green, accessible and attractive. When something is attractive, people want to be there. That is what creates value.

SV. Your landscape designs make use of metaphysical elements and symbolic objects, like in ‘51 Ornaments’. How do you interpret their meaning in a natural setting?MS. Most of our work is in settings that are not natural. ‘51 Ornaments’ is not in a natural setting, it is in a garden; meaning that it is a human-generated space that has been planted with trees and grass, which are natural, but are manicured. We, by and large, create landscapes that we live and work in. In the US, there are national parks that might be deemed natural to an extent, but have parts that are still maintained to a certain degree. Agrarian, suburban and urban landscapes are not really natural settings. I would argue that we do not put elements and objects in natural settings but we do use different kinds of elements and symbolic objects in the landscapes that we design. I think it is important to make spaces that have a strong image and can be described. I feel it is important to have something ‘there’ that makes you see the landscape in a different way. Moreover, it is always fun to try and imagine what these elements are and could mean. At the same time, since there are so many people who participate in public spaces, you want anyone from any culture and socioeconomic level to be able to bring something of their own interpretation to it. That is what makes it truly public. These metaphysical elements and symbolic objects are usually there to create focus, visual interest, excitement and perhaps mystery; something that actually marks a place and creates a memory.

SV. India has multiple high-density megapolices as urban agglomerations. How do you perceive the role of landscape design in India? MS. I do not really know enough about the practice of landscape architecture in India yet. But, I strongly feel that in developing cities, especially in developing countries such as India and China, landscape architects must have a very powerful voice to advocate the inclusion of the public realm landscape in the building of new cities and the extension of cities. Landscape architects should be on the table with the planners and architects, who are often tasked to do the master plans, to ensure a forethought about how to create an urban landscape; that, for example, it is not a car dominated environment, has connectivity on street level, has buildings that are placed correctly so people can walk easily etc. We have to become advocates for making cities healthy and beautiful places of choice for everyone.

a generous amount of seating, and had a strong focus on an ancient trench that ran along the street, which was made into a water feature. After completion, it became a popular meeting place. Commercial stores started to come in, numerous restaurants opened up and people started to sit outdoors. The plaza became a living room for the city and helped attract people back into the city. People are getting similar results with park regeneration projects around the world. For example, Millennium Park in Chicago attracted 20,000 people back into the centre of the city. It is now a 24/7 city, as opposed to a city that used to shut down at night. Millions of dollars are generated from commercial activities and tourism in and around this park. The open spaces in the cities are not only regenerating urban centres, but are attracting people to the cities. Currently, cities are competing for knowledge-based workers; for people who have a choice. In effect, you want to make these cities a place of choice for people and that actually underpins various economies.

SV. With projects across twenty countries, how do you work with site-specific issues? Do your designs focus on their social and cultural contexts? How?MS. Yes, that is a very important and central philosophy of our practice. We have a very strong focus on social and cultural context and how the spaces we design function in that setting. Before we get into any design, we do a lot of research and ask questions, take a series of snapshots for understanding and analysing a site’s hydro-geological underpinnings, its geography, social morphology, the politics surrounding it, its users, its neighbours, the kind of demographics that might affect the space, its potential future, where are people coming from, languages they speak as well as listening to the hopes and dreams of clients and the user groups. All this input is essential as it formulates a series of images, which when put together start to suggest things that could be derived from that site. After this, we go into design mode and come up with a number of directions. This enables us to get feedback from users and participants very early on; for not only the usability and functionality, but also the aesthetic direction they want to see us moving towards. In effect, we use the design process to get feedback from stakeholders before getting married to one idea. With various confluences of opinion, we come up with something different every time around.

SV. The green concerns and sustainability-related issues are primarily discussed in the realm of architecture and not effectively in landscape design. How do you see the role of landscape architecture in an overall ‘green agenda’?MS. This is something that I have researched and written significantly about. I think that our green agenda concerns with the urban scale. When dealing with sites, the things that we learn as landscape architects, especially the ones that have always been applied to site design come into play. For example, we know how to site a building based on positive solar gain, how to get a building out of the wind, how to create sun and shade pockets; we know the requirement of permeable surfaces and know the requisites of creating a habitat. We know that we have to do all this as a part of our profession and there is nothing new in it. The real and powerful effect that we can have as landscape architects is to enable densification and urbanisation and discourage lower density developments like suburbs which, according to me, are the most inefficient way of building. We should encourage the building of healthy cities that people will choose to live in, as living collectively in higher densities is more resource efficient. Our biggest role as landscape architects is to underpin densification by creating healthy cities and advocating the building of and planning for robust public realm landscapes. This would mean making gracious sidewalks to promote walkability, planting trees in a systematic way, building bicycle lanes, encouraging public transportation as well as designing a series of different kinds of open spaces that are big, small, hard and soft. In other words, to create a city where there is an array of spaces for people to choose from. Furthermore, these spaces should act like a