Designing in Challenging Times, A Shift in Perspective
Garden & Landscape Designers Association Annual Seminar – online – 27 February 2021
To design in challenging times is to design in interesting times. Challenges, whether they be environmental, economic or societal, bring about change and garden designers must respond to that change with new perspectives and creativity.
This is the premise that has not only moved the Garden & Landscape Designers Association’s (GLDA’s) annual seminar online next February, but has also prompted the theme, Designing in Challenging Times, A Shift in Perspective. The event, which takes place on Saturday, 27th February 2021, also marks the launch of a year-long celebration for the Association’s 25th Anniversary.
Tickets for the live-streamed seminar are available to purchase now from www.GLDA.ie as follows:
- Non-member €70
- Non-member & 1 year Friend subscription) €110
- Member €60
- Student & 1 year Student membership €45
How are designers around the world rising to these challenges? The speakers addressing the seminar next February have been invited to share their responses and ideas in these current challenging times; to explain how the challenges have influenced their work and their perspectives on landscape and garden design, both now and in the future.
To mark the GLDA’s 25th Anniversary year, several popular speakers who have addressed seminars in the past have been invited to participate again. They include:
- Aniket Bhagwat, India’s most influential landscape architect, makes his second appearance at the GLDA seminar. He was one of the keynote speakers at the event in 2016. (landscapeindia.net)
- Sarah Eberle, a leading garden designer from the UK, also makes a return visit to the GLDA seminar, having last attended in 2009. (saraheberle.com)
- Carrie Preston is an American garden designer living and working in The Netherlands, makes her GLDA debut this year (https://www.instagram.com/p/BUPVxh5FQC6/?hl=en), as does
- Martí Franch, one of the most significant landscape architects working in Spain today. Martí is the founding manager of EMF Landscape, a multidisciplinary mix of experts in the field of urban and environmental design (emf.cat). His talk will cover ‘Taking Back the Streets’ – the design of urban parks, taking back the streets from cars, and the exciting public and private projects he has undertaken and how the current challenges have influenced his work.
Speaking about the seminar, Deirdre Prince, GLDA Chairperson, said, “Pre-Covid, the challenges of environmental degradation and increased urbanisation, with resulting drought, flooding and loss of biodiversity, occupied our thoughts and responses.
“These challenges are still here but in addition, the arrival of a pandemic has caused a paradigm shift in how we as a population and as designers look at the world. Our perspective has changed. We are now more focused on our immediate environment and thinking about our green spaces a lot more.
“Working at home with little scope for travel has imbued in people a new interest in their gardens and has changed how they use them. Those lucky enough to have a garden now see them as a green refuge from the world. Local green spaces have become vitally important to communities. People have a renewed interest in nature and getting outdoors more, walking more, cycling more, taking the gym outdoors. Art and performance spaces are developing as a reaction to indoor restrictions. Outdoor education, which has proven benefits is now being explored more by schools. We are eating and socialising outside. The implications for our parks, streets, gardens and other green spaces is enormous”, says Prince.
For more information and to purchase tickets please visit www.GLDA.ie.
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For further information please contact:
Peter Stam, PRO, GLDA
Issue date: 12 January 2021
