3. Celebration of Brian Clouston's career in Landscape Architecture

3. Reclamation
Reclaiming spoiled and contaminated land was the foundation of the early practice and Mark Loxton presents three examples from Sunderland, the outer London borough of Hillingdon, and Devon, of burning colliery waste transformed into sports fields, ski slopes, and a lake, using much native planting; of a randomly tipped waste site destined for housing and green space recreation, working from early stages with architects and planners to change site into green oasis using ecologically based native planting; and in Devon, Tony Edwards explained their unusual position of hiring engineers to create new valley landform from mining spoil; this mine is still being worked so their plan is not yet fully realised.
The next talk is Garden Festivals • 4. Celebration of Bria...
The previous talk is Early Days and the formation of the practice • 2. Celebration of land...
link to Richard Cass talk
About this series of talks
Landscape architect Brian Clouston OBE, past president of the Landscape Institute, established a landscape practice in the 1960s that became multi-disciplinary and operated internationally. By the 1990s it was one of the leading practices in the UK and employed more people than any other in Europe. FOLAR wanted to learn more about Brian Clouston, what he did, how he attracted so many young talented staff and what type of projects they worked on. FOLAR also wanted to know what they went on to do on leaving BCP. So we invited lots of former staff to tell their stories at an event in September 2023, with Brian Clouston as the star. Brian continues to think about the role and contribution that landscape architects can make to society and to world affairs and in an interview, and he chose this opportunity to discuss his current big vision for Africa.
We recorded this event and two interviews with Brian Clouston, as a contribution to the oral history of the profession of landscape architecture.
Section One: Introduction; Early days and the formation of the practice; Reclamation; Garden Festivals; Work in the Middle East, Work in Asia and Australia; Urban renewal and Rural infrastructure; Business Parks
Section Two: Legacy Practices and practice, discussion
Section Three: Brian Clouston’s future vision
These sessions were chaired by Annie Coombs FLI who was Managing Director of BCP Asia and Tim Gale PPLI who was a Director of BCP.