Landscapes of Public Health
Simon Taylor (Archivist) reflects on the ideas about public health and landscape design shared during the annual symposium of FOLAR (Friends of the Landscape Archives at Reading), held at The MERL in November.
The Friends of the Landscape Archives at Reading (FOLAR) held their annual symposium at The MERL on 2 November 2024. The conference explored the theme of ‘Landscape of Public Health’, which is a subject that’s both as fascinating and as urgent today as it has ever been.
The relationship between landscapes and public health
The understanding that landscapes have profound effects on physical and mental health far predates the emergence of landscape architecture, the formal discipline for designing outdoor spaces.
An early example of this from our collection, displayed for symposium attendees, is the Public Health Act of 1875. The Act makes provisions for ‘Public Pleasure Grounds’, as part of a broader project to improve the health and wellbeing of city-dwellers. Initiatives like this aimed to combat the filthy living conditions that were commonplace in Industrial England.
Even before this, it was routine for wealthier residents of cities to escape the ‘miasma’ that enveloped built-up areas. This happened particularly during summertime, when members of the middle and upper classes would escape to the countryside, accessing its fresher, unpolluted air.
In contrast, England’s urban poor had no such option. As a result, they tended to have drastically shorter lifespans, even when compared to their economic equivalents who lived in rural areas.
Fighting for change
Socially conscious reformers fought hard to improve inner-city sanitation, reduce housing density, and increase access to green spaces. They wanted spaces where residents could exercise and enjoy healthful activities in clean air.
Two such reformers were Alfred and Ada Salter, whose interwar work in the London Borough of Bermondsey was the subject of one of the FOLAR symposium’s talks. Alfred was a doctor and Labour politician, while Ada was an activist, councilmember and president of the Women’s Labour League. Inspired by their devout Quakerism, they worked tirelessly on studying, publicising and improving the poor state of public health in Bermondsey at the time, constructing parks and high-quality social housing projects, while also making dramatic improvements to sanitation.
Even during the height of the Second World War, people were calling for the opening up of urban spaces once peace had been achieved. A 1942 pamphlet entitled ‘Living in Cities’, which was displayed during the symposium, emphasises the need ‘for homes and workplaces admitting sunshine and fresh air, for quiet open spaces (and) playing fields’ as a ‘first duty’ following the end of the war.
Designing landscapes for the public
Much of what went out on display during the symposium consisted of plans – site plans, planting plans, detail plans, among many others. While these can sometimes be dry and technical, the ones put out for display vividly represented the artistry and creative genius of so many Landscape Architects in our collection, such as Sylvia Crowe, John Medhurst, A. Hedley Richmond and Preben Jakobsen.
Multiple landscape architects in our collection have done work on hospital grounds and gardens, and their designs reflect an increasing understanding of how important green spaces are in sites dedicated to wellness. A hospital complex with courtyard-like spaces encourages the free movement of air, reducing the risk of airborne illnesses from spreading between multiple buildings and departments.
Flowerbeds and water features improve the mood of patients by recalling life and movement, helping to dispel the more common associations of hospitals with sickness and moribundity. And an improved mood among patients has been shown to improve the rate of healing.
Two of the symposium’s speakers, Sarah Hosking and Liz Haggard, made the point that hospitals are necessarily large buildings, often among the biggest in the town in which they are situated. As such, they are ‘the most visible part of the NHS and have a powerful symbolic value in a community’1. It makes sense that the local community would care a great deal about how the hospital appeared in the landscape of the town.
Building for public health in the 21st Century
Today, landscape architects and urban designers are expected – even required – to factor in the public’s health when designing public spaces. A 2007 report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution asserts that ‘health concerns need to be integrated into the design and management of urban areas so that, for example, urban layouts promote sustainable transport and provide green space to encourage social interaction and exercise’. The symposium display featured several examples of contemporary urban projects, ranging from city parks to the regeneration of industrial sites.
No discussion related to public health would be complete without reference to COVID-19. Although often spoken about in terms of a ‘shared experience’, it is worth remembering that life in lockdown was very different for those living in urban areas versus those living in the countryside, for those with easy access to parks and gardens versus those who were not in walking distance of any large green spaces. These contrasting experiences were reflected poignantly in accounts collected for a research project entitled The Pandemic Play Archive, in which parents shared stories of their children adapting to their new circumstances through various forms of play.
Children living in built-up areas clearly had more changes to adjust to, and a common theme among parents’ accounts was how important access to parks had been. Indeed, this tied neatly into another talk given at the symposium, which focused on the bureaucratic and practical challenges of keeping parks open during the pandemic.
Another interesting feature of the Pandemic Play Archive was that it revealed these children had a burgeoning interest – or at least understanding – of how buildings and landscapes influence health. Several children had re-created hospitals using LEGO, building blocks, or just various objects from around the house. What was noticeable in all of them however was an understanding of social distancing between patients, even to the point of having separate wards for the ‘sick’ and the ‘healthy’.
These scenarios suggest that young people have learnt – or perhaps just intuitively know – that cramming people together in small spaces is not conducive to good health. We may hope that at least one of these children may go into landscape architecture, and use this understanding in their designs, which may one day end up in our collection, being admired by future members of FOLAR.
Find out more about FOLAR and their work on the FOLAR website.