The Urban Greening Symposium - From Pavement to Plants, organised by the London Branch of the Landscape Institute, was hosted in London at the Garden Museum last year. Hearing from an international panel of speakers (Dilip Lakhani, Tom Jonson, Ton Muller, Melanie Charalambous, Dan Pearson, and Sarah Lindars) was a fascinating insight into important factors to consider while greening our cities. This was followed up by a workshop discussing how we value the management of places and the importance of the people taking care of them (see Care Not Capital for an example of this).
There were many thought provoking design ideas discussed, including technical solutions to complicated underground services. Melanie (City of London Corporation) explained how in some areas there is only a depth of 1m between pavement and the tube, leaving minimal to no space for planting when that space is shared with services. A similar problem was found by Dan and Sarah from Dan Pearson studio during the redesign of the area surrounding the Garden Museum, working with Transport for London. They managed to find opportunities to include a series of rain gardens after much discussion of the technical elements. As landscape architects and landscape designers it is our role to turn these constraints into opportunities, taking what may be a complication in the plan and reframing it to be a star in the scheme.
Amsterdam shows great experience in this sort of innovation, with Ton Muller from Design By Nature explaining how the city is improving its green infrastructure at a doorstep to citywide scale. For example taking up 300mm of paving in front of houses to allow residents to plant into this space. Many use it to grow food and others for ornamental purposes, encouraging the use of vertical space outside houses. This not only improves peoples lives but also adapts the city to our changing climate. I particularly resonated with Ton’s approach of experimentation and giving freedom for ideas to the community, then working with them to help deliver these ideas. This is also a learning opportunity for the city in how to help involve people in the transition of the city into a climate resilient, healthy, and liveable place.
Soil is essential to all life and as designers specifying soil we need to be very careful and considerate. There is a limited amount of top soil and we should be cautious of how much of this finite resource we use. One option, is to look at alternative growing mediums such as crushed recycled material. For a project such as Mill Lane in Leicester, Tom Jonson from Land Use Consultants used a manufactured soil. This soil was a combination of the sub-base from the removed road and green waste. By curating this soil for the specific purpose in rain gardens the preferred levels of nutrients and drainage can be achieved. The Grey to Green scheme in Sheffield which was completed at a similar time also used this approach, using 70% recycled crushed limestone, 20% green waste, and 10% silty loam material from sugar beet washings.
To round out the day we had a group discussion, this took a focus on gardeners. We need a champion in the landscape. There is plenty of money out there but it needs to be redirected into people, paying people to look after and foster spaces into places. The gardener is a communicator, a point of contact for community, the public face, and so much more. As Landscape Architects the management of the designed landscape is absolutely integral to its success. Landscapes take time to develop and we should be planning for longevity, and one way to make that happen is by pushing money into the people managing them.
Thank you to the speakers, the Garden Museum, and the London Branch of the Landscape Institute for a great event and to the School of Architecture and Landscape for funding the trip.
The second edition of the Urban Greening Symposium will be held on the 3rd Feb 2026, to see updates visit https://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/
I will be posting my takeaways from the symposium on instagram @zaclandscape
