7 research outputs found
Revealing Repton: bringing landscape to life at Sheringham Park
The year 2012 marked 200 years since Humphry Repton (1752–1818) produced his design for Sheringham Park in north Norfolk, bound as one of his Red Books. On paper, Repton is England’s best-known and most influential landscape gardener. On the ground, his work is much harder to identify, focused as it was on light touches that equated more to landscape makeover than the landscape making of his predecessor Lancelot “Capability” Brown. This paper documents and evaluates a project that celebrated this bicentenary through a temporary exhibition within the visitor centre of Sheringham Park, whilst also making reference to the commemoration of his work in other places and on paper. In attempting to reveal Repton at Sheringham, we explore the context of the 1812 commission and the longer landscape history of the site, as well as the different methods of representing Repton on site that are open to site owners and managers
The Effects of Herbivory by a Mega- and Mesoherbivore on Tree Recruitment in Sand Forest, South Africa
Herbivory by megaherbivores on woody vegetation in general is well documented; however studies focusing on the individual browsing effects of both mega- and mesoherbivore species on recruitment are scarce. We determined these effects for elephant Loxodonta africana and nyala Tragelaphus angasii in the critically endangered Sand Forest, which is restricted to east southern Africa, and is conserved mainly in small reserves with high herbivore densities. Replicated experimental treatments (400 m2) in a single forest patch were used to exclude elephant, or both elephant and nyala. In each treatment, all woody individuals were identified to species and number of stems, diameter and height were recorded. Results of changes after two years are presented. Individual tree and stem densities had increased in absence of nyala and elephant. Seedling recruitment (based on height and diameter) was inhibited by nyala, and by elephant and nyala in combination, thereby preventing recruitment into the sapling stage. Neither nyala or elephant significantly reduced sapling densities. Excluding both elephant and nyala in combination enhanced recruitment of woody species, as seedling densities increased, indicating that forest regeneration is impacted by both mega- and mesoherbivores. The Sand Forest tree community approached an inverse J-shaped curve, with the highest abundance in the smaller size classes. However, the larger characteristic tree species in particular, such as Newtonia hildebrandtii, were missing cohorts in the middle size classes. When setting management goals to conserve habitats of key importance, conservation management plans need to consider the total herbivore assemblage present and the resulting browsing effects on vegetation. Especially in Africa, where the broadest suite of megaherbivores still persists, and which is currently dealing with the ‘elephant problem’, the individual effects of different herbivore species on recruitment and dynamics of forests and woodlands are important issues which need conclusive answers
Landscape and Consumer Culture in the Design Work of Humphry Repton and Gordon Cullen: A Methodological Framework
The practice of landscape and townscape or urban design is driven and shaped by consumer
markets as much as it is by aesthetics and design values. Since the 1700s gardens and landscapes
have performed like idealized lifestyle commodities via attractive images in mass media as landscape
design and consumer markets became increasingly entangled. This essay is a methodological
framework that locates landscape design studies in the context of visual consumer culture, using
two examples of influential and media-savvy landscape designers: the renowned eighteenth-century
English landscape gardener Humphry Repton and one of Britain’s top twentieth-century draftsmen
and postwar townscape designers, Gordon Cullen. Rather than aesthetics and meaning, I focus
on the designer’s motives, working modes, and visual marketing strategies for building audiences
and markets. At the heart of these strategies is the performance of images in consumerist culture.
Drawing on primary and secondary sources, I show that they persuasively fashioned, “packaged,”
and “sold” their landscape commodity through attractive and marketable image-text products.
The study highlights the specific role that each man assumed vis-à-vis his work environment and
consumers, the pictorial sources that each used, and the media that broadcast and shaped each
designer’s legacy. Despite the different historical contexts and the particular logics of the economy
and mass media apparatuses of the time, this consumerist-focused study also reveals parallels
between these men’s motives and image-making and marketing strategies. For instance, their drive for both professional and laypeople appeal led them to bridge theory and practice, use the “art of
compromise,” and devise palatable and alluring images. By using consumerist arts perspectives in
landscape and urban design studies, I offer a new interpretive path toward a historical knowledge
that incorporates the landscape designer’s modus operandi and explains the role of mass media and
marketing in the production and consumption of landscape