Estate Matters S2 Ep6: Kim Wilkie | Landscape architecture - Design led by the land

When he’s working on a project, landscape architect Kim Wilkie is very happy if his proposals for change leave local people feeling a little bit uncomfortable.

He tells the latest episode of the Estate Matters podcast: “Unless people are slightly upset with what you’re proposing, you’re probably not taking things far enough.”

Kim, who works with landowners, architects, and designers on some of the most significant projects in the country, tells podcast host Anna Byles that landscape architecture is about taking the long view.

He says that can mean looking at a project over a 100-year time frame – or longer. “It’s the time it takes for an oak tree to mature – with the landscape, you are thinking of ice ages rather than a five-year cycle,” he says.

But he insists that gaining support from local communities for major projects that have a significant impact on the landscape is important. And that helping people to see that the landscape is always changing to accommodate new challenges can help in the process.

Kim is not a fan of computer-generated images (CGI) used too early in the consultation process and rarely uses presentation slides with captions, preferring to let images speak for themselves. He also likes to use old maps and photographs to illustrate how the landscape has been changed in the past.

Kim gained his love of landscapes growing up in several dramatically different locations, moving from the Malaysian jungle to the Iranian desert and then a smallholding in Hampshire. He studied history at Oxford University and landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.

After 25 years of running his own practice, Kim now works as a strategic and conceptual landscape consultant and combines his landscape architecture with running a small farm in Hampshire.

Among the many projects he has worked on are the extension to town of Faversham, in Kent, on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, the formal gardens at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London and at Shawford Park in Hampshire, as well as a number of projects overseas.

He tells Anna that far from a frustration, the time it takes for a project to reach maturity is one of joys of the work he does. “The idea of an end point is something you have to abandon quite quickly with the landscape,” he says.

“What I really enjoy is the first idea and watching things evolve in ways you never expected. The fluidity and flexibility of that process and never seeing an end point is particularly thrilling.”

Engaging and explaining change to communities affected by a project is essential. On one project he proposed removing trees from an area in Hampshire to recreate a water meadow and admits that, initially at least, local people “wanted my blood.”

But when he explained that the proposal was to restore a threatened landscape to provide habitat for wildflowers, the mood at the meeting he was addressing began to change. “By the end of the meeting there was an understanding it was not just about cutting down trees, it was about creating a positive landscape that was richer,” he says.

Kim believes that while a range of challenges for landowners, from mitigating the impact of climate change to tackling the UK’s housing crisis, are significant, the principles of landscape architecture remain constant - particularly when it comes to housebuilding.

“You have to fall back on certain simple principles,” he says, citing soil health, drainage, the prevailing wind direction, the profile of the land, and how new housing can fit into that topography. Issues around energy generation, the use of outside space, and the relationship between the homes and the surrounding countryside must all be considered.

But Kim warns that getting hung up on ‘building beautiful’ can be a mistake. “Building in elegant harmony with the land is most important. Respecting the land, especially the history of the place – that’s crucial.

“Sometimes those basic principles have been muddled with the aesthetics of the buildings or the aesthetics of the planting. Prettiness matters much less than the soil, the aspect, the wind, and the microclimate.

“Getting those right and making it a good place to live from all those aspects – and making it resilient - that’s what really matters. There’s a beauty and an elegance to working with the land which I think, if you get right, allows everything to fall into place.”