Park
design in London
Potters field park is one of the new parks destined fairly
recently. Unfortunately some of the trends become very evident in this place
particularly that of new urban park design. Gone now is the urge for something
naturalistic against the cold, hard lines of the buildings. We live now in an
era of sanitized parks full of low plantings that make everybody feel safe.
More or less the idea has been to cut out undergrowth. Very
few trees dot the landscape. In a park that is designed to about the new London
assembly buildings all seems to point to a reoccurrence of the old socialist
planning ideas of Eastern Europe. Every part of the ark must be clearly visible
so there is a clear loss of visibility. The philosophy is that if you are not
doing anything bad you have nothing to fear. All plantings are of low
perennials with even trees kept to a minimum
At the moment this is a common theme of newly designed parks
in London. Much is made of the fact that if there is too much undergrowth people
do not feel safe . All the newly designed parks such as Burgess Park exhibit
some of these factors. For the new planners any undergrowth is anathema and
they have this belief that everybody supports their ideas. So a thicket is
something to be eradicated and we will get groups of schoolchildren to carve a
path so that all you see are the are stems of trees and nothing below but the
cold, hard ground.
This vision is supposed to make people feel safe but actually
cuts away and mystery and perspective in the design of parks so that Potter’s
field park looks decidedly like an urban dystopia rather than a reflection of
nature. Nature is now something to be controlled in size and rendered totally
controlled and antiseptic. Little of course is said about the effect it has on
wildlife. Some species such as blackbirds relish the environment of low shrubs
which afford them protection ad safety. Such things are forgotten in the
endless search for sanitization.
