Contrasting Fortunes - Two high-value designed landscapes in Reading
Landscape architect Tony Edwards will outline the transformation of 180 acres of a poor quality flood plain into a business park with international appeal and a variety of awards. His involvement with this project has been for over thirty years with a continuing role in its management and this has been a key factor in its success. How difficult was that to engineer? And how typical is this of his other landscape projects?
Broad Street, Reading was pedestrianised in 1992 and the redesign was constructed in three phases. Colin Moore, of Moore Piet + Brookes Landscape Architects and lead designers for the project, will introduce the scheme and consider issues concerning maintenance, funding and changes in city wide planning decisions that have impacted on this carefully conceived project.
Tony Edwards qualified as an architect and worked for Sir Basil Spence on Hyde Park Cavalry Barracks before changing to other practices and undertaking housing design. He qualified as a landscape architect and joined Brian Clouston and Partners where he became a director involved in a variety of schemes including large scale reclamation of steelworks, amenity tips, gas works, new housing and regeneration of housing estates. He is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute.
Having formed new practices after leaving Clouston , Tony has been responsible for further large scale master-planning projects, residential landscape schemes, business parks, schools and commercial schemes. His practice worked with Michal Van Valkenberg from the USA on the white water rafting scheme at the Olympics in 2012. He has appeared as an expert witness at a number of public inquires and his practices have won numerous Civic Trust, Landscape and other awards. He was a Design Review Panel Member for the Design Council/CABE for over a decade and still sits on the DRPs of Merton and Richmond.
Colin Moore is a Landscape Architect and Urban Designer who has recently retired having worked in the landscape industry for 50 years. He was an associate of John Kelsey Associates for 6 years and then senior partner of Moore Piet + Brookes (MP+B) for 20 years before becoming an independent landscape consultant. Colin is well known to many landscape architects for his 35 years teaching for the final professional exam and his expertise in construction and maintenance contracts and the CDM Regulations. He is chair of the JCLI Contracts Forum and secretary of FOLAR.