It's time to change the canons of beauty in landscaping! Let the unsightly aesthetics - weeds and weeds - into the living rooms: into gardens, into city squares, into parking lots, into sidewalk cracks and onto roofs! Are we ready for such a revolution? Or do we no longer have a choice? How many types of ketchup do we need for happiness? Ola Kloc talks with Wojciech Januszczyk, founder of the Landscapes studio editing this issue of A&B, about the fourth nature, eco-cheating and moderation.
Is a garden also a home?
Ola Kloc:In what year was the Landscapes atelier established and in what circumstances?
Wojciech Januszczyk: The Landscapes studio is the aftermath of the closure of the previous one. I have been doing projects for seventeen, eighteen years now. Landscapes was created five years ago. At the beginning, I was still oriented towards classical design, that is, gardens, squares, urban markets integrated into linear economy. It began to operate in parallel with the Landscapes Foundation, which I established, an organization dedicated to broad education related to landscape architecture. Going to all kinds of consultations, talks, meeting with residents, investors, I realized the powerful deficiencies in the understanding of landscape architecture - it is most often seen as a little lawn and a few plants, but one does not think about the space functionally or aesthetically, as it is with buildings. It is always an accompanying element. We have quite a mess related to space, both on an ideological, philosophical and functional level. The foundation and the studio were created on the basis of my internal dilemmas. After a year of doing classical projects, I came to the conclusion that it was necessary to completely overturn this and try to introduce the principles of the circular economy into projects, to really do it and try to change the approach of investors and all audiences to this type of space.
Ola Kloc: What was the turning point for this change?
Wojciech Januszczyk: I think those moments were several. First of all, I realized that climate change is happening at a very fast pace. We see them in real time. It's not the ozone hole that no one has seen. It's heat waves, storm rains and other anomalies. Then there was the thought of responsibility for the work we do. By virtue of my professional path, I had the opportunity to participate in construction investment processes for a dozen years, in the roles of inspector, contractor or expert witness. I saw then how much damage can be done in the processes of "creating" architecture and landscaping objects. How much misconception we have on this subject. I think that was the beginning. It was then that I made the decision that the book I had written - "The Garden is also a Home" - would not see the light of day. She was very much anthropocentric and was part of what we live in today. What raised my blood pressure the most, however, was the hypocrisy of investors, local government officials, designers, who, under the guise of various types of environmentalism, pour tons of concrete into the city.
A retention garden with a drinking structure
photo: Wojciech Januszczyk
unsightly aesthetics
Ola Kloc: What kind of projects are Landscapes dealing with now?
Wojciech Januszczyk: We deal with projects in which the investor listens to what we have to say on issues of moderation and colonization of space. This is usually an investor who is already stargazing toward a closed-loop economy, low-budget operation, as little interference with space as possible, as little destruction as possible, as little chaos as possible. What we are doing is based on fourth nature, potential vegetation that can grow on its own in a given area. We try to plant as few plants as possible, and if we do, we try to indicate in the STWiORs [Technical Specifications for the Execution and Acceptance of Works - editor's note] and documentation that it must be vegetation sourced on the basis of a circular economy, not linear. At the same time, we want to get as much biologically active area as possible at the lowest possible cost of implementation. I mean in terms of energy and financial cost.
I was recently invited to Szczebrzeszyn for the Capital of Polish Language festival. I was probably the only author of a book that had not been published. It was already edited, with selected photographs, but I decided not to release it, and I am very happy about that. It fit into the linear economy - extract, produce, consume and discard - and was very commercial. At some point it became clear that we couldn't go that way, that it had to be thrown in the trash, that due to climate change we had to turn it around and bow to nature, which has lived on earth for 2.2 billion years, and we for 50,000 years. But without unnecessary infliction on the level of, for example, the Gaia hypothesis, without spiritualizing, just treating landscape architecture very engineering. And hence water retention in gardens and public spaces, hence existing vegetation.
Ola Kloc: Why existing vegetation?
Wojciech Januszczyk: Because - from a human point of view, of course - we don't spend money on it, we don't consume resources (it has its own water, energy) and it's from this place. We don't need the exploitation of peat, which is an accumulator of carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas. Stripping and burying peat bogs is like putting a gun to our children's heads! And there is no exaggeration here. Let's see what is happening. What a climate we have made for ourselves in a very short time.
Ola Kloc: Are there no problems with this?
Wojciech Januszczyk: There are. Going down the road of projects based on circulation and overgrowth, we have encountered new problems. Awareness problems, related to myths about landscape architecture. However, we are working on this. Conversation is of great importance. Then comes understanding. At the time of the change in design, and we've had quite a few projects, both commercial, public and private, I was worried that there wouldn't be a "market" for it. It turns out that there is. I also get along very well with architectural studios.
I'm not saying that the realizations that are being created are 100 percent of what would be created in an ideal world, but those main thoughts related to the lack of fraud are starting to get through. I'm putting it bluntly: insect hotels, such market houses, are simply a lie, a microform rain garden is also just for show, it's such an excuse. We need to approach it holistically, treat the whole plot as a retention system, a quaternary system, treat it equally, and not think of it as a substitute for paradise, which we actually fill with fertilizers and chemicals, get rid of so-called weeds and pests, insects - that is, we kill everything in this space that does not suit us. And then later cats come in [laughs] and continue to do the same thing. But we say that this is such a paradise, that it's so green, so beautiful. And when you combine all that I've said now with architecture and with engineering, we have a pile of concrete, cables, pipes and chemicals. And we call it an eco-neighborhood, an eco-home realized in a sustainable way or thereabouts!
tulips and dandelions
Photo: Wojciech Januszczyk
Ola Kloc:Oh!
Wojciech Januszczyk:Yes, this is what it looks like. Please see how much destruction the modern aesthetic canon can cause. And all you have to do is observe the process and take out some elements from it. I use the term "unsightly aesthetics" for this.
Ola Kloc: That is to say?
Wojciech Januszczyk: That is, learning to look at something we don't like, let's call it "weed," in such a way that it is aesthetics. Because indeed it is. It's interesting that all aesthetic trends have been changing for many years in every field - in fashion, in architecture, and weed continues to stay weed. Canons change, why can't they change in landscape architecture? Why can't an "unsightly aesthetic" emerge? The plants we call weeds are visually and biologically no different from those we buy at the nursery.
Ola Kloc: But a weed is no match for a beautiful garden.
Wojciech Januszczyk: This weed we are talking about, if it is a grass, is no different from ornamental grasses. If we have a flowering dandelion-type weed, it is no different from a tulip. It's a flower and it's a flower, it's pretty and it's pretty. It's just that with us there is a certain canon, aesthetics. We create something that we imagine in our frailty, a substitute for paradise, and we think it's so pretty because it blooms, birds and butterflies. No - nature is smarter than we are, she is the best engineer in the universe and, as I said, she has lived here 2.2 billion years and has such technologies and such things arise from her, from dependencies and from chains, that we can calmly build on it. However, we need to change our approach to aesthetics. I'm not saying everything has to be ugly now. I have prototype spaces here side by side, third and fourth nature - the one planted by me in the normal system with fourth nature vegetation, that is, the self-growing one. I observe first of all the representatives of the administration of the facilities where I have an office and with whom I work. Just two years ago they couldn't swallow the fact that something is growing between the paving stones, and today, after two years of conversations, discussions, demonstrations - they cringe, they know that the dandelion all over the site, or the so-called dandelion, is not removed until it blooms, and it grows - it's in the sidewalks, in the cracks, in the turf. And everyone walks around and says "wow!". But he must have seeded himself, if there are thousands of dandelions, within a week the whole area of the facilities, concrete or non-concrete, turns into a yellow meadow. And all of a sudden it's pretty.
Ola Kloc: How do you convince an investor who wants a classically "pretty" garden to this new aesthetic?
Wojciech Januszczyk: To show! I have already excluded myself completely from this commercial trend, as far as the activities of the studio are concerned. I like to work with architects, for example with WXCA. We collaborated on one project, at first they said "eee" to my proposals, but later, after a few conversations, they said "We're going into it." Private investors come to me on recommendation, they heard from someone: "I know such a landscape architect, who is out of his mind, if you want to have something actually naturalistic, go to him". So investors who are already convinced come to me. If I tell a local government official that I will save him 50 percent of the amount he wants to spend on a particular investment, he is happy. It is enough not to plant to save 50 percent! It doesn't always manage to do it 100 percent, but I'm happy if the garden manages to implement according to this thought at 30, 40 percent in the initial phase, and later if it can be changed to 70 percent, that's great. 70 percent less activities, 70 percent less plantings, 70 percent less everything, but also looking at engineering the whole space from the point of view of water retention, biodiversity, functionality, ergonomics of the space in question.
Turf overgrown with dandelions on the grounds of the Pearl Brewery in Lublin
Photo: Wojciech Januszczyk
where are the entitlements?
Ola Kloc: What is the current situation of landscape architects in Poland? How is the cooperation with other design trades and investors? What are the biggest challenges faced by this professional group?
Wojciech Januszczyk: When it comes to landscape architecture, a lot has changed for the very good. Landscape architects, initially unnoticed, have been recognized. They are more and more needed, at a certain point in various local government activities there were provisions in tenders stating that a landscape architect must be a member of the team, so architects began to orient themselves in our direction, they noticed that it was worth working with us after all, even though we are not an industry under the Construction Law. Now landscape architecture studios are functioning normally, usually one-, two-, three-person teams. Large landscape architecture studios, there are few, but this market is growing rapidly and quite well. I'm talking about what's going on within the framework of a classic market operation. From my current point of view, it could look a little different, that is, more natural things could be designed. This market is slowly stabilizing, until recently it was such a simmering soup, and now it looks quite reasonable. People have jobs, but we're still in a weak spot in the notions of ecology and many other things. When it comes to cooperation with other industries, it varies - once it's the case that it's architects who ask landscape architects to join the team, and once it's the case, which is very bad, that landscape architecture studios have to invite an architect in order to get an opportunity for a given project.
Ola Kloc: Why is this solution not good?
Wojciech Januszczyk: I like this cooperation, but by law a landscape architect simply cannot sign a project. Nor can he become the lead designer - although the structure of the space of the place is further the space of the landscape architect's activities, not the architect's, the landscape architect in the administrative process is not entitled to sign his own project. This is weak. That's the one thing I don't think is right, but it's a statutory solution that hasn't changed for many, many years.
Ola Kloc: And it doesn't promise any change?
Wojciech Januszczyk: For the time being, no. I used to fight for it, and now I don't, because I see that it can't be meaningfully moved out. Landscape architects are not as united as architects, they are even more scattered, few are interested in gathering in one space, discussing certain things and sending their representatives to the ministry to lobby. Rather, somehow everyone has arranged it. Once in a while someone will speak up and ask "Where are the entitlements?", six months pass and everyone forgets again. I think there is one more important thing to plow through, which is the division of people after landscape architecture, skillful recognition of the professional niches in which you want to be. For me, someone else is a landscape architect and someone else is a garden designer, they move in a different tissue of objects, a different kind of functionality, ergonomics, participate in other administrative processes, create a different kind of design - I would rather compare a garden designer to an interior designer, and a landscape architect to an architect. If this division were to come in, it would make a lot of sense, because a garden designer sells himself and his work, while a landscape architect often just takes bids and has no direct initial contact with the client.
sidewalk cracks
photo: Wojciech Januszczyk
climate war coming?
Ola Kloc: This is the first ever issue of A&B edited by a landscape architecture studio. What is it about? Why did you choose such topics and projects?
Wojciech Januszczyk: All my life I've been trying to fight for a landscape architect to be noticed in the world of landscape architecture. I was president of SAK, which is the Society of Landscape Architecture, so when landscape architects were noticed, then after my internal transformation and throwing out this book, I came to the conclusion that we live in a world of myths about landscape architecture and they need to be debunked. Because we have climate change, and this is the most important thing - it is progressing practically day by day, we are eyewitnesses to it - each of us should feel responsibility, both architects and landscape architects, for what they do in their professional niches. Hence the idea of circularity and overgrowth, and to make this issue look just that. First - information about climate change, the impact of architecture on it and what we can do, and second - the closed-loop economy, which must be adopted in our market in every possible field, in construction, architecture, installations and all other things, otherwise we will destroy this planet. And the return - which, it should be noted, is to some extent a return - to the closed-loop economy. She was already there, but with the advent of industrialization everything went to a linear economy. This return can't be about recycling, upcycling or downcycling, it just has to be all the rules that apply, and the most important one is to extend the life of a manufactured item, thing, building, space, the longer the better.
Ola Kloc: Someone may say that it doesn't pay off.
Wojciech Januszczyk: We see outside the window how it doesn't pay off when we have 40 degrees Celsius. 97 percent of climatologists in our time say that man is 100 percent responsible for these climate changes that are happening now. And construction of all types has a very large share here. We imagine that climate change means that it's going to get very hot and the environment is going to get destroyed - and what do I care about the environment. That's not true! We have a substitute for this on the Polish-Belarusian border. 4 or 5 thousand people wanted to get through to us, some satrap one and another used this as an element of hybrid warfare. And now you have to realize one thing - 1.8 billion people will not have the opportunity to live in the places where they live in a while. Of the 8 billion, almost 2 billion will be on the move. How many such satraps will lead to, I laboriously call it, climate war? It's not that species will change, of course, it will be a great tragedy for nature, nature, only that it will survive man, it will cope; even if we destroy it "completely", we are not able to kill life on earth completely. Life will recreate itself in some way, but it is not clear how. The problem is that it will be anthropogenic destruction, that is, we will be doing harm to ourselves, not only to the environment, and this harm of ours will look a little different. It will be a tragedy. Someone says "And what can I do?" - well that's what each of us can do a lot, we can switch to a closed loop economy, we can extend life, repair, compensate and so on. To all this we should add the phenomenon of moderation. And that's what this issue is supposed to be about - not the pretty landscape architecture as we imagine it, but the one we need at the moment. Landscape architecture that is based on a closed-circuit economy, one that is in moderation, one that works in an engineered, systemic way, based on nature's mechanisms so that we don't use extra energy to produce something. Nature does it with its mechanisms, which are low energy compared to what we produce, because when nature produces a plant in some space from a seed, there we have nature's energy and renewable energy.
If man produces a plant, he has to extract peat, water from a deep well, and there is less and less water, that available, potable water, he has to have a plastic pot, fertilizers and so on, he has to transport it to that place and plant it there. And a plant that provides an ecological service to the city, that grows there by itself, because someone composed it there, gave it the opportunity to grow there - you need a landscape architect for that - is a low-budget solution, very economical, and doesn't affect the environment as much as producing a plant. I know that it is impossible to completely manage such spaces, but it is possible to do it in 70, 50 percent - this is already a powerful amount of unused energy, which does not contribute to climate change. And this is a change that can be done, introduced into architecture, popularized. It is possible to systemically solve the city space: 4 percent of the city's green spaces are super turbo designed and maintained in this classic linear system, then we have 30 percent done in a 50:50, and the rest is left "alone," composed using such and not other vegetation, introduced on rooftops, in different places, but everything is well thought out so that these are closed circuits and that the technologies that appear there are also based on closed circuits. Then we have a really powerful amount of unused energy. We call it wasteland, and in fact they are the best mechanism and device for retention and lowering the temperature in the city, producing biodiversity.
Adaptation of the mill in Dorohucza for cultural and educational purposes, in the photo an installation by artist Izabela Myszka
Photo: Wojciech Januszczyk
ecostem
Ola Kloc: Reading your columns and listening to your statements, I get the impression that you like to provoke - this was the case, for example, with the "Guidelines and Standards for Design in Times of Climate Change" published in A&B, which you encapsulated in one word already mentioned in this conversation: moderation.
Wojciech Januszczyk: This "technique" stems first of all from my character, because I like discussions. Secondly, one has to realize at some point the truth that applies to so-called eco phenomena. An example is the aforementioned insect hotel. We buy it with a "Made in China" sticker, even though it's wooden, and then in order for solitary or mason bees to live in it, we have to buy them on the Internet. And we call this solution "eco". This provocation is not really a provocation, it is a demonstration of reality, of how we are able to explain certain things to ourselves as designers, or just not analyze them, in order to feel better. And if someone comes and says: "Look at it this way, that the investment process is not a creative process only destruction and destruction," then there is a reflection, whether by any chance this moderation is needed, whether itisn't it worthwhile to analyze the space we are in, the facilities, whether some really need to be demolished, because it is very easy to level everything to the ground and put something new on top of it - this is the simplest method. But perhaps the valuable work is to explain to the investor that it is possible to preserve certain things and that you can save money on it.
I think this moderation is multifaceted, it applies to practically all of our lives. I once went to Sweden, one of the more, it is believed, happy nations, in quotation marks, of course, because they have an alcohol problem there, among other things, but let's assume that they are very happy. In the store, I saw that there was only one kind of ketchup on the shelf. I wondered how it is, they are so happy, and they only have one kind of ketchup, while we have twelve or fifteen. Years later I only realized that it was just moderation, that it is possible to live in moderation. I try, it doesn't always work out for me, it doesn't even work out for me often, but when it comes to my work, which is landscape architecture, I have come to the conclusion that I will put a lot of emphasis on both moderation and all the other principles I am talking about. Moderation comes in when we have time to be attentive, to observe, to slow down certain things in our lives so that we can enter these other worlds, rather than the familiar system in which we function. From this comes the second part of the issue on art in space.
Art in space is an element that very much supports positive thinking about wastelands and weeds. I once established the "Gallery in the Bushes." We did an exhibition of works by various artists in just such a wasteland. And it turns out that people who would never enter the space of such a wasteland and would gladly give it to the developer, invited to the opening, during which paintings, sculptures are set up in thethe bushes and one has to wade through narrow paths to them, understand more thanks to this than listening to environmentalists during ecological walks, which we don't have time for anyway. The same goes for the concerts that were in those bushes. I work with artists whose art is aimed at naturalism - at slowing down, at making the space more attractive, at making it highly individualistic. They use materials that are repurposed, reusable, and it doesn't at all come out as something made of sharps, wire, a bent umbrella and grandma's old stocking, but really a work of art. I think we have succeeded, both at the Landscapes Foundation and at the Landscapes studio, in bringing these worlds together.
We recently started a project - a client, after visiting the Land Art Festival, invited us to his plot of land and said he wanted to make a natural resort there using vegetation "just like Mr. Januszczyk said there at those meetings." He would also like artists to do various land art works there. With this, another facility is being created, which could be a set of container houses and a building in the style of a modern barn, and it would be ok, but something different will be created, because it will be a space using the existing vegetation, which will have art, artists will create their works there, so that people who come to rest will be the next link in spreading these assumptions and ideas.
upcycling apiary
Photo: Wojciech Januszczyk
Ola Kloc: What annoys you most about the way space and greenery are managed in Poland?
Wojciech Januszczyk: What upsets me the most is the newspeak of architects and landscape architects, in which they steal certain slogans in order to sell their project better. That is, the project is the same as it used to be, nothing different from an ordinary project in linear economy, only it has new names, for example "biodiversity", because "sustainable" is already passé. The terms I used some time ago to describe my direction are starting to be used by people who have not changed anything in their design. And this is the most annoying thing.
Ola Kloc: How do we, the recipients of these projects, bombarded with slogans and promises, know if something is greenwashing?
Wojciech Januszczyk: It's the responsibility of those who do it, that is, the designers. We have some kind of ethics. We have a circle of friends who make sure that when someone who has nonwoven fabric on peat soil in his project, and on top of all this an irrigation system, gravel and plants in pots, and writes: "this is my biocenotic biodiversity garden aimed at combating climate change," he or she gets the right comments right away.
Ola Kloc: On the subject of comments: it's interesting to observe them every time we publish an article about converting a city parking lot into a green space. Then there is a heated discussion on Facebook, the participants of which feel that such measures take away their freedom, because they will not have where to park their cars.
Wojciech Januszczyk: At this point, the elimination of a parking lot for green space, which will be designed, created and built in a linear management system, that is, in the classic system of establishing gardens, parks or green spaces, is no different from putting up a new parking lot. It is the same, we just have a different material - concrete here, peat there, plastic here, plastic there, plants here and sand here. Modern green spaces with more pipes, cables, concrete, sand, gravel than biological tissue are produced in such a system that simply destroys the environment.
Ola Kloc: Then how to do it right?
Wojciech Januszczyk: Well, exactly. Sometimes it's better to do nothing. Sometimes it's better to just take out some cubes in that parking lot, leave some and make a garden out of that. I have such a garden outside my studio window, the investor said: "Listen, you need to take fadromes, loaders, tear off all this concrete from this parking lot (because it was such poured large slabs) and put a garden there and we will make alleys". I replied: "No, you have to cut gaps in this concrete and remove only those sections where there will be plants, and leave the rest." And so it remains. And it looks. And people are positively surprised. Taking away green space for parking spaces is a problem, but not the biggest one.
"Gallery in the bushes" exhibition. - People
Photo: Wojciech Januszczyk
Ola Kloc: What else was included in the issue?
Wojciech Januszczyk: The issue is arranged this way because it deals with climate change. We have Professor Szymon Malinowski, whom I appreciate for "You Can Panic," which is such a Polish "Don't Look Up" [directed by Adam McKay - editor's note], we have other specialists, but also people who show the fourth nature - Michal Książek from "Atlas of Holes and Gaps," which is a philosopher and urban naturalist who shows life in the gaps. We have architects and landscape architects who orient themselves to the process of using existing facilities, extending life, creating spaces where this fourth nature will dominate, artists and art that blend in and support the climate of the drive to counteract climate change. Because we have two concepts: counteraction and adaptation. Adapting to climate change is like buying an air conditioner; counteracting is precisely moderation.
Ola Kloc: That sounds very simple.
Wojciech Januszczyk: I think it is!
Ola Kloc: What is your biggest inspiration in design? And do you have any design dreams? Something I feel goes hand in hand.
Wojciech Januszczyk: [Laughs] Inspiration is mostly nature, but I wouldn't want to be considered some kind of eco-geek. I observe the engineering behavior of nature, which is much, much smarter than me, that is a huge inspiration. I'm talking, for example, about water retention, about creating plant compositions, about elements of biodiversity, about this unsightly aesthetic that I learned and am still learning. I look at some plants and think, what if these weeds were left there. In the initial phase they glaring, but later they create a really cool composition. My dream is to create such a model space, somewhere in the city space, in some wasteland, which can be shown and which will have the possibility to radiate to others - so that it has an educational value, so that people come there and say "aha, this is what it's all about, this is really cool." The closest such space, although its purpose is different, is Tempelhof Airport in Berlin. The Wild Children's Reserve in Lublin is something unimaginable! There the children create architecture, buildings, paint, they do everything by themselves, adults are not allowed in, everything happens in the bushes, so great. Nearby I have such a space, which I call a prototyping room. I'm looking at how the green roof is behaving, which is overgrown with weeds, how the retention basin is behaving, and how the gaps, how these trees are growing for themselves. There are a lot of elements here as part of the "Healthy City" path that we built as a foundation and a studio.
Ola Kloc: In view of this - both to you and myself - I wish this dream to come true. Thank you for the interview.
