Inaugural Lecture: Professor Simon Bell

So  good  evening.  Can  you  hear  me,  okay? Yeah,  I  hope  people online  as  well  can  hear  me. Welcome  to  the  Westcot  here  at Edinburgh  College  of  Art  at the  University  of  Edinburgh. I'm  Professor  Juan  Cruz,  principal  of  ECA, and  it's  my  great  pleasure  to  introduce Professor  Simon  Bell for  his  inaugural  lecture. The  role  of  landscape  and  supporting human  health  and  well  being. What  is  this  and  how  does  it  work? All  new  academic  chairs  at the  University  of  Edinburgh are  invited  to  deliver an  inaugural  lecture  in the  year  or  two  after the  conferment  of  their  professorship. Simon  was  conferred  a  personal  chair of  landscape  and  well  being  in  2023, and  we're  delighted  to  be  here tonight  to  celebrate  Simon's  achievement. Inaugural  lectures  take  different  shapes and  have  varying  traditions in  different  institutions. But  broadly  speaking,  I would  say  they  give  us  an  opportunity  to pause  and  hear  from colleagues  about  the  work  and  interests that  have  led  them  to  this  point and  hear  about  or  at  least  be  able  to get  some  sense  of  what  they  continue what  will  continue  to  drive  them  as a  professor  of  the  university. And  this  is  very  important  because professorships  are  conferred  on the  basis  of  outstanding  achievement, as  well  as  with the  confidence  that  the  title, with  all  its  seniority  and  authority, will  enable  and  indeed  propel the  new  professor  to  even bigger  and  better  things. I  know  that  Simon  intends  to use  this  professorship  to  advance  and grant  visibility  and  access  to the  extensive  and  fast  developing  field  of research  and  practise  in landscape  and  well  being, articulating  its  theories,  its  evidence, its  research  challenges,  and its  implications  for landscape  planning  and  design. This  is,  of  course,  an  area  which the  open  space  Research  Centre of  which  Simon  is  the  co  director, alongside  its  founding  director, Professor  Catherine  Ward  Thompson. Has  become  a  global  leader  in both  research  and  education. It's  also  important  here  to foreground  Simon's  commitment  to  teaching, especially  through  the  MSC  programme on  landscape  and  well  being, which  he  co  founded  in Assala  the  Edinburgh  School  of  Architecture and Landscape  Architecture  here  at  ECA, and  it's  fantastic  to  see  so  many  of Simon's  colleagues  and  students  here  today. Simon  will  be  speaking about  the  trajectory  of his  work  in  this  lecture and  has  asked  me,  therefore, not  to  dwell  for  too  long  on  his  biography, but  there  is  one  line that  I  just  can't  resist, which  is  that  Simon  is a  forester  turned  landscape  architect. He  worked  for  20  years  for the  UK  Forestry  Commission  as a  landscape  architect  1979-1999, and  in  2000  joined  ECA. I'm  not  sure  if  this  makes  him  poacher  turn game  keeper  or  vice  versa,  but  either  way, it's  a  very  remarkable  transition, which  speaks,  I  think, to  the  commitment  that  we  have  at ECA  and  across  the  university. Try  to  ensure  that our  research  has  impact  and  the  capacity to  learn  from  and  to  effect positive  change  beyond  the  institution. I  also  want  to  note  that  despite the  very  strong  and  historically significant  foothold the  landscape  architecture  has  at  ECA, Simon  is  only  the  second professor  in  the  field  of landscape  architecture  at the  University  of  Edinburgh and  that  this  is,  in  fact, also  Simon's  second  professorship, as  he  has  been  Professor of  landscape  architecture  at the  Estonian  University  of Life  Sciences  since  2009. 2012-2018,  Simon  served  as president  of  the  European  Council of  Landscape  Architecture  Schools  and  is currently  working  on a  large  EU  Horizon  2020  project on  the  relationship  of  water  environments, which  I  understand  are  called Blue  Spaces  on  health  and  well  being. It's  called  Blue  Health.  He's  published many  books  and  numerous  papers. He  is  a  visiting  professor  at several  universities  and  co  director  of the  Joint  Laboratory  of  Healthy  Space  between the  University  of  Edinburgh  and Beijing  Institute  of  Technology  in  China. And  we  have  several  colleagues  from  BIT, the  Beijing  Istiute  Technology  here  today, and  I  look  forward  very  much  actually soon  to  visit  there  with  Simon  in  December. We're  extremely  proud  formally to  recognise  Simon  within  our  professoriate. And  so  please  join  me  in  congratulating him  and  welcoming  him  to  the  stage. And  after  the  lecture, please  join  us  for  a  drink  and further  conversation  over  there here  in  the  room.  Simon,  thank  you  very  much. Thank  you,  Juan,  and  thank  you,  everybody, for  attending  in  person  on  online. And  it's  great  to  see  so  many  colleagues  and current  and  past  PhD  students  and current  MSC  students  and others  and  other  colleagues from  around  the  world. So  it's  really  great. And  I'm  so  pleased  to  be  able  to  be here  today  and  to  give  this  lecture. So  as  you  have  seen  when  it  was  advertised, the  title  is  the  role  of landscape  in  supporting  human  health and  well  being.  What  is  this? And  how  does  it  work?  And  why  is it  coming  up  to  being such  an  important  subject  these  days? And  Juan  mentioned  that I'm  a  forester  turned  landscape  architect, and  that  actually  is a  very  important  starting  point. And  I'll  keep  coming  back  to the  forest  as  being one  of  the  archetypal  kinds of  nature  and  landscape, which  actually  has  a  lot  of importance  for  health  and  well  being. And  I  often  like  to start  something  with  this  kind  of quote  from  this  guy  Gian  Battist  Da  Vico, back  in  the  1700s. First  the  forest.  This  is  the  order  of human  institutions,  first  the  forests. After  that,  the  huts,  then  the  villages, next  the  cities,  and  finally,  the  academies. It  kind  of  encapsulates this  separation  over  time between  us  and  nature,  the  forest, which  is  the  climax  vegetation in  temperate  Europe  and the  academies  as  the  top  level of  our  brains  and  thinking  and  so  on. And  so  here  we  are  in  the  Academy. But  I  want  to  go  back  to  the  forest just  to  start  with  this  because that's  where  I  also  started. This  is  Glen  Afric,  which  is  one  of the  remnants  of the  Caledonian  pine  forest  that  was extensive  over  the  Scottish  highlands  until the  18th  century  largely when  it  was  cleared away  for  timber  and  so  on. And  Glen  Afric  is  one of  those  magical  places, if  you  can  go  and  visit  it to  hike  and  be  there in  one  of  the  wildest  kind of  parts  of  Scotland, which  is  actually  the  true  vegetation, which  is  the  forest. We  often  think  of  the  mountains  bare  and forbidding  as  being natural  Scotland,  but  that's  not  the  case. They  were  covered  and  should  be  covered in  forest  in  many  respects. So  the  forest  is  a  place  I'm  starting from  and  a  place  we'll  be revisiting  during  this  presentation. So  first,  the  forester so  and  this  was  the  order  of Simon  Bell's  institutions. First,  the  forests. After  that,  the  academies, missing  out  the  huts, villages  and  towns  in  between. So  yes,  University  of  Edinburgh, my  MPhil  in  landscape  architecture, and  that's  me  graduating  in  1983. You  can  see  I  was a  hipster  before  hipsters  were  invented. And  I  also  drove a  Citron  de  chevax  in  those  days  as  well. And  as  Huan  outlined,  I  studied  here, I  did  my  PhD  in the  Estonian  University  of  Life  Sciences and  took  up the  professorship  not  long  afterwards. It  was  actually  quite  a  big  promotion from  PhD  to  professor  there. And  as  also  Huan  mentioned, as  a  forest  manager  to  start  with  or relatively  short  time  of a  couple  of  years  in  Wales,  Aberystwyth  area, so  in  the  Welsh  Mountains, and  then  was  trained again  to  be  a  landscape  architect, and  I'll  come  onto  the mechanism  and  the  reason  for  that. And  since  1999,  to  the  present,  an  academic, doing  some  consultancy  all  the  way  through this  of  designing  forests and  woodlands  and recreational  sites  and  so  on, and,  of  course,  teaching  a  lot. So  my  starting  point, my  trajectory  as  landscape  architect, was  actually  designing  forests, and  there's  a  very  big  important  relationship between  forest  landscape  aesthetics and  health  and  well  being, and  I'll  kind  of  weave  this in  as  I  go  through. So  in  Britain,  we  didn't  have  much  forest. It  was  mostly  cleared  away until  the  First  World  War. And  after  that,  people  said, We  need  some  forests. We  can't  survive  another  war if  we  don't  have  our  own  timber. So  they  planted  and  started planting  large  areas  of  waste  land  in the  uplands  with non  native  conifers  that  came  from North  America  but  grow  very quickly  and  created  forests that  looked  a  bit  like  this. L  och  Loki  back  in  the  1970s with  this  horizontal  top  line, these  kind  of  vertical  divisions  in  it, planted  all  at  once with  more  or  less  the  same  species, all  of  the  same  age,  like a  blanket  of  trees  over  that. And  it  took  place  in hill  and  mountain  regions because  they  weren't  needed  for  agriculture, wasn't  good  agricultural  ground. The  soil  is  poor,  the  climate  is  harsh. We  need  species  that  will grow  in  those  conditions. The  first  problems  to  do  with the  landscape  happened  when the  first  forest  started  to  show  up. You  plant  some  trees  in  the  19 twentyties  when  it  was  all  started. Ten  years  later,  the  growing and  up  here  somewhere, and  you  suddenly  see,  What the  heck  is  that  on  that  landscape? And  suddenly  this  forest  starts  to  show  up. And  in  the  lake  district, Which  wasn't  yet  a  national  park, people  started  to  complain  about  it. And  I'll  come  back  to  the  Lake  District and  its  role  as part  of  the  landscapes  of  health  and well  being  later  on. And  people  started  to  object  to  this. Those  people  were  visiting. They  were  hiking  there  and  so  on. And  so  it  caused the  foundation  of the  Council  for  the  protection of  rural  England, and  the  Forestry  Commission basically  had  to  sign  an  agreement with  that  CPRE  the  first between  an  NGO  and  a  government  department. And  it  wasn't  about  the  design  of  the  forest. It  was  like  we  don't  want  those  forests. Thank  you  very  much. We  don't  want  them  in  the  main  part of  the  Lake  District  that already  been  planted  a  lot of  more  on  the  periphery  and  said, We  don't  want  that  because  that's going  to  spoil  this  romantic, scenic,  picturesque  kind  of  landscape. So  the  result  was  more  or  less  no  planting in  a  core  area  of  the  Lake  District. And  this  is  one  of  the  reasons  why,  you  know, this  dead  straight  line  up  the  hill, following  a  fence  line, but  the  fence  isn't  very visible  if  it's  just  the  fence, but  suddenly  you've got  this  edge  of  the  forest. That's  on  WylaterPass,  which  is one  famous  road  in  the  Lake  District. So  this  was  where  the  first  interaction between  landscape  architecture  and forestry  hit,  let's  say. After  the  Second  World  War, forest  expanded  a  great  deal  more. There  was  a  huge  expansion  through the  40s  and  particularly  in  the  50s  and  60s, and  there  were  forests  being  planted a  vast  areas  down  in  the  Scottish  borders, up  in  the  Highlands,  in  Northumberland, with  Kilda  forest  all  over  the  place. And  at  the  same  time,  people were  becoming  a  bit  better  off  after the  wartime  privations  and  rationing and  started  getting  cars and  wanting  to  go  for  picnics and  visit  the  countryside. And  they  wanted  to  go camping  and  caravaning  and starting  to  use  the  countryside  a  lot  more. And  the  visual  appearance  of  the  forests  were growing  and  growing  more became  more  and  more  noticed. So  in  1962,  the  forestry  and appointed  a  very  famous  landscape  architect, Sylvia  Crowe,  later  dame Sylvia  Crowe  to  be the  first  landscape  consultant. And  she  would  go  around  invited by  different  forest  districts to  come  and  look  at some  problems  and  then  say, Well,  miss  Crow,  we're going  to  be  planting  on  that  hillside, and  the  ploughs  are  coming  in  next  week. To  plough  it  ready  for  planting. Can  you  just  see what  you  might  think  of  that? So  she'd  have  some  plan  and then  have  to  look  at  it and  work  out  what  it  was. And  then  she  had  a  little  notebook and  made  sketches  and  said, Okay,  this  is  what  it  could  look  like. Here's  some  sketches,  they'd  look like,  What  are  we  supposed  to  do? And  so  that  was  how  it  went  on. And  eventually, she  started  developing these  design  principles. This  is  from  one  of  her  books from  1976,  saying, Here's  a  landscape,  let's  analyse  it, and  let's  see  how  it  might  be  planted, taking  her  cue,  from  the  landform, from  soil  and  vegetation  patterns, from  existing  features, the  scale  of  the  landscape, the  genius  loci,  things  like  this, and  came  up  with  these  basic  kind  of design  ideas  all  done  as  a  professional  task, not  through  public  participation  or questionnaire  surveys  or  anything at  that  particular  point. So  from  those  beginnings, forest  landscape  design  became a  specialised  discipline. And  some  foresters  were  sent  back  to university  to  become  landscape  architects. So  the  first  was  Duncan Campbell  in  the  mid  70s, and  he  went  to  Newcastle  University, and  then  Oliver  Lucas, in  the  later  70s,  he  went  to  Manchester, and  then  I  was  the  third  recruit and  came  to  Edinburgh  and studied  with  John  Byram  and Seamus  Filer  in  Chambers  Street, up  on  the  top  floor  studio on  the  Western  Big  studio  at  the  top  there. And  so  we  learned  how  to  be landscape  architects  and  then  to go  back  and  start  working  with  the  foresters. And  then  we  see the  thing  was  the  foresters  couldn't  say, Oh,  we  can't  do  any  of  this. Oh,  this  stuff  you're doing,  it's  not  possible. You  don't  know  anything  about  it. We  said,  Well,  we're  foresters, we're  trained  in  this. We  know  it's  possible.  Don't  talk to  us  and  say,  it's  not  possible. So  we  were  training  them lots  and  lots  of  courses, explaining  about  visual  design  principles, shape  and  colour  and form  and  texture  and  things  like  this. And  bless  them,  they  really got  into  it,  many  of  them. And  that  way,  we  started not  just  doing  design, but  teaching  about  design. And  once  forest  planting started  to  fizzle  out  in the  late  70s  and  into  the  80s, the  forests  that  were  planted  in the  20s  and  30s  and  so  on were  maturing  and  ready  to  be  felled. And  their  next  challenge  was not  what  they  look  like  when  they're  planted, but  what  they  look  like when  they're  felled  in great  big  square  blocks and  all  flattened  and  so  on. So  then  there's  a  major opportunity  to  redesign those  forests  through landscape  architecture  approaches. And  this  is  one  of  the  big  things that  we  got  into. And  this  is  one  of  the  projects  in my  earlier  years  in  1986. It's  over  in  the  west  of  Scotland, Glen  Crowe  and  the  rest  and  be  thankful, which  is  the  road  that  goes  up  Glen  Crowe. And  by  the  time  you get  to  the  top  of  it,  it's  like, you  want  to  rest  and  be thankful  you've  got  to  that  point. With  Ben  Arthur,  the  cobbler, which  is  the  mountain  there. And  the  idea  there  you  can  see  is  you take  a  photograph,  panoramic  photograph, and  you  analyse  it  using  photocopies  and things  to  look  at  the  topography  and  so  on. And  then  you  design a  pattern  of  cutting  of  the  forest  in phases  with  phases  like  ten  years  apart, red,  orange,  yellow,  green, blue,  et  cetera,  kind  of  like  that  way. And  then  you  design  how  it's  going  to  be replanted  so  that  it  follows  topography. It's  got  more  natural  shapes, the  geometry  is  all  gone, all  these  kinds  of  things. So  that  was  what  we  were doing  and  what  I  was  involved  with. And  produced  materials. So  this  guidelines  on  the  left  was the  first  publication  about how  to  design  forests, and  on  the  right  is  a  book  that  I  did  with an  American  colleague  because  in  the  90s, I  went  international  and  I  was doing  projects  in  Canada  and  in the  USA  and  teaching  forestry  companies  in the  USA  and  Canada and  Finland  and  various  other  places. So  this  was  the  culmination of  that  kind  of  work. But  it  didn't  really  stop, and  I  was  doing  consultancy  of this  for  interesting  woodlands, for  NGOs  like  the  Woodland  Trust  and the  RSPB  and  other  organisations. So  that's  at  that  point. Now,  pause  a  moment, and  let's  wind  the  clock  back a  few  thousand  years  back  to  the  forests. For  300,000  years  of the  time  that  homosapiens  evolved  out of  Hmohabilis  and those  other  earlier  hominids,  lived  outdoors. Well,  maybe  in  caves  and  in the  forest  and  so  on,  but  outdoors. With  the  advent  of the  industrial  revolution  and  urbanisation, the  kind  of  modern  urbanisation in  the  19th  century, we  began  to  live  our  lives  indoors. That's  only  160  years  of  living  indoors  cut off  really  from  the  natural  rhythms. We  live  in  doors. We  don't  get  the  usual  amount  of  light. Our  body  clocks  go  awry. We  have  artificial  light. We're  exposed  to  all  sorts  of artificial  stimulants  and  pollution and  radiation  and  so  on. So  most  people  from  prehistoric  times until  very  recently, and  of  course,  in  some  countries, it's  still  the  case,  lived  and  worked  mainly outside  and  the  natural rhythms  govern  their  lives. In  Europe,  the  forest  was the  dominating  landscape  because it's  the  temperate  zone, and  it  was  gradually  cleared  from the  neolithic  period  and  the  introduction  of agriculture  onwards until  the  situation  where  in  Britain, it  was  down  to  5%  of  forest  cover  from, say,  90%  of  forest  cover. And  we  were  all  living  indoors and  we  were  in  cities, and  we  were  away  from the  natural  rhythms  and  so  on. And  we  might  think,  well, it's  only  recently  that we  thought  that  nature  was  becoming important  and  nature  in cities  was  important  and so  on,  but  it's  not  the  case. Of  course,  cities  in  ancient times  weren't  necessarily  as  big, although  they  were  pretty  big  and  Rome  at the  Zenith  of  the  Roman  Empire was  a  pretty  large  city. So  the  link  with  the  natural  world has  been  recognised  as  important for  urban  dwellers, as  long  as  cities  existed, it  would  seem  reflected in  Marshall,  this  is  the  guy  on  the  right. He  was  an  epigramist  and poet  of  the  time  of  the  first  Caesars, his  concept  of  Russ  in rb  nature  in  the  city  in  ancient  Roman  times, and  then  in  mediaeval  discussions, and  the  renaissance  and  so  on, about  the  virtues  of  access  to green  and  wooded  landscapes  for  good  health. And  this  is  something  that Catherine  was  looking  at. So,  RussinUbe  it's  the  illusion,  maybe, generally  created  by  design  of countryside  running  through  the  city, something  that  we  now  call  green and  blue  infrastructure,  actually. And  it's  one  of the  most  pervasive  characteristics of  English  urbanism,  maybe  not  Scottish. And  from  pre  modern  cities, where  you  have  cathedrals and  they  had  monasteries  and the  monasteries  had  land  and  they  grew crops  and  they  had  gardens  and  so  on, the  first  paraphernalia  of  food  production  in the  cities  to  the  enclaves of  the  Oxford  colleges, To  London's  heaths  and commons,  parks  and  squares. And  this  is  all  herbs, how  we  pronounce  the  Latin  Urbis  Orbs with  an  awful  lot  of  rust  in  them, according  to  Melville  Melvin  writing  in  2018. And  Salisbury  Cathedral,  with  its  close, is  part  of  that  green  in  the  city. So  not  all  cities  ended  up  being  completely free  of  green  spaces or  nothing  of  nature  in  them, which  is  lucky  for  us  because  we can  capitalise  on  all  of  that. And  one  of  the  clear  links between  landscape  and well  being  is  that  many  of  the  medicines that  we  use  come  from  plants, and  more  and  more  are  being  discovered. And  we  need  to  protect  the  forests of  the  Amazon  and  so  on, not  just  because  they're  great  places and  their  carbon  sinks  and they're  part  of  the  climate  management and  all  of  the  wildlife, but  because  there's  huge  numbers of  plants  we  don't  really  know about  that  have  the  potential  for  medicines. So  monastic  gardens  were created  in  mediaeval  period, cloister  gardens,  hospital  gardens of  monasteries  and  so  on, and  the  cloisters  where they  could  the  monks  could  walk  and contemplate  and  pray  and the  production  of  the  medicinal  plants. And  these  were  part  of  this  Russ in  Uber  that  we're  talking  about. So,  back  to  the  forest  briefly, forests  in  mediaeval  times actually  meant  hunting  places. The  word  forest  actually  has  to  do  with wooded  areas  that  are  not parked,  they're  not  fenced, and  they're  outside  the  law  in  many  respects, which  is  why  Robin  Hood  had  to  go  and  outlaw in  Sherwood  forest  because  it was  the  place  where  the  law  didn't  run. So  it's  not  always about  loads  of  trees,  actually. And  they  were  the  preserves of  royalty  and  nobility  for  hunting, which  was  a  big  recreation  and distresser  for  the  mediaeval  kings,  in  a  way. And  they've  come  down  to  us,  many  of  them, if  they  weren't  destroyed  as places  for  recreation  within  cities, because  as  the  cities  expanded, those  hunting  forests  become parks  and  urban  forests, like  the  Tiergarten  in  Berlin  is a  very  classic  example  of  a  hunting  forest. Tiergarten  means  animal  garden, but  also  many  of  the  parks  that are  and  commons  that  have become  part  of  London,  as  well. And  hunting  parks,  which  were  enclosed  or parked  became  the  foundation  and archetype  for  the  landscape  park and  the  urban  park  of  today. That's  where  the  word  comes  from. I  don't  know  why  we  suddenly  have car  parks  as  well because  they're  not  quite  the  same  thing. So  we  have  Bestic  silver, which  means  the  wooded  bostyOlawPark,  part, and  we  have  the  Parkus  silver, which  means  the  emparked enclosed,  closed  for  the  deer. And  the  deer  parks  around the  big  country  houses  were  the  canvas  on which  the  landscape  designers  of Humphrey  Repton  and  Lancelot  Brown  and  so  on, plied  their  trade  in the  18th  and  into  the  19th  century. And  that  was  then  the  model for  the  urban  park  as  it  became. So  all  of  these  things  are constantly  linked  together, and  the  health  and  well  being  is physical  activity  and  it's other  things  as  well. But  the  psychological  aspects  of nature  are  a  kind  of  later  thing  to do  against  the  physical and  the  medicinal  and  so  on. So  where  the  roots  of  our  belief  in the  psychological  power  of  nature  come  from? And  for  that,  we  have  to thank  the  romantic  era. So  visiting  wilderness  and forest  areas,  including  mountains, which  were  discovered  as  places  to  go by  English  milords  on  the  Grand  Tour, before  that,  people  didn't  like  mountains. They  were  scary  places  to  be  avoided. So,  roughly  at  the  turn  of  the 18th  and  19th  century, and  then  we  have  the  painters  like  Turner, it's  the  bottom  right  picture of  the  Lake  District, okay?  The  Lake  District. And  we  have  Wordsworth, and  we  have  the  romantic  poets  and  painters. And  that's  when  the  Lake District  becomes  a  place  of pilgrimage  to  get  in  touch  with nature  and  the  power  of  nature, the  sublime,  this  is  the  crucial  thing. And  the  top  picture  is by  Caspar  David  Friedrich, the  traveller  above  the  fog  or  the  mist. The  gentleman  in  his  urban  clothes, looking  off  that  rock, looking  at  the  landscape, and  getting  that  sense  of being  small  in  the  power  of  nature. This  is  the  sublime  or  it's  awesomeness, some  people  are  calling  it  as  well. So  this  is  a  very  big  psychological  boost. And  if  we  ever  go  to  a  place  like  we  stand  on the  cliffs  over  a  stormy sea  or  we  are  on  a  mountain, or  we're  in  Glen  AfricFest  we  can  get this  sense  that  we  are small  amongst the  powers  and  forces  of  nature, and  that  puts  us in  our  place  psychologically, but  it  also  puts  our  problems in  perspective  as  well. All  those  problems  become  very small  when  you're  in  that  kind  of  context. And  the  whole  idea  of  this  and mountains  and  the  spiritual  values  and  so  on, came  to  a  head  or  came  to a  focus  in  the  American  situation, particularly  following  the  inspiration of  John  Muir  and  the  founding  of the  Sierra  Club  and his  transcendental  experience  of Yosemite  in  Sierra  Nevada. Now,  this  is  bringing  us  back  to Scotland  because  John  Muir  came  from  Dunbar, and  he  had  a  love  of  nature  as  a  boy. And  when  he  went  to  America with  his  family  and  then  went  to  Wisconsin, and  then  he  spent  time  around  Maine, and  he  went  to  California. And  he  had  this  whole  revelation about  that  and  wanted  to protect  the  mountains  of the  Sierra  Nevada  against dam  construction  and  logging of  the  forests  and  so  on. And  he  persuaded  President  Teddy  Roosevelt, that's  the  guy  on  the  left  to  go  with  him. That's  in  1908,  and  he persuaded  him  to  set  up  lots  of national  parks  and  national  monuments and  set  up  the  whole  of that  system  in  the  USA. And  in  1901,  in  a  very  wonderful  book called  one  of  his  wilderness Discovery  books,  he  wrote  this. Thousands  of  tired,  nerve  shaken, over  civilised  people  are finding  that  going  to the  mountains  is  going  home. That  wilderness  is  a  necessity and  that  mountain  parks  and  reserves are  useful  not  only  a  fountains of  timber  and  invigorating  rivers, but  as  fountains  of  life. Back  in  1,901,  over  civilised, tired,  nerve  shaken,  we'd say  we're  stressed  nowadays, but  there  were  no  psychologists to  tell  us  what  those  words  were, but  it  was  understood  not  through  research, but  through  the  kind  of obvious  observation  that  people  went  to these  places  and  they came  back  feeling  better  and  that  we all  feel  better  and  less stressed  when  we  go  to that  kind  of  situation. But  a  lot  of  the  access  was  limited, especially  in  the  UK,  when we  have  lots  of  private  land, and  we  don't  have  the  kind  of rights  of  access  they  have  in  Scandinavia, man's  ret  or  every  man's  right, where  you  can  just  walk  in  the  forests. In  Britain.  Oh,  no,  you can't  do  that,  or  you  couldn't  do  that. So  one  thing  that  came out  in  the  20th  century with  the  rise  of  socialism, the  trade  unions,  people  getting  active, they  wanted  to  go  and  go  into these  lands  that  were  owned by  the  aristocracy. And  in  1932,  there  was a  very  famous  mass  trespass  of  Kinder  Scout, which  is  an  area  in between  Sheffield  and  Manchester, essentially,  owned  by  the  Duke  of  Devonshire. A  Chatsworth  house  is  his  country  seat. And  all  these  young  guys, mostly  from  Sheffield  or  Manchester, working  in  the  factories, steelworks,  and  so  on. They  wanted  to  go  out  at weekends  to  go  hiking, to  get  close  to  nature, to  get  away  from  the  pollution, to  get  the  fresh  air, but  they  weren't  allowed. So  they  said,  Well,  let's  all  go  at once  because  the  police can't  arrest  all  of  us. So  they  went  on  this  mass  trespass, and  there's  a  plaque  in  the quarry  where  they  gathered. That's  a  picture  of  it  happening. You  can  see  them  with  their  shorts  and hiking  boots  and  rucksacks  and  so  on. And  they  went  there  and the  Duke  of  Devonshire  said,  Okay, you  can  go  on  these  footpaths and  you  have  to  only  follow  these  places, and  you  can't  go  if  it's  the  grouse  shooting season  and  things  like  this. And  that  began  the  beginning of  the  footpath  movement. The  CPRE  was  very  active, but  also  the  national  parks because  after  the  war, and  with  the  new  labour  government, then  there  was  a  big  movement  to start  protecting  areas  as  national  parks. One  of  the  first  of  which was  the  lake  district. So  we  co  back  around all  the  time  to  these  kind  of  landscapes  for the  different  possibilities  that  they  offer us  and  back  to  the  forest  for  a  moment. Forest  recreation  became  very  important  from the  1930s  onwards  with the  first  forest  parks  that  were  designated. Actually,  Argyle  Forest  Park  was  one  of these  where  that  design  of  mine  was  done, that  was  part  of  Argyle  Forest  Park. But  they  weren't  very well  developed  in  those  days. But  after  the  Second  World  War, particularly  into  1960s,  with  the  building  of the  motorways  and  with all  the  popular  small  cars, like  minis  and  things  like  this, lots  of  people  lower  down the  social  scale  were  getting  active, they  were  getting  out, they  were  getting  cars, and  they  could  drive  out  of London  to  places  like  the  New  Forest. The  new  forest  New  1070 founded  by  William  the  Conqueror as  a  hunting  forest, still  a  royal  forest. The  king  is  the  surveyor, and  the  manager  of  the  forestry  communition in  England  is  the  deputy  surveyor. Still  a  royal  forest.  So  they could  drive  down  the  M  three. They  could  jump  off  into the  new  forest  and drive  under  the  trees  and  park. And  they  cause  this  kind  of mayhem  that  we're  seeing  on  the  left  there, cars  parked  everywhere,  people  with their  picnic  baskets  and kids  playing  in  that  little  pond. Were  there  any  toilets? No.  So  what  was left  behind,  I  shudder  to  think. So  then  the  Forestry  Commission  said, Oh,  what  do  we  do  here? What  do  we  do? Ah,  the  Americans  do  a  lot  of  stuff. They've  got  these  national  parks and  he's  got  these  national  forests, and  they've  got all  these  recreational  facilities, trails  and  car  parks, parking  lots,  and  visitor  centres  and picnic  sites  and  way marking  and  signs  and  such  like. Let's  go  and  have  a  look. Somebody  went  over  and  they  said, they've  got  all  these  facilities. Oh,  here's  a  nice  handbook  of  how  to  do  them. Bring  them  back  to  Britain. Right.  We  can  start designing  the  same  of  things. All  of  the  facilities  you  see  in the  forests  and  national  parks  were  basically borrowed  from  the  Americans  who  devised all  those  things  in  1930s  and that  had  all  of  this  the  Great  Depression and  had  all  of  these  work  programmes  for building  all  this  wonderful  infrastructure in  rustic  style  using  natural  materials. And  so  the  forestry  commission  became  one  of the  massive  providers  of  recreation. And  one  of  my  jobs  was also  getting  involved  in  recreation  design, picnic  sites  and  car  parks and  those  kinds  of  things  as  well, not  just  designing the  forest  but  designing  those. So  my  interest  in  recreation,  accessibility, the  outdoors  came  from  my  working  side, and  then  brought  it  when  I  came into  the  world  of  academia. And  I  was  involved in  International  Project  to  Cost  Action, which  is  a  network  of  European  researchers, and  we  produced  this  book  of European  Forest  Recreation  and  Tourism. And  on  the  basis  of  my  experiences, I  also  produced  this  book, Design  for  outdoor  recreation to  try  to  make  sure  that  people didn't  make  a  big  mess  of  doing  things  in the  countryside  and  using lots  of  examples  from  around  the  world, in  its  second  edition, I'm  going  to  be  doing  a  third  edition. Now  let's  look  at  the  park, get  back  out  of  the  forest and  start  looking  at  the  park  again. And  the  park  has  idealised  nature. So  we  have  the  18th  century landscape  garden  landscape  park, which  is  the  modification often  and  the  transformation  of the  mediaeval  deer  park around  what  had  been  a  castle  or something  and  then  became  the new  big  country  house  in the  Palladian  style  or whatever  it  was  at  that  particular  time. And  those  land  owners, wealthy  with  the  British  Empire, with  sugar  and  everything. And,  of  course,  we've  got all  the  colonial  issues that  we're  having  to  deal  with  nowadays. And  they  spent  their  money  on their  big  houses,  their  art  collections, their  furniture,  and  their  parks, and  they  were  in  competition  with  each other  to  who  could  have  the  best  place. And  these  were  then direct  descendants  of  deer  parks, but  they  were  picturesque. And  that's  a  very  important  term because  the  idea  of  them being  picturesque means  they're  like  pictures, they're  not  only  like  pictures, they  are  often  references  to  pictures. You  start  with  a  picture,  a  painting by  Claude  Lorine,  for  example, 17th  century  French  artist, and  you  create  a  landscape  that  is modelled  on  the  picture  by  Claude  Lorin. The  temple  there  in  Stourhad this  view  is  almost the  same  as  one  of  Lorraine's  paintings. So  we  go  back  to  that  kind  of idea  that  landscape  is something  to  be  viewed. A  landscape  is  a  picture  to  start  with, anscrap  or  landscape, depending  on  the  origin of  the  word  from  Dutch. And  then  it  becomes  the  physical manifestation  in  the  park. And  so  the  sublime,  yeah, would  correct  the  languor  of beauty  and  the  horror  of  sublimity. So  it's  a  kind  of  in  between, so  it  wasn't  too,  yeah, languorous  about  just  beauty and  not  too  scary, like  the  mountains  and  so  on, but  something  in  between. Now,  then  we  start  to  move  into  the  need  for public  parks  because  of  the  cities, because  of  the  pollution  and diseases  and  other  things. So  in  the  19th  century  then, there  was  a  turning  away from  this  psychological  aspect. It  was  kind  of  forgotten  about  a  bit,  really. And  it  was  much  more  about health  and  physical  activity and  prevention  of  disease  became the  role  of  parks  unless this  psychological  aspect  of  it. And  this  was  at  the  time  when many  of  the  epidemics  and particularly  cholera  in  the  1830s  and 40s  was  a  big  killer  in  London, for  example,  brought  in  from  India, and  they  thought  it  was  caused  by  miasmas. This  was  a  different  theory of  medicine  in  those  days. They  thought  that  bad  air gave  you  those  diseases. So  by  having  green  areas and  places  where  there  wasn't  this  pollution, you  would  not  get  those  diseases. They  then  discovered  it  was to  do  with  water  and a  very  famous  experiment  by  blocking  a  pump, which  was  getting  water  from the  groundwater  of  the  Thames, and  everybody  around  that  pump  was  dying of  cholera  and  they  locked  the  pump, and  they  had  to  get  water  from elsewhere  and  stop  the  choler. But  the  idea  of  the  pollution  and  going  to the  parks  and  get  away from  this  was  very,  very  beneficial. And  at  the  same  time, it  was  in  the  1850s, there  was  the  great  stink when  Thames  was  so  badly polluted  and  it  staked  so much  from  all  of  pollution  in  the  hot  summer. The  MPs  in  the  House  of  Parliament  were having  to  go  around  with masks  over  their  faces. And  that's  when all  the  sewage  systems  got  built, and  Basal  Jet  went  around  building these  ring  mains  and  all  of the  big  sewage  systems  in  London. Um,  and  public  parks were  then  identified  that  they  might be  the  only  places  where the  pale  mechanic  and the  exhausted  factory  operative  might  inhale a  freshening  breeze  and some  portion  of  recovered  health. So  this  is  where  parks  were  seen  as the  green  lungs  of  the  city. And  therefore, they  were  identified  already  early  as a  place  for  everybody  to  go  to  to escape  the  dirt  and  the  smoke and  were  very  democratic  in  that  sense, that  people  could  go  there,  and the  upper  classes  or  the  middle  classes could  go  there  promenade  at  weekends, but  so  could  the  working  classes. And  BirkenhadPark,  designed  by  Joseph  Paxton who  also  did  the  Crystal Palace  for  the  great  exhibition, but  was  also  the  gardener  and  designer of  Chatsworth  House  of the  Duke  of  Devonshire, of  the  fame  of  the  mass  trespass. These  things  are  all linked  together  amazingly. And  also  the  breeder  of  the  Cavendish  banana, which  is  the  banana  we  all  eat. Everybody  eats  big  yellow  bananas. These  are  Cavendish  bananas, which  were  bred  at  Chatsworth. They  come  from  Britain. Another  interesting,  strange  fact. But  if  you  want  potassium,  eat  bananas, and  you  can  then  have  the  credit to the  Duke  of  Devonshire  the  Cavendish  family. So  we  have  Burke  and  Head  Park, the  first  of  these  at  18:43 designed  like  a  park of  a  big  country  house  with a  temple  and  all  of  these  kinds  of  things. And  then  we  move  to  America and  we  have  Frederick  Law  Olmsted, who  became  the  person  who  named the  profession  landscape  architecture  and who's  to  blame  for  all  sorts  of  problems  when architects  won't  allow  you  to  use the  term  I'm  a  landscape  architect. No,  you're  not. You  can't  use  the  term  architect. It's  preserved  for  architects. You're  a  landscaper.  No,  I'm  not. I'm  a  landscape  architect. So  we  have  these  arguments. So  he  combined  those  18th  century  ideas  of mental  relief  with  more  pragmatic  desire to  counter  disease  and  ill  health. And  he  and  his  colleague  Calvert  Vaux, they  planned  Central  Park  in New  York  before  New  York  really  grew  to that  area  and  certainly  before there  were  any  skyscrapers. And  he  claimed  that  the  artificial  conditions of  the  town  produce  a  harmful  effect, first  on  a  man's  entire mental  and  nervous  system and  ultimately  on  his entire  constitutional  organisation. So  once  again,  it  was a  claim.  It  was  an  observation. It  was  an  assumption  that  there  are these  problems  caused  by lack  of  contact  with  nature. And  over  exposure  to  the  artificial  sights  of the  city  would  lead to  excessive  nervous  tension, over  anxiety,  hasteful  disposition, impatience, and  irritability,  which  if  you  think, what  are  the  symptoms  of  stress? That's  exactly  those.  And  the  antidote is  pleasing  rural  scenery,  Rus  in  Uber. And  there  we  have  the  Central  Park  then before  New  York  built northwards  and surrounded  it  with  skyscrapers, and  there  as  it  is  now,  the same  bridge  from  a  slightly  different  view, boating  with  slightly  different  boats and  fashions  and  with a  skyscraper  and  all  of those  fancy  apartments that  surround  it  nowadays. Which  brings  us  then  back  to the  forest,  the  urban  forest. And  this  is  a  concept  that  came  up  in the  later  20th  century  to describe  all  of  the  trees  in  the  city  to  say, Well,  let's  not  just  have street  trees,  park  trees, gardens,  woodlands,  canal  sides,  roadsides. Let's  think  of  all  the  trees  as  a  forest. And  we  can  think  of  it  as a  one  continuous  mass  of  greenery, which  is  going  to  be  run together  for  a  healthy  city and  a  healthy  population. And  in  addition  to  parks, then,  urban  forests  and woodlands  also  seemed  highly  beneficial. And  back  in  the  early  1990s  in  England, a  concept  of  community forest  was  established. So  these  were  organisations Newcastle  and  Wolverhampton, and  East  of  London  were  the  first  ones. And  then  Manchester  and  Sheffield, and  then  a  few  others. And  the  idea  was  that  in  these  cities, we  would  try  to  plant  more woodlands  and  get  them greener  and  more  connected and  do  it  with  and  for  the  community. And  this  was  the  first  attempt to  come  up  with some  guidance  on  how  to  do  these, which  I  and  colleagues did  at  the  Forestry  Commission. And  I  visited  round  urban  woodlands in  the  Netherlands  and  Denmark  and various  places  and  the  USA and  so  on  and  brought  together  ideas  to  say, Well,  how  do  we  do  this? How  do  we  design this  new  community  woodlands? And  we  he  courses  about it  and  so  on.  And  then  wrote  that. And  then  there  was  another  cost  action about  urban  forest  and  trees, which  I  joined  when  I  really first  joined  here  in Edinburgh  College  of  Art, and  we  produced  this  book, there's  a  chapter  in  it, which  I  was  one  of  the  leaders  of about  designing  urban  forests. And  so  that  became  a  really  big  movement in  the  2000  and  onwards. And  at  the  same  time,  we  then  started focusing  a  lot  on  the health  benefits  of  forests. And  another  cost  action  was  done at  exactly  the  same  time  as one  about  forest  recreation, nature  tourism,  and  I  was lucky  to  be  in  both  of  them. And  we  started  looking a  lot  at  what  it  is  that forests  give  us  the  psychological, the  physical, the  physiological, the  social  and  the  physiological  is through  the  chemicals  that you  inhale  from  the  trees that  are  given  out  by  the  trees like  pine  trees  on  a  hot  day. If  you  scent,  the  scent  from  them. There  are  these  volatile turpenes  that  come  out, and  there's  lots  of  interesting  chemicals that  are  very  good  for  our  health. And  now  forest  therapy is  an  accepted  set  of  methods, and  there  are trained  practitioners  who  maybe  have a  psychology  degree  and  they do  this  forest  therapy  for  people. And  also,  if  people aren't  haven't  got a  more  medical  background or  health  background, they  can  be  guides  to  do  this. And  already  there  are  places  set aside  as  therapeutic  forests. And  again,  there  was  another  book,  and  again, I've  contributed  to  some  chapters  in  that. And  this  brings  me  to  one  of the  now  getting  rather  fashionable, which  is  this  concept  of  forest bathing  from  the  Japanese  Shin  ring  yoku. And  you  might  have  come  across  it. It's  getting  rather  trendy, but  it  is  a  very  serious, therapeutic  method  for  improving yourself  psychologically, but  also  physiologically. And  it's  moved  out  of  Japan, where  it  really  got  going  in the  1980s  and  into  the  mainstream. And  now  let's  move  to  gardens, because  these  are  one  of the  places  that  we  often  have a  great  access  to  if  we have  a  house  and  gardens  and  so  on. And  allotments  and  community  gardens have  always  been  very  popular  in  Britain. And  another  place  where  people in  the  cities  could  get  access  to fresh  food  and  to  meet people  and  to  get some  physical  work  and some  fresh  air  and  so  on. And  they've  become  very popular  to  grow  food  and  now increasingly  recognised  not  just as  the  place  where  you  grow  the  food, but  the  place  where  you socialise  with  your  neighbours, where  you  get  mental  health  benefits as  well  as  physical  benefits. And  so  really  important. And  nowadays  as  well,  when we  have  lots  of  people  living  in  cities in  dense  cities  and they're  living  indoors  and the  kids  don't  know  where  food comes  where  does  milk  come  from? A  bottle,  a  carton.  A  cow? A  cow?  What's  a  cow? You  know,  this  break between  the  origins  of  food  from  fork, you  know,  from  field  to  fork. And  it's  a  great  way  of getting  people  growing, understanding  the  connection  with  soil, and  also  to  do  with  building  immunity. If  we  contact  the  soil, we  get  good  bacteria,  we  build  immunity. Fewer  problems  of,  of  allergies  and  so  on. Community  gardens  with  shared  activities. They  also  support  the  communities. They  can  help  refugees. In  many  countries,  they  use  as  a  means for  getting  refugees  and  people integrated  and  overcoming  some of  their  trauma  from escaping  war  zones  and  so  on  as  well, and  intergenerational  integration  where the  grandparents  show  the  kids how  to  grow  food,  so  many  benefits. And  in  some  places,  parks,  it's  like,  Well, we  have  too  many  parks  and actually  there's  too  much  grass and  we  can't  mow  it. So  actually  let's  convert it  to  gardens  and  have  allotments. And  that  picture  there  is  from  Lisbon, where  a  rather  dull  park was  taken  over  by  the  residents  of those  social  housing  blocks  to create  gardens  and  a  big  benefit  from  that. And  again,  there  was a  cost  action  and  people  brought  together, and  I  was  involved  in that  and  the  lead  editor  of that  book  about  urban  allotment  gardens and  looking  at  all  of  those  benefits. Our  gardens  also  include  hospital  gardens. So  back  to  this  link with  the  monasteries  with RussinUbe  and  particularly  mental  problems, mental  asylums,  as  they  were called,  or  lunatic  asylums. We  don't  call  them  that.  Nowadays,  of  course. And  they  had  gardens, and  the  patients  there  or the  residents  would  actually  do  gardening  as part  of  their  therapy  and  part  of their  living  there  and growing  food  and  so  on. And  they  had  some  very  fancy  gardens. That's  one  of  the  Danvers lunatic  asylum  in  Massachusetts, which  had  a  really  fancy  kind of  almost  like  baroque style  garden  outside  it, a  lot  of  work  to  do  that, but  also  maybe  a  lot  of therapeutic  benefits  for  people  doing  it. But  now  hospital  grounds and  gardens  are  seen  as  valuable spaces  for  the  patients, recovering  patients,  for  staff, for  visitors  who  are  dealing  with,  you  know, stress  about  their  loved  ones undergoing  treatments  and things  like  this  and  convalescing,  et  cetera. And  in  Scotland,  there's a  great  example  of the  Royal  Forth  Valley  Hospital, Larbet  where  there  was an  isolation  hospital  there  that  was  closed. They  built  the  new  hospital  in the  part  of  the  grounds  of  that  estate. And  the  Forestry  Commission, or  as  it's  called  now  forestry  and  Scotland, took  over  the  park  and  the  woodlands, managed  them,  restored  them, put  in  walks,  put  in some  little  shelters  and  things  like  this, and  together  worked  with the  hospital  to  put  together  this  landscape where  everybody  has  the  opportunity  to go  and  use  the  nature  and  the  park, and  it's  back  to this  design  landscape,  you  know, of  the  big  country  house to  be  a  place  connected  with  the  hospital. And  if  you  go  in  the  corridors, there  are  signs  to  X  rays and  paediatrics  and  the  forest  or  the  park, you  know,  so  that's  part  of  that  kind  of link  that's  really  good  example  to  go  see. And  then  we  have the  blue  spaces  and  this  project  that  I was  involved  with  or  have  been involved  with  Blue  health. And  we've  talked  a  lot  about the  forests  and  the  parks and  the  green  spaces. But  what  about  the  water? What  about  the  water? Every  city  almost  is  on  water. There  are  most  cities on  a  river  for  transport, or  they're  on  the  sea  for  ports  and  fishing. It's  very  difficult  to think  of  cities  except  in desert  landscapes  that  aren't really  on  a  water  body  of  some  sort. But  it's  been  ignored. We've  polluted  the  rivers, they've  become  sewers, we've  turned  industry  and ports  and  our  backs  on  them  and  so  on. But  the  water  for health  also  goes  back  a  long  way, not  just  to  Roman  spas  and  things  like  this, but  where  it  was  used  for health  purposes  with  those  mineral  waters which  we  still  take. But  from  the  18th  century, the  sea  bathing  became  very  popular and  led  to  the  rise  of seaside  resorts  and the  treatment  of  many  ailments. Seaside  holidays,  sea  bathing, and  sunbathing  and now  the  most  popular  holiday  activities. We  think  of  it  really as  particularly  health  promoting, getting  vitamin  D  from  it  and  just  chilling, relaxing,  and  getting  all  of  that? And  it's  something  that  was  neglected. Blue  spaces  were  a  subset  of  green  spaces. But  no,  there's  as  many  different  kinds  of blue  space  as  there  are different  kinds  of  green  space. And  here  Brighton  was  one  of the  first  seaside  resorts for  the  wealthy  classes. And  if  you  read  Jane  Austin, the  people  in  those  different  books  are always  going  down  to  somewhere  on  the  coast, Brighton  or  somewhere, or  they're  taking  the  waters  at  bath. These  form  part  of  the  culture  of the  middle  and  upper  classes back  in  those  days. And  nowadays,  luckily,  and  thank goodness,  we've  rediscovered  water, and  we  are  going  back  to  it  as ports  move  out  into container  ports  somewhere  else, the  harbours,  like  the  London  Docklands in  the  80s,  become  very  important. As  we  start  to  manage  water in  cities  because  of  flooding  problems, we  start  to  use  the  concept  of the  sponge  city  and  have  urban  wetlands, which  are  also  water  management  systems and  also  as  parks. And  even  where  there  have  been  rivers  that have  been  putting great  big  pipes  underground, they've  been  bay  lighted  again  and  restored. So  we  have  these  examples  of  on  the  top left  Bishan  Co  Park  in  Singapore, which  is  a  wetland stormwater  management  park. We  have  the  famous  river  in  Seoul  in  Korea. The  name  I  can't  remember  to  pronounce  it, but  which  was  in  great  big  pipes, and  now  it's  been  opened  up and  become  this  linear  park, or  we  have  an  old  port  harbour  in  Oslo, or  we  have  coastal  towns with  access  to  coastal  areas. So  lots  of  different  blue  spaces  have become  seriously  important  for health  and  well  being. And  this  is  a  real  big  area of  my  research  in  recent  years. And  that  was  the  project  called Blue  Health  funded  through the  Horizon  in  Europe, and  this  is  wearing  my  Estonian  hat for  that  particular  project. And  we've  developed  a  toolkit for  evaluating spaces  and  how  people  use  them, which  we're  going  to  be translating  into  Chinese  with our  colleagues  in  Beijing Institute  of  Technology  and  a  book, urban  Blue  spaces,  planning, Planning  and  Design  for  water  health and  well  being, which  is  open  access, and  any  of  you  can  download  it  free, and  the  landscape  and  well  being students  will  be  getting  very  familiar with  that  book  in  next  semester  when  we  do the  course  on  landscape design  for  health  and  well  being. Now,  all  of  that  is, you  might  say  a  lot  of  history. It's  a  lot  of  the  obvious  things,  really. But  how  is  it  coming  with evidence  and  what  are  the  theories  behind  it, and  where's  the  science  and where's  the  research  into  this? So  now  I  look  at  a  little  bit  of  theory. So  escaping  from  the  urban  environment, first,  the  forests,  then  the  huts. After  that,  the  villages, then  the  cities,  then  the  academies, how  are  we  going  to  go  back to  back  to  the  RussinUrbe? How  can  we  get  back  to nature  in  different  forms? And  why  should  we  do  it? So  there's  increasing  evidence  that  green, blue  spaces  and  natural  areas are  able  to  contribute  to  stress  reduction. Well,  Frederick  Law  Als  knew  that. John  Muer  knew  that. Lots  of  Marshall  knew  that, but  somehow  it's  taken  us  a  while  to  be, you  know,  understanding  that  properly. So  we  can  see  the  outdoors  as being  a  restorative  environment. It  restores  our  mental  equilibrium, our  physical  sense  and  so  on, being  close  to  nature, physical  exercise  in  attractive  surroundings and  from  a  pleasurable  aesthetic  experience. And  that  comes  back  to  the  aesthetics  part. The  sublime  experience  looking at  something  beautiful  is  calming. And  that's  why  people  like  to see  attractive  forest  in the  Lake  District  and not  horrible  square  blocks and  patchworks  like  that, which  were  originally  being  planted. Urban  environments constantly  bombard  us  with  stimulation, visual  noise,  and  living  and working  there  requires  constant effort  of  concentration. And  that's  without  thinking  of  the  screens, our  smartphones,  all  our  devices, which  we  are  always  on. And  the  amount  of  time  you  see people  walking  around  the  city, do  they  actually  look  at  the  city? No,  they  look  at  their  Google  maps, and  they  look  at  their  phones, and  they  have  their  head  down, and  they  don't  notice almost  that  they're  going  to  get  run  over or  they're  going  to  get  their  bag snatched  or  whatever  it  might  be. So  natural  areas  stimulate  us  without  effort. We  don't  have  to  focus  and  concentrate, which  we  have  to  do  on  everything  else. The  sounds  are  calming. Natural  colours  help  us  to  relax. And  this  is  known  as  soft  fascination. And  the  theoretical  foundation  of  this, we  could  say,  at one  level  is  the  biophilia  hypothesis. And  this  takes  us  back  to this  idea  that  for  300,000  years, we've  been  outdoors  for 30,000  years  since  people started  living  in  caves and  doing  in  cave  art, and  for  the  10,000  years since  the  retreat  of  the  most  recent  Ice  Age, and  going  back  for  55  million before  the  constant, you  know,  the  complete  evolution of  homosapiens. So  it's  genetically  in  us. That's  the  general  theory that  we  evolved  in  that  landscape, we  evolved  to  survive  in  that  landscape, we  evolved  to  adapt  in  that  landscape. We  evolved  to  get our  food  from  that  landscape, to  go  hunting  and  so  on, in  nature  and  not  in  cities. And  that's  where  this  idea  of  biophilia, the  love  of  life  comes  in. And  it  was  put  together by  Edward  O  Wilson  in  1984. That's  the  guy  there.  And  it's been  embraced  widely  as  helping  us to  understand  why  we  need contact  with  nature  for our  health  and  well  being. It's  not  one  that  we  can  necessarily  prove, but  it's  a  kind  of  overarching grand  hypothesis  or  theory within  which  we  can  work  a  lot. You  might  in  architecture  have come  across  a  lots  of  things like  biophilic  design  guides  and  using natural  materials  and  having sculptural  forms  like organic  forms  and  things  like  this. Some  of  that's  a  little  superficial, but  at  least  it's  people  actually trying  to  make  our  lives better  by  using natural  materials  and  forms  and  so  on. One  of  the  main  theories that  we  use  is  this  one, at  tension  Restoration  theory, where  the  term  soft  fascination came  from  that  was developed  by  Steven  and  Rachel  Kaplan. That's  that  pair  there.  Back  in the  80s  and  90s, a  time  of  rapid  technological  advances and  increasing  indoor  entertainment. And  it  was  before computers  and  the  Internet,  of  course. But  it  hypothesises  that nature  has  the  capacity  to  renew our  attention  after  exerting  mental  energy, for  example,  after  working tirelessly  on  a  project, studying  hard,  having  to focus  on  complicated  things. And  then  the  other  theory  that  we  embrace a  lot  is  the  stress  reduction  theory. So  attention  restoration,  ART, stress  reduction  theory,  SRT. And  this  is  set  forth by  Roger  Ulrich,  that  guy  there. And  it  involves  the  recovery or  restoration,  again, from  excessive  arousing  states, both  psychologically  and  physiologically, like  on  our  heart  rate  and our  blood  pressure,  and  so  on. Stress  recovery  is  part  of this  larger  concept  of  restoration, which  also  encompasses  factors  such  as our  unders  stimulation  and recovery  from  anxiety  and  so  on. So  these  are  a  couple  of the  major  theories  that  we use  to  explain  things. They  are  the  foundations  of  this. And  then  we  refer  in  our  experiments  and  so on  how  to  see  how  this  works,  et  cetera. There's  a  lot  more  to  these  theories, of  course,  than  I'm  showing  you  here. Now,  coming  to  our  research here  in  ECA  a  bit. So  in  the  early  2000s, the  Open  Space  Research  Centre  was founded  with  a  grant  from  Shefk, the  Scottish  Higher Education  Funding  Council, jointly  between  ECA and  Herriot  What  University, which  I  shouldn't  forget  about. And  the  founding  directors  were Professor  Peter  Aspinall  at  Henriet  Watt, Catherine  Ward  Thompson  here,  and  me. They  were  both  professors,  and  at  the  time, I  was  a  new  researcher. Of  course,  I  wasn't  young. I  was  40  something  after 20  years  at  the  Forestry  Commission, but  I  was  new  as  a  researcher and  just  in  a  senior  research  fellow. Our  early  research  focused a  lot  on  forests  and  woods, inclusive  access  to  nature  and  the  kind  of benefits  and  how  people  were using  them  and  things  like  this. And  it  was  originally about  accessibility  and  thinking about  how  disabled  people  can access  the  countryside  and how  blind  people  and deaf  people  and  ethnic  minorities and  social  inclusion, all  those  sorts  of  things. But  the  health  side  started  to  creep up  and  it  became  more  and  more  important. And  we  stated  it  became a  dominant  theme  and our  early  publications  were  based on  a  conference  we  held  and  then  looking  at research  methods  into  landscape  and  health. And  these  became very  important  founders  of  the  kind of  the  research  approach  and  so  on. And  we  started  to  work  and  collaborate  a  lot with  other  centres  of  this  field  in  the  USA, and  in  Denmark  and  Sweden and  Japan  and  Australia  and  Germany, the  various  kind  of  important  centres that  have  been  working  on this  from  those  years, and  it's  all  getting  bigger and  bigger  as  we  go  on. And  our  research  impact  on  the  basis  of all  this  understanding  and the  methods  we  apply, is  working  together  with our  colleagues  all  around the  world  and  has come  up  in  things  like  this. For  example,  the  Oxford textbook  of  nature  and  public  health, the  role  of  nature  in  improving the  health  of  a  population. So  this  is  population  level. And  there's  one  chapter  in  that, which  I  co  wrote  with a  Chinese  researcher  inter  Shin ring  yoku  Ching  Li. Which  is  all  about  forests and  wilderness  and  health  and  well  being. And  it  summarises  the  work as  it  was  a  few  years  ago. And  we've  published  lots of  academic  papers  and influenced  policy  at  Scottish  levels, Catherine, particularly  UK  and  European  levels through  these  big  European  projects. And,  of  course,  we  founded  we  decided  that, well,  this  whole  subject needs  to  be  put  out  there. And  while  we've  got  a  lot  of PhD  students  who  are working  on  this  general  theme, and  there's  many  of  them  in the  audience  here  who  are  doing something  to  do  with  landscape and  well  being  in  their  PhDs, and  we  also  decided  that  we ought  to  think  about  the  educational  side  of this  and  open  up  the  programme of  landscape  and  well  being that  Huan  alluded  to. And  we've  been  doing for  quite  a  few  years  now, and  we're  getting  30  some  students per  year  passing  through  it, many  of  whom  are  in  the  audience. And  it's  the  only  such  programme  of  its  kind, really,  that's  out  there. So  we  are  pioneers  in  that  respect. And  we've  gone  international, and  again,  an  alluded  to  this, we  have  this  joint  laboratory  of healthy  space  with  our  colleagues in  Beijing  Institute  of  Technology, who  were  taking  the  pictures  at  the  front here  because  they're  just  from  there. And  that  was  when  we actually  had  the  kind  of  opening  of  this. This  was  in  February  this  year, and  that's  with  then  Dean. He's  now  retired  and  me. And  we  have  this  plaque, which  is  celebrating  it with  a  logo  on  the  right  hand  side, and  the  Edinburgh  University and  BIT  logos  there. And  then  in  July,  I  was  over  there. Ian  Scott  was  over  there, and  he  was  appointed  a  visiting  professor. I  was  appointed  a  visiting  professor at  that  particular  time. And  so  this  is  really  important  evolution, really,  because  there's  so  many  people now  working  in  this  field. And  in  China,  there's  universities all  over  the  place  who  are  getting  into  this, and  we  held  a  really  good  seminar down  in  um  where  was  it? Juhi.  Yes,  Juhi  down  in  the  south of  China  with  people  from  many  universities, including  former  PhD  students who  are  now  working  down  there, and  I  think  some  of  them  are online  listening  to  this  as  well. So  this  is  our  next  development. And  yeah,  working  in  that  field, it's  really  great  area. So  quo  vadis,  where  does  it  go  from  here? So  the  association  between landscape  and  human  health and  well  being  has  become  firmly  established, but  there  are  some  butts. There  remain  problems  with the  evidence  being  accepted by  mainstream  medical researchers  and  practitioners. So  we  work  a  lot  with  public  health  people. We  work  with  environmental  psychologists, but  when  it  comes  down  to  persuading  GPs, for  example,  there  are  some  enlightened  ones. Don't  prescribe  the  pills. Prescribe  some  walks  in  the  forest. No,  no,  no,  no,  no, we  don't  know  that  works. Where's  your  evidence? Well  we've  got  this  study, where  it  showed  that people  who  walked  in  the  forest said  they  felt  a  lot better  than  when  they  took  the  pills. Oh,  that's  just  self  reported. That  doesn't  count. Where's  your  randomised  control  experiment? Where  can  you  do  these  tests? We  can't  because  you  can't  control the  variables  when  you're out  in  the  nature  and  so  on. So  this  is  one  of  those  kinds  of  problems, so  we're  having  to  look  at  ways  of strengthening  this  by  looking at  the  physiological  aspects, by  doing  brainwave  monitoring, by  looking  at  salivary cortisol  for  stress  hormones, by  looking  at  heart  rate  variability, by  looking  at  all  sorts  of things  to  do  with  the  body  and the  physiology  of  this  to  show  that actually  going  into  nature, into  green  areas,  blue  areas,  and  so  on, is  actually  helping the  health  and  well  being. So  there's  still  a  lot  to  do, and  our  efforts  will continue  into  the  future. And  I'll  just  finish  with  this  rather  nice quote  you  can  see  on  our  open  space  website. One  of  the  signs  of  success  of a  great  research  organisation such  as  OpenSpace  is when  the  ideas  that  it  pioneers  are  accepted so  widely  that  they  become  commonplace. And  that  was  one  of  our  major  clients at  the  Forestry  Commission, Marcus  Sangster  when  we're doing  a  lot  of  work  in  that  realm. So  thank  you  very  much  for  your  attention. That  concludes  my  address. And  if  you  do  have  a  question  or  two, then  there  is  a  bit  of scope  for  answering  it. Thank  you  very  much,  Simon. Thank  you,  Simon  for  that  wonderful  lecture. And  yes,  there's  some  scope  for questions  before  we  go and  have some  drinks  and  further  conversation. But  thank  you  so  much  for  that.  So  I'll  leave you  to  any  questions  that  you  undertake. No.  Gone  once.  Gone  twice. I  was  as  I  was taken  early  on  in  the  lecture  where  you showed  early  landscape  design, forest  design  happening  through a  notebook  and  sketching. And  then  you  talked  about  your  own  designs, which  you  said  you  did  through processes  such  as  photocopying  and  the  like. I  just  wondered  if  you  could  say something  about  the  evolution  of the  technologies  for  designing landscape  because,  of  course, you  go  from  the  notebook  to now  presumably  GPS,  Geompping, huge  amounts  of  visualisation  tools  now, virtual  sonography,  huge  amount of  technological  development  at  that  time. And  I  was  curious just  about  your  reflections  on  that. Yes,  well,  yeah,  we  started  out  with paper  maps  with  photographs you  had  to  take  and  get  prints  of and  join  them  together  in  the  panorama. We  took  photocopies  of  those, and  the  photocopies  were  too  black  and  white, so  we  had  to  twiddle  with  photocopies to  make  a  kind  of  grey  scale  of  them. And  then  we'd  use  pens  and  we'd  draw  on  them. And  then  we'd  go  from  this  photograph  of what  the  forest  was  to look  like  back  to  the  map. And  that  was  a  really  difficult  process, because  what  a  forest  looks  like  and what  a  map  looks  like  is  all  distorted. So  we  got  into three  D,  computer  visualisation, back  in  the  mid  80s,  actually, there  was  a  company  of landscape  architects  in  Edinburgh, the  Turnbull  Jeffrey  Partnership, and  he  and  Mark Turnbull  was  the  leader  of  that. And  he  was  very  much  into computer  aided  design in  those  very  early  days and  doing  three  dimensional  terrain  models and  trying  to  do what  a  forest  could  look  like. It  was  all  just  these  grids, and  it  was  green  screens  and  things. But  we  got  into  that  and  started  producing visualisations  and  then  starting to  link  between  that  and  the  map. So  we  could  see,  well,  the  map looks  like  this  and  it'll  look  like  this, or  this  is  what  we're  drawing  on  the  picture, and  it  will  look  like  this  on  the  map. So  we  had  this  kind  of  thing  going  between. Looks  very  primitive  now. And  then  we  started  to see  that  with  these  programmes, there  was  one  called  World  Construction set  and  then  Virtual  Nature  Studio, which  do  quite  nice  visualisations  of large  landscapes  where  you  need loads  and  loads  of  trees,  for  example. And  then  GIS  came along  and  all  of  those  maps. And  then  you  could  start  creating the  polygons  and  you  could  say,  Well, this  is  going  to  be  Scott's  pine  and  it's going  to  be  larch  and  it's  going  to  be  oak, and  then  you  could  create  this  visualisation. So  we  were  moving  as  fast  as we  could  into  those  technologies, and  the  more  recent  projects use  those  kinds  of  things  a  lot. And  you  can  do  three  D  things with  putting  maps, overlaying  maps  on  them, and  aerial  photographs  on  them  and  so  on. And  the  other  challenge  was  to set  something  out  on  the  ground. Here's  a  wiggly  shape.  It  was  very  easy. You  got  a  map.  We've  got  four  corners. Right.  It's  these  four  corners. You  can  survey  them  with  a  Theodoolte, put  a  peg  in  the  ground, and  you  know  where  your  boundaries  are. If  it's  wiggly,  where are  you?  How  do  you  lay  it  out? GPS  has  saved  us because  you  can  just  walk  a  boundary, and  you've  got  the  points,  whereas  before, GPS  was  even  good  bad  under  trees. He  didn't  get  a  signal,  and you  had  to  try  and  work  them  out, and  it  was  really  difficult  to  implement. Now  it's  super  easy. And  you  can  even programme  the  forest  harvesters, that  they  actually  just  cut  the area  that  you  want the  shapes  of  because they  know  where  the  boundaries are  in  the  brain  of the  forest  harvesting  machine. So  all  of  this  is  almost  automated  nowadays. Yeah.  Yeah,  si  Yes. 1  second,  maybe  just  have. I'm  in  a  microphone,  actually. You  do,  because  it's  online  online. Did  hear  the  answer, but  wouldn't  hear  the  question. In  fact,  I'm  not  sure  the  hands  question. No,  no,  an  too. Yeah.  My  question  is, we  are  doing  research  about landscape  and  well  being, and  we  know  there's some  aspects  of  well  being  with  landscape. But  is  there  any  guidelines  for traditional  or  professionals  like  designers, landscape  designers  for designing  better,  which  is, like,  good  for  well  being  or  like park  design  or  any  types  of  guidelines  that could  help  them  to  do  better? Well,  yes,  there  are. And  particularly  that  book  I  alluded to  urban  blue  spaces  is  kind  of  like  that. It's  got  a  lot  of  well, you're  on  the  landscape  and welling  course  you'll  be learning  it  next  semester. So  I  don't  need  to  go  in  great  detail, but  it  does  have  that  yeah, there  are  a  lot  of things  that  we  know  you  need  to  do. And  some  of  them  are  very  simple. You  know,  accessibility  is one  of  the  crucial  things,  you  know? In  some  landscape,  shade  is  crucial. In  some  places,  getting  sunshine  is  crucial, in  some  places  getting  shelter, um  the  urban  heat  island, avoiding  that,  you  know,  noise  pollution. So  there  are  things  that  we know  what  we  need  to  work  on. And  I  think  many  landscape  architects, well,  have  absorbed  this through  practise  and  experience and  things  like  this. But  we're  now  moving  into this  realm  of  what  we call  evidence  based  design. And  it's  not  necessarily  well, it's  partly  about  the  guidance on  how  to  do  the  design, but  it's  also  like  in  architecture, you  have  post  occupancy  evaluation  or assessment  to  go  back afterwards  and  say,  well,  is  it  working? Oh,  there's  a  lovely  design. There's  a  lovely  park,  open  it. Clap,  clap,  clap.  Everybody's  there. But  after  some  years,  is  it  still  working? You  know,  is  it  looked  after? Does  it  feel  safe  for  people  still? Has  it  been  taken  over by  the  wrong  people  and  so  on? So  going  afterwards  and checking  it  out  is  actually  as  important. Doing  beforehand  assessment, doing  your  design, implementing  it,  then  doing a  afterwards  assessment,  yeah. And  some  of  you'll  be  able to  do  some  dissertations based  on  that  kind  of idea  when  it  comes  to  it. Yes.  So  nice  question. Thank  you  for  that.  Yes.  Is  there  one  there? An  online  question. So  this  question  comes  from  Jackie  Bell. Oh.  The  misses. How  do  we  balance  maintaining  green  spaces  at a  time  when  there  is  increasing pressure  for  housing  development? Yes,  my  wife's  very  active in  politics  and  in  the  local  area, and  there's  a  lot  of pressure  for  house  billing  at Dunbar  where  we  live,  the  home  of  John  Muir. And  it's  ironic,  actually, that  John  Muir  came  from  Dunbar. We  have  John  Muir  Country  Park. We  have  the  John  Muir  Trust. We  have  the  John  Muir  birthplace. Yet  at  the  same  time,  there's  push, push,  push  for  housing, and  ting  bits  of  woodlands and  wet  areas  and  all  sorts  of  other  things. So  I  know  where  this  is  coming  from. One  of  the  problems  that  we've had  is  we've  had  urban  sprawl, cities  growing  outwards, outwards,  outwards,  outwards. And  we've  tried  to  stop that  with  green  belts  and  so  on. And  then  people  say,  No,  densify, densify,  densify,  densify. And  that  starts  to  squeeze the  green  and  blue  spaces  with more  and  more  dense  population  and fewer  and  fewer  green  and  blue  spaces. And  one  of  the  most  extreme examples  of  that  probably  is Daka  where  Tas  Neva  there comes  from,  where  there's  nothing. It's  super  dense  and  there's  nothing  there almost  so  we  have  to  strike  that  balance, and  we  have  to  look at  those  kind  of  proportions. I  mean,  there  are  some  numbers. You  know,  the  UN  has  numbers  of how  much  green  space  or blue  space  per  capita there  should  be  and  so  on, and  you  can  measure  cities  by  it. But  that's  just  a  very  basic that's  the  basic  sort  of  level. So  we  need  a  lot of  awareness  raising  amongst  the  powers  that be  and  amongst  the  elected  representatives who  maybe  want  to  do  things  well, or  they're  may  be  given  directions  from the  Scottish  government  or else  they  don't  really  have  this. And  so,  yeah,  it's  a  big  problem  that  we  need to  try  and  solve by  getting  people  to  understand,  you  know, the  building  on  green  fields and  building  on  woodlands, even  if  they  naturally  come  back  after the  demolition  of  somewhere or  abandonment  of  a  bit  of  land. These  are  valuable  spaces. Um,  and  there  was a  thing  in  Sheffield  a  few  years  ago. Oh,  the  pavements  are  getting  disturbed  by all  these  tree  roots  and  the roads  are  getting  problem. I  would  cut  all  these  trees  down. No,  these  trees  took  100  years  to  grow. Don't  just  cut  them  down  overnight and  then  just  to  repair  the  pavements. So  people  chained  themselves  to  the  trees, and  luckily,  eventually,  Sheffield  back  down. But  it's  this  kind  of  blind  spots  that people  have  despite  all  the  evidence, and,  oh,  yeah,  we need  to  save  the  rainforest, but  do  we  save  the  trees  in  our  own  backyard? You  know?  So,  yes, I  mean,  we  have  some  locally, we  have  some  big  problems  with particular  individuals  on the  council,  politics  and  such  like. And  I  think,  actually we  could  do  a  lot  by  getting all  of  the  ECA  staff  members who  live  in  Dunbar, and  there's  a  lot  of  them  to  get together  and  to  form  a  kind  of professional  group  to  batter the  politicians  over  their  heads. I've  tried  my  best, and  my  wife  tries  her  best, but  we  don't  always  get  everywhere. So  nice  one. I'll  see  you  when  I  get  home. Yeah,  yes,  thank  you.  Yes,  question  here. Hello.  In  terms  of the  physiological  benefits  of being  in  the  landscape, how  do  you  think  that field  of  research  could  expand? Like,  what  new  angles do  you  think  could  be  considered  with  that? The  physiological.  Yes.  Yes. Well,  this  is  where,  you  know, things  like  the  Shin  rn  yoku  come in  because  on  the  one  hand, it's  the  mental  benefit of  being  in  the  forest, but  on  the  other  hand,  it's the  chemicals  which  we're  breathing  in, and  there's  more  and  more  understanding  uh, done  by  various  organic  chemists  by isolating  the  chemicals  that  are coming  out  from  plants  of  different  sorts, not  just  conifers  with  the  scent  of the  terpenes  that  you  have that  particularly  pin  smell, but  lots  of  different  plants, some  of  which  are  well  known, of  course,  quinine  and things  like  this  that  come  from  plants. But  there  are  many  chemicals  that  have a  very  positive  impact  at  the  cellular  level. You  know,  they're  fighting cancers,  for  example. There  are  these  natural  killer  cells that  rove  around  our  body, and  by  some  of  these  chemicals that  we  get  from  the  forest, it  strengthens  the  power  of these  natural  killer  cells  and  they  can  go around  and  they  can  engulf  and  kill, you  know,  cancer  cells  roving  around. And  there's  more  and  more  of  these  chemicals are  being  identified,  they're  being  isolated. There's  some  really  interesting  work between  foresters  and  naturalists  and botanists  and  chemists  and medical  schools  and  these  kinds  of  things. I  was  at  a  really  interesting  conference  in Lithuania  of the  International  Society  of  Forest  Therapy. There  was a  great  presentation  by  somebody  about this  very  field  and all  these  different  chemicals that  are  coming  out  and being  discovered.  There's  more  and  more. It  goes  back  obviously  clearly  to the  fact  we  evolved  in  nature  and  the  forest, you  know,  and  our  health  and  the  fact we  survived  was  in part  because  we  were  taking  these  chemicals. No,  oh,  these  plants, it's  just  old  wives  tales. Oh,  it's  witchcraft  and  all  these  herbs. No,  we  don't  want  these  things. This  is  just  old  wives  tales  and  folklore. But  it's  not,  you  know, and  these  herbals  and  things  that  people used  to  do  back  in  the  17th  century. Oh,  this  plant  is  good  for this  and  that  and  the  other.  No,  it's  not. Oh,  it  turns  out  it  is,  you  know, once  we  know  what  the  active  ingredients are  and  the  more  of  that  that  we  can  do. And  that  means  we  need  to  protect  you  know, forests  and  different  habitats  because  of the  plants  that  have all  these  potentials,  you  know? So  there's  a  great  a great  possibility  there  to  work, you  know,  with  This  is  all  interdisciplinary, you  know,  all  of  it's interdisciplinary,  you  know? And  this  is  where  I  like  to  blow the  horn  a  bit  for  landscape  architecture as  one  of  the  professions  that can  be  the  glue  between  architecture, planning,  psychology, public  health,  engineering,  ecology. You  know,  we  talk  to all  these  different  people, and  we  bring  them  together. Um,  which  is,  I  think, one  of  the  strengths  of  the  profession  of landscape  architecture,  actually.  Yes. Thank  you. And  Louis  Jai  one  there. A  new  PhD  student? Yes.  Uh  and  thank  you for  today  and  for  sharing. I  think  it's  really,  really  useful  for me  because  my  subject  is, you  know,  it's a  research  like  urban  woodlands. So  it's  very  useful  some  point. I  would  like  to  ask  you some  questions  like  recently, I  read  a  little  bit  articles  about  how  to people  use  urban  urban  woodlands  saya I  saw  some  articles  about management  people's  management used  Woodland  so but  I  saw  it's  a  different  group  people  like sometimes  just  a  visitor  sometimes  it's Woodland  for  Woodland  business  and sometimes  just  for some  it's  Woodland  designer, and  they  have  a  different  opinion  to use  different  opinings  to describe  how  to  use  the  Woodland, how  to  like  them, perception  is  really  different. I  would  like  to  say,  so  how  can  I  to judge  and  distinguish  between  the  people used  of  forest  land  and  abuse  woodland. So  their  opinion  is  really  different. So  people  how  to  think people's  right  to  use or  abuse  abuse  woodland. Right,  right.  Maybe  just explain  a  little  bit of  the  background  to  that  question. Yeah.  You're  using  this  term  use  and  abuse. And  actually  what  GI  is  doing  is  she's  going to  repeat  with  some  extensions,  a  project, one  of  the  first  projects  we did  for  the  Forestry  Commission in  open  space  20  years  ago, about  the  local  use  of woodlands  in the  central  Belt  between  Edinburgh and  Glasgow  in  different  areas often  with declining  communities  in  those  days, 20  years  ago,  post  industrial  and  so  on. And  some  people  were  using  the  woodlands  and other  people  see  that  use  as  being  abuse. So  young  lads  would  like  to  go  in the  woods  and  be  free  and  maybe drink  something  like  BuckfastTnic  wine  and just  be  there  hanging  out there  without  anybody  telling them  what  to  do. And  other  people  would  be scared  about  that  and  feeling, well,  this  is  making  it  unsafe. And  how  do  we  recognise that  all  of  these  are  actually  valuable And  actually  legitimate,  you  know, young  guys  who  want to  get  out  and  some  fresh  air. It's  a  good  thing  to  get some  exercise  and  develop  themselves, you  know,  rather  than  sitting  at bus  shelters  and  being moved  on  by  the  police  or  something. So  this  is  all  a  very  interesting  area. The  answer  is  going  to  come from  your  research,  actually. So  this  is  something  to  get  into, and  it  will  be  really  interesting  to  see how  things  are  moved  and  one  generation  on. The  kids  who  were  using  it  back  then, I  expect  will  be  parents  now  or  many  of  them, and  are  they  taking  their  kids  there? Are  they  continuing  that  use? That  would  be  really  interesting  to  find  out. So  a  longitudinal  study, a  great  opportunity  to do  something  like  that. Yeah. Article,  before  the  research, we  just  do  some  focus  group  interviews. Yes.  We  need  to  catch some  key  words  and talk  about  how  to  use  them, how  to  see  what  is  the  views? Yeah.  During  this  time, like  the  past  20  years  and  we have  technology  or  we  can  use the  GPS  or  another  interviews Soft  word  to  improve and  to  think  about  the  people  how  Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah.  And  we have  all  different  tools  now. We  don't  use paper  questionnaires  quite  so  much. And  yeah,  we  can  do a  lot  with  online systems  and  those  kinds  of  things. I  think  the  fundamental  questions remain,  and,  you  know, it's  how  to  make  well, it  comes  down  to things  like  environmental  justice, actually,  or  spatial  justice. It's  how  everybody  has the  right  landscape  democracy,  actually. Everyone  has  the  right  to  landscape. Everyone  has  the  right  to  go  to  places  and use  them  within  the  legal  boundaries. I  mean,  one  of  the  uses  or  abuses  that  we  saw 20  years  ago  was that  young  lads  would  steal  a  car, they'd  drive  it  round  the  forest, and  then  they'd  burn  it. And  this  was  considered  to  be a  nice  entertainment  by  some  people, but,  of  course,  not  by  others  who had  to  clear  away the  cars  and  deal  with  the  fires. But  these  was  some  of  the  more extreme  types  of  things  like  this. But  it  was  very  interesting  20  years  ago, going  to  talk  to  young  teenagers, some  of  whom  had  had  brushes  with  the  police, some  of  whom  were teenage  pregnancies,  you  know, this  kind  of  difficult  group who  are  often  being kind  of  pushed  to  one  side, you  know,  and  given, you  know,  not  really considered  to  be  important  or  anything. So  it  would  be  very  interesting  to  go back  to  see  what's  changed,  yeah, to  see  if  this  thing  works,  because,  I  mean, we  did  another  study  as  part  of the  Edinburgh  project  for thriving green  spaces  with  Edinburgh  City  Council. And  it  was,  how  do  people  what  parks do  people  go  to  like  to  go  to, and  which  parks  do  they  avoid  going  to? And  it  turns  out  that some  people's  favourite  park is  another  person's  least  favourite  park, so  not  everything  is  suitable  for  everybody. So  your  favourite  park  is  not my  favourite  park  was  the  title  of the  paper  we  wrote  from  that. So,  yeah,  we  can't do  everything  for everybody  in  every  place  all  the  time. You  know,  you  can't  please all  the  people  all  of  the  time,  et  cetera. Yeah.  I  think  that's a  fantastic  place.  I  think  one. There's  no  question.  I  was just  going  to  say  we  do  have  to  wrap  up, but  there  is  one  last  question  on  it. Which  I  think  is  a  nice  one  Alright, you  inaugural  lecture,  Simon. So  this  is  from  N. Considering  your  work  from forest  to  Blue  space, what  might  be  your  next  research  interests? Well.  Good  question.  Very  good  question. There's  so  many  interesting  things coming  up  and  there's so  many  people  wanting to  come  and  do  PhDs  and there's  so  many  project  possibilities with  the  EU  funds  and  things  like  this. There's  lots  lots  of  things. One  area  that's actually  very  interesting  and  I  have a  colleague  that  I expected  online  in  Estonia. And  she's  looking  at,  well,  I  mentioned, environmental  justice,  spatial  justice, landscape  and  democracy. And  she's  starting  to  look  at women  in  particular  places  like  Iran. She's  Iranian  and  looking  at  how  women  in those  kinds  of  communities  use public  space  or  are constrained  about  public  space. So  there's  interesting  directions that  we  can  start  to  go into  which  haven't  been fully  explored  and  Mana is  working  on  that  particular  field. And  that's  going  to  be  really  interesting how  different  generations  of women  have  adapted  or are  challenging  the  norms of  the  regime  in  Iran, for  example,  you  know,  stuff  like  this. There's  a  lot  of  work  can  be  done about  immigrants  and  refugees. I  was  just  on  a  call  this  afternoon about  a  possible  project between  the  Baltic  states  and Nordic  countries  about  how  to assimilate  migrants  into  countries where  there  haven't  been  very  many historical  um, using  public  spaces  and public  public  facilities  like libraries  and  so  on, as  a  place  where  these  people  can meet  and  interact  and interact  with the  local  people  and  this  kind  of  thing. So  there's  some  interesting  areas. Yeah,  and  there's  plenty of  people  coming  forward with  interesting  proposals  for  PhDs. The  problem  is  I  can't  supervise  all  of  them, and  finding  supervisors  from within  the  faculty  is  a  bit  difficult. So  we're  a  little  bit limited  as  to  how  many  we  can  take  on, which  is  something  I might  want  to  talk  to  you  about,  Juan. Right.  And  that  notes. Dan,  thank  you  so  much  for  your  lecture. It's  going  to  be  really wonderful  to  be  introduced  to the  research  that  you  do  and  the  work  that you've  done  and  to  understand,  as  you  said, it's  a  hugely  interdisciplinary  subject that  involves  so  many  different  things and  brings  so  many  benefits  and so  much  understanding  to  our  world. And  I  love  the  way  in  which  you bro  just  the  range of  things  that  brought  into  it. Most  of  all,  I  love your  passion  and  excitement  to  the  subject, and  it's  just  fantastic  to  see,  and  I'm sure  everybody  really  appreciated  that,  too. So  thank  you  so  much,  and  there'll be  plenty  of  chances  to  ask Simon  questions  there  while he  nobles  me  about further  PhD  and  supervision. Thank  you,  Simon,  very  much. Thank  you. You  doing  this  for  a  drink?  Yeah. I'll  turn  this  off. To  be  a