Sue Morgan, the new CEO of the Landscape Institute, has had a lot of experience of being transplanted. Growing up, she attended 15 different schools. When I ask about the impact of this almost constant disruption, she is quick to point out the advantages of having had peripatetic parents and a rich variety of experience. 

 

‘’Everything is copy’’, she says, quoting the legendary writer and film director Nora Ephron, ‘It’s not that I want to take anyone else’s experience and use it’ she adds, ‘but I do think there has been a lot of picking things up as I go along in my life, and then adapting them and using them in different contexts.’ 

 

‘As I have got older and reflected on those early years, I have realised that moving schools and going to different places culminated in a multifaceted experience of life that has been really useful’ she says. ‘I think you create strategies when you move a lot. Maybe it’s about fitting in. But I think you become very attuned to learning. Very good at absorbing information. You also always have a sense of ‘other’ because you’re always new.’

 

Three of the places Morgan called home, however briefly, were new towns. ‘When I started at the Landscape Institute, I prepared a set of slides, ‘things about me’, to introduce myself to the team. And I realised that I have lived in three new towns: Redditch, in Worcestershire; Washington, which is up in Newcastle; and Milton Keynes. I think those places gave me a different insight into how the built environment is planned. Milton Keynes was known as the City of Trees, because it had such a huge landscape architecture team.’

 

In Milton Keynes, Morgan also had the opportunity to attend the experimental Stantonbury Campus school, where students didn’t wear uniforms, staff were known by their first names and every tenth day, the students designed the curriculum. The wraparound campus included shared facilities such as a leisure centre, theatre, health centre and church. ‘It was one of the most diverse, inclusive places’ Morgan recalls. What did she take from it? ‘A real sense of belonging. That anything is possible. That it’s best to experiment. And don’t be afraid of failure. Just the sense that if it doesn’t work, don’t worry. There is always another day around the corner.’ 

 

The Stantonbury experience may well have fuelled Morgan’s rebellious tendencies because spells in a punk band followed (keyboard and vocals) and the bright lights of London beckoned. Or, rather, the slightly less bright lights of Sidcup, where she did her first degree in stage management at the Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance. 

 

I suggest that it is quite a leap from theatre to landscape and Morgan is quick to explain the link. ‘In the theatre you put up a set, you take it down, you put it up again, and take it down again and then you get rid of it. You spend a lot of time crafting something and then, like a newspaper, it is the next day’s chip paper. I wanted to be involved in something that’s not just going to be disposed of. Something that’s going to be there for a while. Something that you can see, feel, and touch, and see how it is used and how it evolves and changes.

 

‘Rose Bruford is set in the most amazing grounds – Lamorbey Park – and I thought that’s where I want to be. Growing things. As a family we had always grown things and I was always surrounded by greenery. The possibility of being in the outdoors, learning a craft, really appealed. So, after a spell of handing out programmes in regional theatres, I became an apprentice gardener with the Greater London Council (GLC).’

 

At that time, the GLC looked after every park and green space in London and Morgan did everything from growing bedding materials to arboricultural work. ‘I had such a great time!’ she says. ‘I worked in Thamesmead and Abbey Wood and had experience of doing decorative horticulture and lots of agriculture. I even learned to drive a tractor. I was the only woman with 25 blokes so that was interesting. I think every woman working in the built environment will know that feeling.’

 

Her apprenticeship lasted until the GLC was abolished in 1985. But mid-way through, Morgan had realised ‘that what I wanted to learn more about was not just gardening but landscape design, and landscape architecture.’ This prompted her to sign up to do a degree in landscape design at Thames Polytechnic. Although not the first woman to head the Landscape Institute, Morgan is the first CEO with landscape architecture training. 

 

Her appointment comes at what she calls a ‘pivotal time’ in the history of both the Institute, which will celebrate its centenary in eight years’ time, and landscape design. Why is this? ‘If you look at where we are now, whether that is living with COVID or tackling climate change, the role of the landscape architect is central. It is the absolute time for the landscape profession to really stick their heads above the parapet, to get noticed and to get a seat around every important table.

 

‘Landscape architecture and landscape architects are holistic, creative, innovative professionals. They understand that places are linked through systems. One thing affects another. It’s a science. It’s an art. And it is highly technical as well as being about creating beauty. As a profession we have a lot to bring to every important conversation currently taking place.’

 

Morgan’s personal contribution to that conversation has been honed through a career of working at the intersection of the frequently competing interests of design, community, local and national government, and landowners, most recently at Design Council. 

 

An early and informative role was at an urban study centre in Notting Hill, almost at the foot of Grenfell Tower. ‘We worked with all the key stakeholder groups in the local community to address issues such as air pollution by creating healthy, healing public spaces with things like growing areas and green pocket parks. After the disaster I was invited back there, as a Design Council ‘expert’, and it was depressing to find that the projects we had worked on 20 years prior hadn’t manifested themselves, and nothing much had changed in terms of public realm. It struck me afresh that short-lived projects, with three, or five, years’ funding, don’t make real, systemic change. It has to be about establishing common purpose and trust and sometimes that means a landowner, such as a local authority, divesting itself of some assets and handing them over to the community and then placing trust in them to do a good job and look after them.’

 

This was a philosophy Morgan embraced during her 12-year involvement with Wandle Valley Regional Park Trust, a period during which she also became one of the first CABE Space Enablers and a Built Environment Expert for Design Council which she later joined as director of architecture and built environment. 

 

‘I can point to a number of places in Wandle Valley where local people took over spaces and then just adopted them. Local authorities are not created to be nimble or agile. They are large bureaucratic organisations and fighting your way through the red tape to create a sense of cohesion in a single place is hard. In Wandle Valley we asked for forgiveness rather than permission, and a lot of those spaces then became very successful.’

 

Stitching together partners, stakeholders and landowners is something of a Morgan trademark, practiced again in Bankside where Morgan was the founder of the Bankside Open Spaces Trust, established to protect 10 open spaces from office and housing development which became a successful, thriving charity ‘and one that is still looking after disenfranchised communities because they do still exist, even at the foot of the Shard’ says Morgan. 

 

Although it is early days for Morgan at the Landscape Institute (she has been in post for five short weeks when we speak) this capacity to bring together apparently disparate interests, and provide a common sense of purpose, is clearly going to be in demand. 

 

‘The Institute is a multifaceted organisation and I am still talking to people internally and getting to know what we need to do’ she says. ‘But I think there are two or three things that I want to highlight. 

 

‘The first of these is the need to get landscape architects to speak more outside of their profession, so that we are not siloed. Membership organisations tend to speak primarily to themselves, and I am determined not to forget that I said right at the beginning that we need to turn our attention outward. I want to work hard at raising the profile of what landscape architecture is, and what landscape architects do. 

 

‘Something that is fundamental to the success of the profession is our ability to bring new people into it. I want to find mechanisms to demonstrate to schools and career professionals that landscape architecture is something that young people who are concerned about climate change, or protecting the environment, can channel their passions into. It’s a rich profession, it’s diverse and it is incredibly rewarding. 

 

‘Finally, I want to understand what the Institute’s value proposition is. What is going to persuade the next generation of landscape architects to join a membership organisation?’

 

This is a busy agenda and Morgan is very aware that the Landscape Institute is approaching it’s Centenary and coming out the other side of a difficult period in its history, precipitated by the financial crisis of 2009, so there is a sense of urgency. ‘Being able to use my leadership experience and strong sector knowledge is a real joy’ she says. ‘And being at the helm of a membership organisation where I know a lot of the members personally, and during a time when the contribution of landscape architecture to some of the biggest issues of the day is clear, is an amazing opportunity. Do I think landscape architects can save the planet? Of course we can! But nobody can do it on their own. I think my background experience and knowledge of other sectors, including private, voluntary and public, and also of education and more developer-led initiatives, will enable me to bring outside voices in, and support us not to be so silent.’

 
Featured in NLQ 49.