5. A Celebration of Brian Clouston’s career in Landscape Architecture

5. Work in the Middle East
Gordon Bell, a young landscape graduate, began working for BCP in 1972 with John Kelsey as partner in charge; colleagues in the office included Jerry Emery, Malc McNulty, Terry Taylor, John Madden, Fritz de Zutter, and office administrator, Janine Thirkettle. After a variety of landscape design and planning projects in S England and Wales, life changed for Gordon and BCP’s future, when he joined consultant Michael Lancaster on a study trip to research plants and techniques suitable for a prestigious new BCP project in Oman. It’s a great story!
It was an ironic twist that led Michael Smiley to work with BCP in 1975 on Middle East projects. Made redundant in US at the start of a recession caused by the Middle East oil crisis, luckily one of his friends was Jerry Emery who had been contacted by Brian looking to recruit landscape architects to work in the Middle East. The following week Michael was with BCP. One of his projects was an invited competition for a concept masterplan for Kuwait waterfront. He talks about some of the innovative ideas that they generated. There were projects also in Mecca but they were not allowed in to see or survey the site. Impossible to produce contact documents for the project - or was it? ‘You have just got to get on with it!’ and an unconventional but workable solution was found. He explains how. Michael relished the responsibility and Brian’s entrepreneurial spirit that ran through the practice.
Based at the new BCP London office (Covent Garden) for Middle East projects, Alex Novell worked on the masterplan and detail design for the landscape and recreational open space at Yanbu, a 35,000 ha new industrial port and residential city in Saudi Arabia. Eddie Kemp, ecologist and botanist on site identified some vulnerable areas - a wadi and a coastal mangrove swamp and coral reef, and these were included in environmentally protected zones. Another project was in Oman. Using photogrammetry, the original desert location selected for the new Qaboos University was found to be susceptible to flooding, and a more suitable site was found. Using Gordon Bell’s research and experience from other BCP Middle East projects, plants were established using drip feed irrigation. The rate, timing and extent of planting was dependent on the availability of recycled wastewater, the number of students, and if it was term time. An onsite plant nursery was established to supply varieties and quantities.
This is the 5th in the Brian Clouston series.
The next recording is 6. Work in Asia and Australia • 6. A celebration of Br...
The previous recording is 4. Garden Festivals • 4. Celebration of Bria...
For more information about FOLAR: www.folar.uk/
Landscape Institute collection at MERL: merl.reading.a...
About this series of talks
Landscape architect Brian Clouston OBE, past president of the Landscape Institute, established a landscape practice in the 1960s that became multi-disciplinary and operated internationally. By the 1990s it had become one of the leading practices in the UK and employed more people than any other in Europe.
FOLAR wanted to learn more about Brian Clouston, what he did, how he attracted so many young talented staff and what type of projects they worked on. FOLAR also wanted to know what they went on to do on leaving BCP. So we invited lots of former staff to tell their stories at an event in September 2023, with Brian Clouston as the star.
Brian continues to think about the role and contribution that landscape architects can make to society and to world affairs and in an interview, and he chose this opportunity to discuss his current big vision for Africa. We recorded this event and two interviews with Brian Clouston, as a contribution to the oral history of the profession of landscape architecture.
Section One: Introduction; Early days and the formation of the practice; Reclamation; Garden Festivals; Work in the Middle East, Work in Asia and Australia; Urban renewal and Rural infrastructure; Business Parks
Section Two: Legacy Practices and practice, discussion
Section Three: Brian Clouston’s future vision
These sessions were chaired by Annie Coombs FLI who was Managing Director of BCP Asia and Tim Gale PPLI who was a Director of BCP.