Fiona Smyth and Alex Laurenson
Architecture and Design Scotland discusses the influence of landscape design on the built environment in its latest Value of Design podcast.
‘How our landscape can shape learning, living and the design of our buildings’ brings together designers, architects, landscape architects and a school headteacher to explore the spaces between and around buildings, and just how important they are.
Hosted by designers Alex Laurenson and Lesley Riddell-Robertson, the conversation also includes Jenny Jones, senior landscape architect (CMLI) at rankinfraser landscape architecture Danny McKendry, principal landscape architect at Architecture and Design Scotland, Fiona Smyth, headteacher at Montgomerie Park Primary School in Irvine and Karen Anderson, president of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS).
Beginning with a recording that took place at the 2025 Learning Places Scotland Conference, Smyth and Jones explore how purposeful outdoor design contributes to educational outcomes and community life, the podcast leads into planting strategies, sheltered play zones and climate-ready design choices which shape Scotland’s ambitions for a resilient learning estate.
The episode then moves to a discussion between Anderson and McKendry which took place at the Landscape Institute’s National Housing and Regeneration Conference in January 2026 on the wider role of landscape in shaping Scotland’s future places.
Both Anderson and McKendry emphasis that landscape is not an add-on, but a core element of good placemaking and long-term spatial strategy.
The episode can be accessed here.
