EDP: AIM HIGH
25th April 2019
EDP aims to be the most responsive, effective and sought-after environmental practice in the UK.
Ben Connolley, working in their Cheltenham office, took time out to attend our last AD5000 session and explained in detail how EDP’s working practice takes the initiative to achieve such an aim.
He talked about the six core services offered: architectural and built environment; landscape design and management; masterplanning; ecology and arboriculture; landscape planning. For each it is not just a question of the best way to mitigate a proposed development; it is essential to build on what the site offers, incorporating the advantages of ecology and biodiversity. Doing a bat survey at dusk in the cold may not be pleasant – fixing your gaze at a tree aperture for minutes on end – but it provides crucial indeed indispensable data to inform your design decisions.
Completely different, but equally important, Ben stressed the value of free-hand sketching in presenting your designs. Not a fan of SketchUp, he advocated customising the automated perspectives to suit your own style. It’s more bespoke and appealing. The final thing I noted down from Ben’s talk was his recommendation of the Landmap resource (landmap.ac.uk). You need to open an account and then you have access to, for example:
- Modern UK Aerial Photography
- Landsat 7 landuse data acquired from Infoterra
- Colour InfraRed (CIR) data for England & Wales and Scotland
- Historical Aerial Photography for the UK and France
- Near InfraRed (NIR) red-edge data for Northern Ireland
- SPOT (Earth-Observing Satellites) Imagery
- Bluesky 5m resolution Digital Terrain Model (DTM) for England and Wales
- GetMapping 5m resolution Digital Terrain Model (DTM) for Scotland
- LiDAR-derived Terrain/Surface Models for cities of England & Scotland
- European Remote Sensing (ERS) Satellites 1 & 2 UK radar data
- Thermal imagery of England
- UK building heights; UK building classes; UK building blocks
- Kinematic GPS (KGPS) data for UK roads
- Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) UK imagery
