International Women’s Day

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2018, TGP asked company founders Rachel and Nicola, along with our next generation of Landscape Architects, for their thoughts and reflections on women in Landscape Architecture.

Rachel Tennant
‘Girls if I became pregnant every time a man touched my knee my offspring would fill Marcia Blane’s thrice times over’ (To be said in an Edinburgh Morningside accent)
‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Spark. Appropriate as it is the 100th anniversary of her birth this year.

My year out position and first working experience as a landscape architect was when I was 21 in a city council landscape department. My colleague, also a year out student, was dismissed for being a distraction to the boss. Thankfully I was not attractive enough to have that honour.

When I graduated I started the 2 years’ experience required to sit the then Landscape Institute’s Professional Practice Exam. Contract experience was essential and hence followed happy memories of running progress meetings in a contractor’s site office surrounded by images of page 3 girls and naked calendar girls advertising construction equipment and with constant reference to my clothing, hip and cleavage movement as I walked around the site. Portacabin experience continued with physical threats by the landscape contractor as I had rejected his workmanship.

Undeterred by the rather Neanderthal attitude of the construction industry at that time, Nicola Garmory and I set up our practice in 1994. We were completely unaware that the business centre we worked from was a Woman’s Enterprise Centre. We couldn’t understand why we were constantly being asked for interviews as we were seen as a successful woman’s business.

Times have changed and so has the construction industry, which has thankfully moved on to its current professional approach in its dealings with women.  I did learn a sense of humour but also how to deal with inappropriate behaviour that made me the professional I am today and gave myself and Nicola the confidence to develop the award-winning practice that TGP Landscape Architects has become and remains.

Nicola Garmory
A thank you…

… to the bosses in my graduate posting who made it obvious that there was no place at the top for a woman in the company and who made me redundant after the birth of my child (little did they know how this would spur me to get to the top)…

… to the director who asked us ‘girls’ to wear heels and skirts when accompanying him to client presentations and to the colleague who asked, tongue in cheek, for a clothes allowance…

… to my boss who said the contractor was the enemy…

… to the contractors who proved him wrong…

… to the contractors who proved themselves to be the enemy and for the lessons we learned in how to deal with them…

… to my dad who taught me that I could be anything I wanted to be…

… to my Co-Director Rachel Tennant for her uncompromising and relentless approach to business,  proving that between us we could be successful Landscape Architects, managers and business owners…

… to all those men and women who work/worked with us and for us in creating a successful Landscape Design business in TGP…

Libby Rose
It’s inspirational to be working in a company with such a powerful reputation thanks to Nicola and Rachel’s years of dedication. The industry has evolved significantly thanks to women like them and support from other professionals striving for equality in the workplace. My experience of Landscape has been influenced by passionate women, from supportive female course mates, dedicated and caring female tutors to enthusiastic co-workers. However the work still isn’t done, we must continue to Press for Progress until not even an offhand comment to undermine our potential and professionalism as women can be found lurking in our industry!

Meg Johannessen
I am constantly inspired by the strong women who have carved a space for us in our predominantly male industry. Rachel and Nicola faced discrimination in their career which seems unimaginable now, but this only spurred them on to build a successful brand and go on to write the landscape architects’ bible! Working for a company with this legacy of strong women producing great design fills me with confidence for my own career. I am also grateful for the women I met during my 5 years at university – the passionate lecturers who shared their experience and knowledge, and my fellow course mates, who were mostly women, who encouraged and supported each other through all our hard work.

My own time in the industry has been fairly short so far, but already I have experienced the highs and lows – from old fashioned views of women in the workplace to refreshing and supportive colleagues. Even in 2018 women still face discrimination and belittlement in the industry, and despite the huge leaps from how things looked when Rachel and Nicola first started out as graduates, there is still a long way to go until true equality.

It is just as important to address the lack of representation of minorities in our industry – I believe that only when everyone from society is represented in the design process will the design fully address the needs of the entire community. As we move forward I think it is important for us to constantly critique ourselves and support one another in order to create the change we hope to see in Landscape Architecture, the construction industry, and the wider world.