Page 18 - Landscape SA 97

FEATURE

THE PROS AND CONS OF ZOOM

Covid19 and the lockdown have brought about many changes in the world of work. Following
a webinar course via Zoom on the topic of “Resilient Planting Design”, presenter Donovan
Gillman, a landscape architect and horticulturist, shared his views with Landscape SA.

he RTG Resilient Planting Design Burgess for RTG, with input from botanist video footage that we had prepared for the
course was an idea that grew out of and horticulturist Ernst van Jaarsveld. online and live version. I lectured the theory
Tresearch Gillman had done for his and interacted live with participants in real
Master in Landscape Architecture Degree The course was originally envisaged time. We used a Dropbox folder to share
in 2010. This was elaborated on in an as an online, e-learning course over the course material with participants, and
ecological planting design process which several modules, to be undertaken in the they had access to this for a time after the
he developed and presented as a working participant’s own time, but in October course was over.
paper at the ILASA 2014 Conference in 2019 it was offered as a full time course
Cape Town. He has lectured on this at UCT which was presented once to a mixed The financial outlay was the cost of the
for the Plants and Design module of the group of landscape architects and garden Zoom license, in order to overcome the
MLA course every year since then. designers in Cape Town. free version’s time limitation. Cloud file
information storage and Dropbox are
Through his own design work and With the Covid19 lockdown, the group required for storing large files and videos
experimental research with other took the opportunity to put the course that are provided to the users.
practitioners of sustainable and ecological on Zoom as four half-day webinars, using
design, he wrote and presented a paper the pre-recorded and prepared material. The live webinar presentation requires fast
at the 2018 ILASA Conference in KZN, This was well received by an audience of fiber Internet access for the presenter and
explaining the application and limitations landscape architects and garden designers preferably for the participants too, if they
of ecological and resilient planting design and a second webinar course was given. need to be visible to the presenter and
in the context of landscape architecture. other participants. This enables everyone
The paper described his experiences in Q: What was involved in setting up the to interact in real time.
South Africa, Rwanda and Zambia when webinar from a technology point of view?
implementing such practices as the basis Did you have everything you needed, or Q: How did you go about preparing for
of landscape design in varied conditions. was an initial financial/equipment outlay the webinar, compared to how you would
required beforehand? present your information at an actual venue?
During 2018-2019, the course was
developed by himself, botanist Marijke Zoom made it very easy to set up the The preparation is similar to that of a
Honig and landscape architect Clare webinar, as we had PowerPoint slides and live presentation if one is using digital

Donovan Gillman Ernst van Jaarsveld

16 Landscape SA • Issue 97 2020