Landscape and nature conservation objectives are combined with aesthetic, engineering, environmental and planning considerations. For example, we worked with engineers, planners and local communities to design the landscape for the £22 million River Ness flood alleviation project for Highland Council in Scotland, and made it an accepted part of the city and waterfront, rather than an intrusion into it.
Where landscape is the primary focus of a scheme, we integrate landscape, ecology and heritage elements both with community and stakeholder aspirations, and with planning guidance. This was well demonstrated to our client and to the wider public in the redevelopment of St George’s Park in Great Yarmouth, UK, creating a green corridor linking the seafront to the heritage quarter, the medieval section of the town. It became the first park in Norfolk to be awarded a Green Flag by the Civic Trust, the UK national standard for quality parks and green spaces.
It is important to understand the complexities of a brief, and so recognise opportunities in a pragmatic and innovative manner. This allows us to support our clients through practical advice from the initial concept design stage through to the detailed design and completion. In the case of our award-winning landscape enhancement scheme for the Promenade at Cromer in Norfolk, UK, we incorporated hard landscape elements into the design to manage pedestrian and traffic flows whilse enhancing the area’s Victorian past.
We are recognised in particular for our experience in the landscape issues of linear infrastructure, including highways, railways, pipelines and overhead power transmission lines. One of our staff prepared the landscape section of the Design manual for roads and bridges, the standard for highways design in the UK. We were also responsible for the landscape restoration surrounding the A3 Hindhead Tunnel, which included restoring the undisturbed landscape of the Devil’s Punchbowl area by entirely removing an existing road.
We work worldwide on projects where landscape design is a significant element of projects or critical to their acceptance by local communities. In recent years our projects have included the Forestry Irrigation Project in Kuwait which included the design of a number of roadside parks and trim-trails, and design and construction services for the development of Jumeirah Golf Estate in Dubai.
Serving our clients
We serve a wide range of clients on matters relating to landscape design, including:
- Commercial developers
- Public bodies
- National and local governments
- Educational establishments
- Highways Agency
- Public and private utilities
- Multi-national companies