Journalist Evan Davis chaired this event which explores the relationship between architects and landscape designers. How does an architect meet the right garden designer? Can a landscape architect influence the city of the future? Is there ever such a thing as a truly landscape-led project in the modern world?
We explore what each profession can give the other in a set of four short presentations celebrating successful partnerships, explore how to get the chemistry right, and what architects and landscape designers can learn from each other. Presentations given by:
Architects Cooke Fawcett and garden designer Dan Bristow
Conceptual landscape consultant Kim Wilkie and architectural designer Ben Pentreath
Landscape Architect Jo Gibbons of J & L Gibbons
Garden designer Charlotte Harris of Harris Bugg
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Johanna Gibbons RDI
Bio »Johanna Gibbons RDI
Johanna Gibbons is a Landscape Architect and Fellow of the Landscape Institute. She is founding Partner of J & L Gibbons in 1986 and founding Director of social enterprise Landscape Learn in 2006. In 2019 Jo was named RSA Royal Designer for Industry for her ‘pioneering and influential work combining design with activism, education and professional practice’. Jo is a research partner of Urban Mind with Kings College London, a panel advisor to Historic England and the Forestry Commission and a Trustee of Open City. She publishes and lectures widely.
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Kim Wilkie
Bio »Kim Wilkie
After 25 years of running his own practice, Kim now works as a strategic and conceptual landscape consultant. He collaborates with architects and landscape architects around the world and combines designing with the muddy practicalities of running a small farm in Hampshire, where he is now based.
Kim studied history at Oxford and landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, before setting up his landscape studio in London in 1989. He continues to teach and lecture in America; writes optimistically about land and place from Hampshire; and meddles in various national committees on landscape and environmental policy in the UK.
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Dan Bristow
Bio »Dan Bristow
Daniel grew up in a horticultural household in Sudan and on Anglesey, North Wales, with parents holding Kew diploma and Landscape Design qualifications, and had learned all the plants in the hedgerow by a young age.
Drawing on prior training in fine art and graphic design Daniel started his own garden design business in 2008 and went on to study horticulture at Capel Manor College in 2009. He has designed gardens in London, over the UK and internationally.
His never-ending quest to learn of new plants and experience them in their natural habitats has seen him journey on numerous plant-hunting trips worldwide, including Japan & SW China (2007), Peruvian/Bolivian Andes (2009), Tyrolean Alps (2009), India (2010), Langtang, Nepal (2011), Sri Lanka (2012), Taiwan (2013), Colombia (2014), Turkey & Kyrgyzstan (2016) -
Charlotte Harris
Bio »Charlotte Harris
We are a values-driven, award-winning landscape design practice of nine, led by Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg. We work on a range of projects across the UK and Europe encompassing high-end residential, public, historic and commercial spaces. These are often in protected landscapes, requiring a careful and considered approach to design and stewardship.
Understanding the spirit of the place is central to our approach, using vernacular materials, nearby nurseries and local craftspeople, so that the garden speaks of and is connected to its broader setting.
Our studio has won five Gold medals, two Silver Gilts and Best in Show at RHS shows – including three Gold medals at Chelsea, a BALI award, and a Landscape Institute award.
The studio is consistently listed as one of Country Life Magazine’s ‘Best Garden and Landscape Design Practices in Britain’ and Architectural Digest describes the spaces we make as “…soulful gardens that are rich with meaning, mystery, and relevance”. We are also proud to be one of the House & Garden Top 50, who describe us as “intuitive, enthusiastic and extremely hard-working”.
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Ben Pentreath
Bio »Ben Pentreath
Ben Pentreath is one of the UK’s leading architectural and interior designers.
His London-based design studio has established a powerful reputation across a wide-ranging variety of disciplines.Ben’s background is in Art History, which he studied at the University of Edinburgh before attending the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture. He worked for five years in New York and then with the Prince’s Foundation, before starting his own practice in 2004.
Ben Pentreath’s book English Decoration was published in 2011. A sequel interiors book, English Houses, was published in 2016, and in 2024, he will publish a monograph of the firm’s work with Rizzoli.
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Oliver Cooke
Bio »Oliver Cooke
Oliver Cooke studied at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University, completing his Masters in 2007 with a thesis project with Herzog & de Meuron. During studies he worked at Renzo Piano Building Workshop (Paris), Jamie Fobert Architects and Allies and Morrison. He worked at Herzog & de Meuron Architects in Basel and London from 2007 until 2013, working on projects in Europe and the UK including the Tate Modern Extension, the Blavatnik School of Government for Oxford University, and One Park Drive – a residential tower commissioned by Canary Wharf Group.
In 2015 Oliver founded Cooke Fawcett Architects with Francis Fawcett. Based in London, Cooke Fawcett is a team of 8 working on a range of residential, cultural and commercial projects across the UK. The practice focuses on one off residential commissions, often in sensitive heritage contexts, alongside a growing portfolio of projects providing cultural infrastructure to support creative industries – artist studios, workshops, performance, and education spaces. Notable ongoing projects include the transformation of Cockpit Studios in Deptford to create new, improved spaces for Cockpit’s community of makers, and to open up the building for public use.
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Evan Davis
Bio »Evan Davis
Evan Davis is an economist, journalist, and BBC presenter. He presents the daily news show on Radio 4, PM. He also presents the popular BBC2 business reality show, Dragon’s Den and the Radio 4 business discussion programme, The Bottom Line.
Previously, he was the BBC’s economics editor, then a presenter on the Radio 4 Today programme and for four years was the main presenter of Newsnight on BBC2. He has written several books, the latest of which is called “Post-Truth: Why We Have Reached Peak Bullshit and What We Can Do About It.”