Latest news with #landscapeArchitecture
Fast Company
30-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Urban design job listings are up 102%. This might be why
Fast Compan y's new analysis of job listings across several design disciplines puts a number on it: job postings for urban designers are up 102% compared to the previous year. This boom may reflect the increasing relevance of the kind of work urban designers do, which is to create functioning communities and regions. Spanning architecture, city planning, landscape architecture, and urban development, urban design takes in the whole picture of a city and looks for ways that interventions at all scales can improve the system. 'It's really a field of integration,' says Tyler Patrick, chair of the planning and urban design department at Sasaki, a large multidisciplinary design firm. Patrick says that Sasaki has been hiring more and more urban designers every year, and including their input on nearly every project. 'It's a field that continues to add a lot of value.'
Telegraph
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Lady Carnarvon of Highclere: ‘I walk my pony in the garden, sometimes I bring her into the house'
Highclere Castle – the location for the Downton Abbey television series and films – has 1,000 acres of parkland originally designed by the renowned 18th-century landscape architect Capability Brown. Lady Carnarvon, together with her husband Geordie, 8th Earl of Carnarvon, took over the estate in 2001 and has written nine books about Highclere's history and life today, in and around the castle; she also set up a dedicated Instagram account, which has more than 670,000 followers. Here, she discusses how she and Geordie have restored and reinvigorated the gardens over the past 24 years. Where do you live? Highclere Castle sits on a chalk escarpment that is relatively high up for this part of Berkshire. It's surrounded by the greenest of lawns and is backed by long distant views that include woodlands and rolling fields. However, when you come up the main drive, you might be tempted to think, 'Where are the gardens?' About 300 years ago, there were several formal gardens, including great shrubberies and large herbaceous borders at the front which led all the way round to a folly, but during the two world wars, they were grassed over. When my husband Geordie and I took over, there was still only a skinny offering of gardens, but as we are both passionate gardeners, we wanted to change that. We had a wonderful team behind us and plenty of ideas, but we were also determined to get our hands in the soil. What has been your approach at Highclere? When I first came here, I probably worried quite a lot about what other people thought, including my new ideas for gardens. You've only got to be reminded that Capability Brown designed the parkland here to fill you with a sense of doubt. But one day, Lady Jeannie, Geordie's mother, turned to me and said: 'Fiona, this is your home; create something which you think would be right for Highclere.' That gave me the confidence I needed. Of course, there is so much history: people have lived here for 1,200 years – the Bishops of Winchester owned it for 800. One of the oldest known gardens we have is called the Monks' Garden and it dates back to the 12th century, when monks cultivated it for fresh produce and herbal remedies. So, this has partly inspired my healing herb garden beside the courtyard. It not only allowed me to explore an area of plants I'm passionate about, but was also a perfect way of connecting to the castle's fascinating past. Which projects has your husband enjoyed the most? Fifteen years ago, Geordie decided to turn an area of the grounds around the back of the castle into a wildflower meadow. He entered into it with tremendous gusto and his hard work has paid off. Come late spring, the meadows are a sight to behold. It has also given us wonderful surprises, including some of Britain's rarest orchids which suddenly started popping up to say hello. We keep a mowed lawn running through it, so it's the most wonderful walk in the morning with the dogs – we have eight labradors. Geordie's also passionate about the spring bulbs. Some 300,000 have been planted in the grounds – snowdrops, crocuses, narcissi, wild tulips, camassias, fritillarias, alliums – and he extends that area every year. In fact, we have a wonderful bulb specialist called Michael Lubbe who comes over from Holland in the autumn and in two hours plants 5,000 'time-lapse' bulbs with his machine. I always laugh because when it's time to get out the spring catalogues, I put in a request for a few things, only to find he's already used up the entire bulb budget on his own selections. What are the themes that have inspired some of your other gardens? A garden is a wonderful place to remember and celebrate the people we love, so Geordie and I have both dedicated gardens to our mothers. Geordie's mother, Lady Jeanie, died in 2019 and the area we chose for her sits on a soft slope looking westward – towards Wyoming, the place where she was born. She loved pastel blues and adored every shade of white, so there are creamy lupins, Rosa rugosa and philadelphus, which has a scent that is absolutely divine. Towering Jerusalem artichokes add a touch of silver with their large, elegant leaves. To one side of it is a temple and after a few hours of planting or weeding, we'll often sit there with the dogs and watch the sun going down. A short walk away is a rose arbour in memory of my mother, Frances. As she loved literature, I've filled it with roses named after her favourite characters, including the deep pink Gabriel Oak rose and a bright crimson Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Like my father, my mother died of cancer very young. It has taken time to create these gardens, and they mean a lot to us, but like time itself, gardening can be a very healing process. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Highclere Castle (@highclere_castle) Did you have a garden as a child? I was the eldest of six girls and we grew up in central London. We lived in a flat, which meant we didn't have a garden, but we had a balcony where our mother used to keep plants. At the weekend, however, our parents had to get us out, so we'd often be marched around St James's Park to use up our energy and improve our moods. My father, who worked in the City, loved golf, and would often drop us at Wisley Park while he went off to play. Once the big holidays came, we were very fortunate to have a seaside home in Cornwall, but some of my fondest memories are of staying at a large farmhouse in Kent which was owned by good friends of our parents. It was such a wonderful Darling Buds of May experience, with a duck pond in the middle of a croquet lawn, and everything from chickens to ponies keeping us occupied. My sister Lucy and I would often go off on the ponies with our Ordnance Survey map. Even now, I can hear my mother saying: 'Don't be back late, darling. It's treacle tart for lunch and Queenie's making it especially for you.' When it was time to go back to London, we always wanted to bring the ponies with us. Did that outdoor experience stay with you as you got older? Thankfully, we're now learning how beneficial it is to spend time in nature… to spend time in the garden. By the time I was a chartered accountant in my 20s, I craved the outdoors and would often volunteer to help people do their gardens at the weekend. It was such a relief from sitting at a desk all week. I'm a great believer in how being outside improves your mood and general well-being. And, of course, I still love ponies; in fact, I now have Pheobe, my Arab pony, whom I often take for walks around the gardens. On occasion, I'll even bring her into the house, too! She's such a sweetie and loves having a little look around but is always very respectful of floors and furnishings. Sometimes, I think you just get to a point in life when you want to go back in time and revisit all your fond memories. Even when I think back to my mother's balcony garden, it's a reminder that gardening comes in all shapes and sizes. I've recently found a new love of container planting; our new head gardener Emmeline has been helping me fill some big containers in the middle of the courtyard with small cherry trees and summer plants. I can't tell you the pleasure I get from that. I'm going to experiment with barrels next, and then I'll think about a few balconies. The castle manager John Gundill has renamed it Tut's Plaza. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Highclere Castle (@highclere_castle) Do you think gardening helps you on a deeper level? Over the years, Geordie and I have created many winding paths to take you from one garden to the next, and I've come to realise there's something very therapeutic, very symbolic, about walking on a winding path. It's a bit like life itself. As one gets older, you begin to appreciate that you don't always know where life's going to lead you or who you're going to meet along the way. Working on these gardens has certainly taken me on a wonderful journey in life and I hope it continues.
The Independent
30-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Swift garden at Hampton Court show highlights at-risk ‘symbol of summer skies'
A display highlighting dramatic declines of swifts and how households can help the 'symbol of summer skies' will feature at this year's Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) which puts on the annual festival has teamed up with wildlife charity the RSPB for the first time to create a show garden focused on swifts, supported by comedian Bill Bailey. Migrating 3,400 miles to Africa and back each year, the birds spend almost all their lives in flight – eating, drinking, mating and even sleeping on the wing – and depend on healthy insect populations and suitable nesting sites for their breeding season in the UK, conservationists say. But the species has seen numbers plummet by 68% between 1995 and 2023, and they are 'red-listed' over concerns about their survival. The swift garden aims to raise awareness of the species' declines, as well as celebrating their extraordinary migrations, and representing habitats frequented by swifts in the UK including meadows, woodlands and gardens. It will promote diverse, insect-friendly planting to show gardeners how they can support the birds and other wildlife, and feature sculptural representations of nesting sites, such as 'swift bricks' which can be introduced into homes and other buildings to give them somewhere to breed. Plants in the garden include field maples, common limes, teasel, catmint and devil's bit scabious, which all support and attract insects. Lilly Gomm, landscape architect and garden designer who is designing the show garden, said: 'These magnificent birds are a true symbol of summer skies and they need our help. 'By showcasing habitats rich in biodiversity and the small changes we can all make, like planting insect-friendly flowers or installing swift boxes, I hope visitors will feel inspired to take action for wildlife in their own gardens.' Bailey, an RHS ambassador, said swifts were 'majestic birds'. 'I'm delighted to be joining forces with the RSPB and the RHS to bring attention to these incredible aerial acrobats, whose presence is such a joyful part of summer,' he said. 'Their dramatic decline is deeply worrying but there's still a lot we can do to help. 'This garden is not only a celebration of swifts but also a timely reminder that by making our homes and gardens more wildlife-friendly, we can all play a part in securing their future.' RSPB executive director Emma Marsh said the garden was 'a great opportunity for us to demonstrate to visitors not only how incredible swifts are, but to highlight the very real peril they currently face, due to habitat loss and therefore their homes, and declining insect populations which means they have less food available'. 'We've lost more than 60% of the UK's swifts in the last 30 years,' she said. 'They need our help urgently and this amazing garden will show people how they can take action themselves.' She added that all gardeners working together to support wildlife would make a huge difference for swifts and other birds.
BBC News
18-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Tate Britain Clore Garden design unveiled
Designs for a new garden outside Tate Britain have been unveiled by the architect Tom Stuart-Smith and architects Feilden Fowles have come up with the design which is a partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and the Clore Duffield says the Clore Garden at the art museum, which is based on Millbank in Westminster, "will offer a beautiful and inviting new green space for visitors and local residents to enjoy".Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, said: "These sumptuous, innovative designs demonstrate the role museums can play in our cities, places where contemplation and relaxation can go hand in hand with joy and creativity." He added: "We are enormously excited to share a first look at designs for Tate Britain's new garden, a significant green space uniting art and nature and encouraging biodiversity. "We hope the garden will offer new ways to engage with Tate's collection, for both visitors and local residents alike."Mr Stuart-Smith said: "It's a wonderful opportunity to create a haven for people, plants and sculpture right in the heart of London and to transform the setting of the gallery into a beautiful garden that is really engaging, biodiverse and sustainable."
Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Chris Parker remodels a garden that starred in a Hitchcock classic
The century-old Château de la Croix des Gardes, perched high in the hills overlooking the Bay of Cannes, is perhaps best known for being a backdrop in Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 film To Catch a Thief, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. But it was the 11 hectares of gardens, ponds, pools and woodlands, rather than the Palladian-style villa, that caught the attention of the British billionaire Chris Parker when he first saw it eight years ago. 'The real estate agent dropped me off and I said, 'Look, if you don't mind, could you just pick me up in four hours and just leave me here alone?'' Parker, the online gaming and film production entrepreneur, recalls. 'I could see the architecture was splendid. But for me it was all about the gardens.' As he wandered around he could immediately envisage spending hours here, he says, looking at the garden and the blue of the Mediterranean, the Lérins Islands (where the Man in the Iron Mask was held captive) and the Esterel Mountains. The garden had been modified several times since the château was built for the Swiss industrialist Paul Girod in 1919 (the Palladian-style façade was commissioned by another former owner, the Perrier boss Gustave Leven, in the 1960s). Working with the Grasse-based landscape architect François Navarro, Parker's ambition was to return the garden of Château de la Croix des Gardes to its original glory 'with as many plants and materials from the south of France'. It proved a huge task, given that 'it had been abandoned and the plants were not good, so everything needed to be totally remade,' says Navarro, whose practice creates gardens and parks across the Côte d'Azur and Provence. The parkland was regenerated with dozens of trees, including acers, citrus and figs, among existing and new pines; beds were filled with peonies, camellias, gardenias and irises (the blue iris adorns the château's coat of arms); the 36-metre infinity pool was restored; and a terrace was planted with hardy succulents. Paths were also created to wind through vegetable and cottage gardens, avenues of wisteria and valleys of magnificent magnolia trees. 'I liked the idea that everywhere you go there is a new surprise,' Parker says. Romance fills the air too from March to December, thanks to Navarro's planting of fragrant, frilly-petalled heirloom roses in soft shades, jasmine, lilies and narcissi. 'Where there is perfume, everything is better,' Navarro says. Navarro's preference for wild styles of planting did, the owner admits, go against his military training and desire for uniformity. 'But this is not a parade,' Parker says. 'So I agreed: let's have nature growing and taking over.' Hence the vibrant mix of plants — tulips, delicate hellebores, Chinese witch hazel and silvery euphorbia among the formal topiary and conical cypresses — and the sounds of water trickling from waterlily ponds and the rockery waterfall, flower beds abuzz with bees and flocks of parakeets in the evening sky. 'There are probably a hundred flying around and it's truly amazing. Noisy, but in a beautiful way,' Parker says. To protect the local fauna — bees, birds and butterflies — no pesticides are used and the estate's 17 gardeners are constantly assessing the practicality of plant species in the ever drier conditions. 'We've had two very, very dry years and we've lost lots of plants, so we're always trying to modify and adapt what we plant to maintain the quality of the park,' Navarro says. After an extensive five-year restoration — Parker's 'midlife crisis to find myself a château to repair' — the place has been transformed into an immersive escape that thrills all the senses. And just as the villa once hosted Brigitte Bardot and Leslie Caron during the early years of the Cannes Film Festival, nowadays the château and its gardens also set the scene for fashion shows (Donatella Versace and Dua Lipa debuted their collaborative La Vacanza collection here in 2023) and star-studded dinners (Julianne Moore, Marion Cotillard and Lupita Nyong'o were among guests at Chopard's Secret Night Party some years ago). • 25 of France's most beautiful châteaux to visit next While the estate is also open for exclusive use — 'I like the idea of people enjoying this beautiful garden until I find myself retired on a rocking chair on the porch,' Parker says with a laugh — the château is very much his home. 'It's my space to potter around and unload whatever things I have in my head. I can't do that anywhere else in the world. I have a house in Los Angeles, I have a house in Hong Kong, but neither gives me the tranquil feeling that I have here.'
