We spend nearly a third of our life working. And if you consider that we spend around a third of our life sleeping, then it adds up that we spend less time with our families and on leisure pursuits than we do taking meetings, drawing up spreadsheets, balancing books or operating machinery. So, in an ideal world, this place that you spend so much time in should have its pleasurable moments.

New Balance felt the same way when it commissioned a garden for its UK headquarters. This tranquil new outdoor space, named the Flimby Garden, is located alongside the American footwear brand’s Cumbria factory, and has been designed as a place exclusively for its 300-odd employees to step away from the cacophonous production floor and spend time immersed in nature.

Step into the New Balance garden in Cumbria

This is more than just a landscape project. A significant number of scientific studies have highlighted how green spaces in the workplace can lead to a significant reduction in stress levels, a boost in creativity and productivity, and even enhanced cognitive function, and the garden is a reflection of New Balance’s longstanding belief that exceptional craftsmanship begins with keeping the people that make its products happy. As one of the few global footwear brands to maintain domestic manufacturing in both the UK and the US, New Balance continues to invest in the factories, communities and skilled makers that define its legacy, and the garden is a lasting symbol of that commitment, offering employees a dedicated restorative space for resting, reflecting and connecting.

The garden’s creator is Bleue Wickham-Burnham, founder of London-based jewellery brand Bleue Burnham. A jewellery designer may seem an unusual choice for such a project, but Wickham-Burnham had already been talking with the brand about other collaborations when a conversation unearthed that he was also an enthusiastic amateur gardener and keen to try his hand on a more professional plane. The passion had blossomed in his late teens growing up in East Sussex and is evident in his jewellery output, which is heavily influenced by horticulture and the natural world.

Echoing the surrounding landscape of the Lake District, the garden features gently undulating flower beds, pockets of water and flowering cherry trees, as well as seating areas, communal gathering points and customised multicoloured bird boxes. Taking inspiration from the bold New Perennial block plantings of designers such as Piet Oudolf and cottage garden styles such as those at Great Dixter and Sissinghurst, alongside pre-Raphaelite floral renderings and 17th-century topiary, the Flimby garden is filled with varieties that include roses, peonies, anemones, foxgloves and lilies, and is already a much loved haven for local birds, bees and other wildlife (a stoat family being regular visitors), as well as for the factory’s employees, some of whom participated in the planting.

‘It was both a privilege and an honour to have been entrusted with designing a garden for New Balance,’ says Wickham-Burnham. ‘The project gave us the opportunity to explore how our design language and philosophy could interact with garden design, creating a space that is playful in its design, while encouraging moments of pause, connection and joy throughout the working day.’

To coincide with the garden’s opening, New Balance and Bleue Burnham have also produced a documentary-style film chronicling the development of the project from concept to completion. The film includes a special appearance from renowned gardener and broadcaster Monty Don, a hero of Wickham-Burnham, who grew up glued to the BBC’s Gardeners’ World. ‘They say never meet your hero, because they often disappoint you,’ he notes. ‘But in my case, it was the opposite.’

Welcome to the latest instalment of 'How We Host,' our column devoted to all-things entertaining from those who know a thing or two about having a good time. Next to dissect the fine art of entertaining is Lisa Sternfeld, founder of WLLW, an interior design firm rooted in environmental health and wellness.

After her son faced severe respiratory issues, a scary question popped into Lisa Sternfeld’s mind: Could her house be making him sick?

Sternfeld, who had been working in the New York-area design world for more than two decades, started doing her own detective work, testing for mold and poor air quality, from seemingly-benign sources like synthetic carpets, off-gassing furniture and home fragrances.

As she rethought her home and as her son’s health improved, she realised she may not be the only one facing a toxic living space. The epiphany led her to establish the wellness-oriented design firm WLLW (which stands for ‘Well Life, Lived Well’) in 2022 year. The firm has gone on to design for high end residential for private clients and aims to show that healthier design needn’t look sterile or generic.

Her own home, nestled in the charming town of Fairfield, Connecticut, is proof. By leveraging non-toxic materials (such as vegetable-dyed textiles and rugs); antiques (which don’t off-gas like new furniture); and nature (her garden is a feast for the senses), she’s created a home that not only prioritises her family’s health, but also beauty.

‘My ultimate goal was to bring together science, design, and beauty to create a home that supports both physical health and emotional connection,’ Sternfeld tells Wallpaper*.

Of course, wellness isn’t just about our environments — it’s about relationships too. And, since Sternfeld, along with her husband, frequently hosts extended family gatherings, the house needed to be spacious and accommodating, whether that be for a quick visit, a sit-down meal, or just time spent together. Here, the designer outlines her tips for quality time with guests — and why having your phone at the dinner table might just be the ultimate faux-pas.

How We Host with Lisa Sternfeld

Wallpaper*: Are you a relaxed host, or is there careful planning?

Lisa Sternfeld: I plan a menu, but I keep it simple. I like knowing what we’re making and having a sense of how the evening might unfold, but I don’t plan every detail. Once the table is set and something fresh is cooking, I can relax.

Hosting has always been an extension of how I think about homes. I plan just enough to stay calm, then I step back. If the space is working properly, the evening doesn’t need much managing. I want to be present, moving between the kitchen and the table, paying attention to how the room feels and how people settle in.

W*: Can you cook?

LS: Yes, and it’s part of our everyday life. My husband and I cook together, and that shared time in the kitchen is part of the pleasure. Cooking isn’t something that happens in the background. It’s often where the evening begins.

We cook simply and let our kitchen garden lead. When ingredients are fresh, you don’t need to do much. Cooking together also has a practical benefit. It keeps us out of each other’s way.

W*: What was the first dish you perfected to feed a group of friends or family?

LS: A simple roast chicken with vegetables from the garden. It’s something we’ve been cooking for years, and it still feels like the most reliable way to feed people.

We’ve made it so many times it’s become instinctive, which is probably why it works. It’s about timing, warmth, and knowing when to leave things alone.

W*: Drinks on arrival – what’s on offer?

LS: Something light and refreshing. Sparkling water with lemon or fresh herbs, and a chilled white or a natural wine. It’s easy, unfussy, and gives people a moment to arrive.

W*: Go on and tempt us – what’s your go-to menu, from starters to afters?

LS: Simple, seasonal food. Vegetables picked just before cooking, herbs used generously, and usually a roast or something gently braised placed at the centre of the table. We cook with very few ingredients and let them speak for themselves.

Lately, I’ve been baking Nigella Lawson’s clementine cake. It’s simple, not too sweet, and it never lasts long.

Cooking from the garden brings everything closer to the senses. The smell of herbs on your hands, citrus in the air, vegetables still warm from the sun. It sets the tone before anyone sits down.

W*: What’s on your dinner party playlist?
LS: I usually start with Bill Evans, move into Nick Drake, and let someone like Van Morrison carry the evening. The music should support the room, not compete with it.

W*: Who’s your dream dinner party guest?

LS: Someone curious, present, and not in a hurry. Stanley Tucci feels like the ideal dinner guest. He’s warm, observant, genuinely interested in food and people, and has a way of making a table feel relaxed and natural. The best guests make everyone else feel comfortable being themselves.

W*: Dish the dirt: what should a host never do?

LS: A host should never make guests feel like they’re in the way. Things won’t be perfect, and that’s part of what makes an evening feel human. Hosting is an act of generosity. Once guests feel like they’re interrupting you, the energy in the room shifts.

W*: What should a guest never do?

LS: Arrive distracted. You don’t need to perform, but you do need to be there. Phones have a way of flattening a room and pulling energy away from the table.

What’s the secret to a successful evening?

LS: Simplicity and attention. When the food is fresh, the ingredients are good, and the space feels calm, people relax without realizing why.

When someone asks what they can bring, I usually ask them to bring a story, a shared memory, or a favourite recipe they love to make. Something personal always adds more to the evening than another dish. It creates connection before the meal even begins, and over time, it’s how I’ve gathered some of my most treasured recipes.

And if people stay longer than they planned, it’s usually a good sign. One of the best compliments I’ve received is simply, “It just feels so good in here.”

Nordic Knots has launched a new rug collection in collaboration with property developer and design studio Eagle + Hodges. Drawing inspiration from the British garden, the collection sidesteps predictable floral tropes in favour of a more nuanced, imaginative interpretation. These rugs evoke the spirit of the garden – layered, expressive and magical.

The concept, explains Alex Eagle, creative director of Eagle + Hodges, was born out of a desire to explore quintessential Britishness: ‘We’re always asking ourselves: what makes something uniquely British? And what is it that people love about it? For me, it always comes back to the garden. Gardens capture the juxtaposition of Britishness – whimsical but wild.’

The English garden is traditional, yet full of possibility, which Eagle and her partner, interior designer Sophie Hodges, embraced. ‘We live and breathe beautiful British fabrics,’ says the creative director, ‘but with this collection we gave ourselves permission to explore bolder colours, richer contrast – something a little more daring.’

The collection comprises three designs: Walled Garden, Giverny and Columba. Walled Garden has a palette of warm beiges and earthy reds, evoking the golden tones of late summer. Giverny, a British reinterpretation of the gardens famously recreated by Monet, is shaded in soft teal and dusty pink. Columba, named after Eagle’s daughter, feels more playful, with gentle blue and green tones reminiscent of the hazy summer days of childhood.

The rugs are designed to be, says Hodges, ‘heirloom’ pieces (according to the interior designer, ‘every good room starts with a rug’), while also being versatile enough for various settings, from a ‘countryside cottage [to] a brutalist loft’. They possess a delicate arts-and-crafts sensibility, and there is also a subtle nod to the Victorian tradition of taking rugs into the garden for outdoor picnics, and the notion of indoor comfort spilling into the open air.

Founded in 2015, Eagle + Hodges has earned a reputation for its distinctly British aesthetic, soon to be showcased in the apartments at 180 The Thames, opening in London this autumn. This appreciation for timeless design is shared by Nordic Knots, a brand renowned for its high-quality, handwoven products – indeed, Eagle and Hodges have often used Nordic Knots rugs in their projects.

The collection will be available from September 2025 on Nordic Knots' website, with prices starting at £695.

Landscape architecture is an often overlooked area of design, Martin Knight and Claire Stokoe argue; and while a focus on climate and biodiversity emergencies has emerged strongly in recent years, putting the outdoors more and more into the spotlight, the pair behind Studio Knight Stokoe feel there’s more to be said about a particular aspect of the profession.

‘An area that is being looked at less, that has huge potential, is taking as strong a focus on a retain, reuse and recycle agenda for existing landscapes, and questioning whether wholesale replacement of spaces, built elements, and planting, is the right approach, just to deliver a particular vision for a place. Can these elements not be woven into the fabric of the landscape solution for a place? Are they not part of the established character and material memory of place?’ they ask.

Meet Studio Knight Stokoe

Knight and Stokoe co-founded their namesake, small but dynamic landscape architecture and urban design practice in the south-west of England in 2022. Aiming to remain boutique and nimble, the studio follows the same approach in its projects too, valuing quality and craft over volume – with just the two directors as permanent members of staff and a family of skilled collaborators on their books, bringing specialised expertise where needed.

This also allows them to have hands-on involvement in each project: ‘When you work with us, you'll always be working directly with either Martin or Claire, which is something we've found clients and collaborators are responding really positively to,’ they say. The studio’s B Corp certification is further proof of their commitment to accountability and sustainable practice. They flag: ‘At our core, we're guided by three interconnected principles: resilience, regeneration, and empathy. We craft landscapes that harmonise society and nature, creating places that can adapt to challenges while actively enhancing the environments they inhabit.’

Their first completed project, Plant, a revived brutalist garden at Mountbatten House in Basingstoke, not only perfectly embodies these values, but it was also a landmark project for the young firm. The task outlined the reimagining of the Grade II-listed Registered Park and Garden’s ‘hanging gardens’ for today’s needs. It required delicate tackling of the existing environment, respecting designer James Russell's original 1970s vision for the grounds.

As a result, the scheme achieved wide acclaim as well as a BREEAM Outstanding certification, showcasing seamlessly Knight and Stokoe’s ‘craft-to-high-tech’ approach that favours a balance between artistry and functionality. ‘Without question, being appointed for the technical construction design and delivery of Plant was transformative. It represented a huge vote of confidence from the developer and contractor in our capabilities as designers and as a business,’ they say.

Since its completion, the studio has been going from strength to strength. It has an ongoing stewardship role at Plant, where the directors guide the establishment of its gardens over time (‘It is very rare to secure such a role,’ they highlight); it is currently involved in the retrofit and reuse of a Grade II-listed building on the harbourside at Canons Wharf in Bristol, creating new outdoor amenity spaces; and it is also working on a new micro-urban forest school in the heart of Westminster, London. These and other projects across the UK, from private gardens to commercial and public spaces, make for an exciting future for the young practice.

The Japanese garden is not merely a garden – it is a spiritual landscape, layered with cultural and religious references. Rooted in philosophies such as Shinto, Buddhism and Daoism, these gardens have evolved over millennia, maintaining a deep reverence for nature, simplicity and balance.

A new book from Thames & Hudson, The Modern Japanese Garden by Stephen Mansfield, offers a survey of this evolution. It brings together gardens across Japan, from influential landscapes to smaller projects. Rich photography is accompanied by profiles of the gardens and their designers.

In the Kamakura and Muromachi periods (1185-1573), the rise of Zen Buddhism brought an emphasis on simplicity and meditation to Japanese gardens; this minimalist approach crystallised in the ‘imperfect’ wabi-sabi aesthetic. In the Edo period (1603-1868), designers began to create more elaborate strolling gardens – carefully-composed scenes to be discovered step by step – precursors to the gardens of the modern Meiji era.

The Modern Japanese Garden focuses on the period from 1900 to the present, and is broadly divided into two sections: pre- and post-1945. Many Japanese gardens were destroyed during the Second World War, and the postwar era saw design reimagined as a form of cultural restoration and healing. Modern Japanese garden designers sought to harmonise tradition with modernity This period also marked the export of Japanese garden aesthetics to the rest of the world; by the end of the 20th century, the principles of these spaces had seeped into landscape gardening everywhere.

At the heart of the Japanese garden are some enduring principles: harmony, simplicity and a respect for the natural world. Every element serves a purpose: stones and rocks represent mountains or islands. Water symbolises purity and life, while gravel and sand, used most notably in Zen gardens, are raked into patterns representing rivers, clouds or energy. Plant species such as pine, maple, bamboo and moss are selected for their seasonality, form and vernacular significance, while elements such as stone lanterns, bridges, gates and tea houses support principles of the strategic use of empty space and an intentional lack of symmetry.

Through its exploration of gardens old and new, The Modern Japanese Garden reveals how these elegant spaces offer calm and reflection in a world whose pace is ever-increasing.

The garden occupies a unique space within the fashion industry, ubiquitous as an aesthetic choice – oftentimes informing the location of a show or presentation as much as it serves as design inspiration for a new collection – and particularly prevalent as an arena for extra-curricular pursuits, perhaps most notably celebrated by Christian Dior and Dries Van Noten. For the most part, Bradley Seymour and Fabrizio Taliani, co-founders of ‘elevated workwear for garden lovers’ label Rovi Lucca, are party to the former. ‘The truth,’ shares Seymour, unpacking their relationship with horticulture, ‘is that we came to gardening really late. We first got our hands dirty in the garden in lockdown, as a sort of therapy.’

Spending the bulk of the pandemic at Taliani’s grandmother’s house in a valley above Lucca, the pair quickly became engrossed in the grounds surrounding them. ‘I love to work in the garden, but what I especially love is the elegance of the gardens in the villas of Lucca,’ suggests Taliani, who grew up nearby. ‘There is something specific in Tuscany, a mix of different styles. For example, you can see something from France, something from England.’ Occupied by the French between 1799 and 1814, the principality of Lucca was awarded to Elisa Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister, in 1805 (in 1809 she would become Grand Duchess of Tuscany). ‘So there’s this tension,’ adds Seymour, ‘between a French influence with this earthy Tuscan realness.’

Rovi Lucca: ‘elevated workwear for garden lovers’

While Covid-19 enforced a hard pause on their respective disciplines – Taliani in menswear design and Seymour in creative direction – they credit these fields with shaping what has subsequently played out with Rovi Lucca. ‘We both came out of big careers,’ asserts Seymour, referencing his work with Marie Claire and Esquire, and Taliani’s tenures at Trussardi, Malo and Zegna. ‘Fabrizio really knows his stuff, while I've worked in editorial almost my entire career, wherein I saw every collection, every trend, sharpening my editor's eye and translating it in a visual sense, and that's what I do for Rovi also. So we're both coming from a fashion background, but from different directions.

‘We’re kind of creating this vocabulary with fabric, and with Fabrizio’s knowledge and background, we're able to do it with pleasure,’ he continues. Based out of Milan, a point of pride for the label is its relationships with producers across Italy, and the human experience this imprints on the final garments. ‘We work with this producer who cuts everything by hand,’ says Seymour, ‘and maybe it's something imperceivable, but the clothes have a different soul to them. It’s unique and special, and rare outside of tailoring to have this approach.’ Moreover, a core starting point for Taliani was filaticcio, a fabric specific to Lucca that features heavily throughout its collections. ‘It’s super beautiful because it reminds you of the interior of a house in Tuscany,’ observes the designer, ‘this rustic fabric which originally was very heavy, used for interiors like cushions.’

On the Rovi Lucca Instagram page a rich collection of green references – paintings and photographs, loosely assembled together under the banner ‘meet me in the garden’ – foregrounds the pair's emphasis on research, but it’s a series of IRL gardens in Lucca that have played the most significant roles in their output so far: Tenuta di Valgiano, Orto Botanico Comunale de Lucca, and Palazzo Pfanner. ‘There's some beautiful alchemy between science and creativity,’ considers Seymour, relaying their meeting with a botanist from Lucca’s botanical gardens. ‘It’s interesting to see Lucca through another’s eyes,’ proposes his partner, ‘to understand another point of view, and I think it's interesting to be creating a sort of community [with Rovi Lucca].’

While the label engages with fashion conversations, and Seymour and Taliani acknowledge their perspective is informed by the industry, ultimately they see Rovi Lucca as a kind of love letter to something greater. ‘It’s a way to dream – we decided to make clothes for gardeners because this has got to be where everybody wants to be – but also a way to connect to nature, get your hands a little dirty,’ says Seymour. ‘The clothes are practical, but we find beauty in the simple things and place attention in that simplicity, at the same time sharing this love of Italian countryside. We don't pretend to make fashion, it's more about creating something dependable. These clothes don't have to scream.’

Rovi Lucca is available from the brand’s website.

rovilucca.com

A time-honoured conundrum within design is how to encourage people to see beyond a physical object to understand that design is a verb, not a noun. A successful approach is to cast the net wide into a variety of practices and ask them to respond to a single idea, thereby exposing the truth that design is a process with wildly different potential applications and outcomes. This has been the objective of a new exhibition opening this weekend at South London Gallery, where 22 different individuals and studios working in the realm of design were asked to respond to the idea of a bird house.

The exhibition has been curated by Computer Room, a trio comprising Andu Masebo, Charlie Humble-Thomas and Jesse Butterfield who share a studio space. They worked in close consultation by Ollie Olanipekun, the founder of Flock Together, who started a birdwatching group in 2020 for people of colour that has since grown wings to become a collective for greater inclusivity in our experience and enjoyment of outdoor culture. The results will be on display fleetingly for just two days in the Orozco Garden and the Clore Studio at South London Gallery.

Dwellings is an intriguing premise, which reveals far more than one might imagine. From glass to photography, data to ceramics, trusty wood to unwieldy ancestral talismans, here we witness the magnitude of that slippery word ‘design’ in multitudinous array, tentatively held together by the parameter of a starkly simple brief. The various imaginings delve into concrete and abstract responses; pretty, poetic, profound and perfunctory from one to another. We are asked to consider notions of human interference with animal shelter; changed migratory patterns through climate change; the damage and opportunities of urban habitats; our own inherited assumptions of what a sanctuary or nest might represent.

It is far more than a collection of bird houses. This is evidence of the rich and restless new generation of designers keen to use design as a tool to interrogate and wrestle with, not just address, the overwhelming state of flux in which we find ourselves. The exhibition reveals design’s depths and bridges to cross fields and cultures. The only shame is that it is on for just two days. One hopes it will take flight and rest somewhere else for a little longer so more people can enjoy it. With that in mind, we spoke to Andu Masebo, from Computer Room, and one of Wallpaper’s Future Icons, to find out more about the project.

Andu Masebo on 'Dwellings'

Wallpaper*: Before we get to the birds, tell us about Computer Room and the collaborative venture you’ve built close to home.

Andu Masebo: For a long time, my studio mates Charlie and Jesse and I have been thinking about ways we might work together. Though we have separate practices, our heads are connected and we often share similar ideas, even if the processes and expressions are different. Computer Room was born as a space for us to explore working together.

W*: Was it the same spirit of joined forces that you were keen to harness for Dwellings?

AM: In short yes - we live in London in a network of interesting talented makers and thinkers of many different practices. Dwellings came about as a way to do a project that brings different people together to express their own ways and forms of working through one idea.

W*: Do you share a love of birds?

AM: We love birds, but it wasn’t so much the topic as the idea of the object - the birdhouse - which is a nice visual cue to riff on conceptually. The Bird house is an object but also quite a complex idea, when you begin to dig into it. A bird house is housing for an animal that isn’t a human or even a mammal. It taps into our relationship with nature, our desire to observe, intervene, protect and harness animals, and of course takes in how we are rapidly affecting our natural world through climate change. We worked closely with Ollie Olanipekun, the founder of Flock Together. Ollie loved our idea and had connections at South London Gallery, so it felt like a perfect marriage of different bodies.

W*: How did you engage such a broad group with a brief?

AM: Our brief was really short and intentionally open. We quite literally said: ‘a bird house’. We didn’t say ‘design a bird house’ because we wanted people to think about the idea of a bird house and respond to the concept from the position of their own practice.

W*: Nice. And presumably this initiated a plethora of very different responses?

AM: We have 22 different artists and designers in the show, with a whole spectrum of materials and approaches from conceptual to provocative, to near-production ready and more sculptural prototypes. Each participant has drilled down into their own practice, and the range of responses is really interesting as a result. The bird house is a bridge into different people’s visions and ways of working.

W*: So would you say the exhibition is an exercise less about housing birds and more about demonstrating how broadly relevant the subject of design can be?

AM: As designers, we are in the world of finding ways to make original and relevant work, and it’s a lifelong challenge to do this. The most interesting thing to us is the diverse practice and response of design, which shows many different ways that design can be applied to address matters of life.

W*: Tell us about some of the works on show.

AM: Charlie has made a house for a particular endangered species of bird. Jesse made a metropolis of nine nests for one of the only birds that cohabits. My response was a collaboration with my uncle who is a trained carpenter living in Cork, Ireland. We sent material back and forth between London and Cork, each intervening with the next step before sending it back. We didn’t speak about our interventions; we knew there needed to be a bird house at the end. It’s a nice reflection on our relationship: we are close, separated by distance, with things often left unspoken.

W*: How poetic. What do you hope people might take away from the show?

AM: This kind of exhibition has the potential to do a couple of things. On the one hand we are keen to bring to the fore the conversation around nature and human interaction with it. We are engaging with something seemingly trivial but in a deep and very diverse way – this is an interesting access point for discussions around where design might be relevant and interesting as a lens to look at different areas of life and ask whether we can be helpful in that space.

W*: Will birds be in attendance?

AM: We might plant some seeds to encourage a visitor or two!

Dwellings
31 August - 1 September
Orozco Garden and Clore Gallery of South London Gallery.
65 Peckham Rd, London SE5 8UH
southlondongallery.org

‘Gardening is a really interesting activity to do alongside writing,’ says author, Olivia Laing when we speak before the release of her latest book, The Garden Against Time. ‘You're editing all the time and you're making something, then you're looking at it and seeing what doesn't work and stripping it away. Gardens are really interesting, because they pull you into the present moment. That's very relaxing when we're thinking about the future all the time. But also they're cyclical. So there's a sense that things decline, but then they return - I have found that deeply uplifting, especially during the conditions of the pandemic and everything that followed it.’

The garden felt like a natural focus for Laing, who began to restore her own walled garden in Suffolk in 2020. Once a magical, wild sanctuary, it had endured years of neglect by the time Laing moved in. Overwhelmed and inspired, she determined to document not only the progress of the garden itself, but also trace its place in history, digging through its social, political and historical roots. 

‘One of the things that I really wanted to explore is the ways that gardens look really benign – they don't look like a statue of a slave owner,’ adds Laing. ‘But they've got all of these hidden relationships with colonialism, and with enclosure. They're a place that people have used to basically launder their money, burnish their reputations, rise up the class ladders. The tradition of grand garden making is pretty shady. But at the same time, the garden can be this really radical place, there are queer gardens that have been sites of sanctuary, there have been gardens in wartime which can be amazing refuges. So I wanted to lay out the truth about what gardens can be; in a more negative sense, but also pack it with these stories about gardens as antidotes to messed up capitalism.’

Laing draws on an eclectic roster of references, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to William Morris’ political awakening. Woven throughout are tributes to those for whom the garden was a way of making sense of the madness: Derek Jarman’s wild creativity in the face of his diagnosis, John Clare’s poetic tributes amongst his own descent. Here, too, is Laing’s story: amidst family, political and environmental upheaval, the garden and its lessons offer a respite.

‘The reason I called it The Garden Against Time is because we have this sense that things are only beautiful when they’re in their peak – massive flowers, beauty. But the thing with the garden really is when it's dying back and it's rotting, that's the time when it's nourishing soil and giving light to the microorganisms that feed it. So I think really spending time with those cycles teaches you about our larger interconnectedness, and our larger cyclical nature. It's not just the individual bloom that you're gardening for. It's the whole system that's making it, and shifting into that kind of network thinking is very vital, while we're thinking about climate change. It's not about the individual, it's about the whole community, and the whole community's health and vibrancy, so I found it quite a radical education, really learning to garden.’

'The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise' by Olivia Laing is published by  Picador UK and is available to buy at amazon.co.uk

A garden has always been spatial shorthand for sanctuary; in times of crisis, this gets amplified. As many of us increasingly seek the safe haven of our garden, the local park or nearby nature reserve, we raise a glass to the many, gorgeous green projects that bring cheer and serenity to our everyday lives. From small domestic gardens and urban gardens, to plant-based urban interventions, woodland installations, leafy architectural landscapes and even the dry terrain of desert flora, here, we tour some of the best projects set to green up our views and encourage the healing and balancing power of nature to filter through into our day. 

Morgan North, New York, USA

The complex, mixed-use project that is Morgan North sits in Midtown Manhattan – a part of town that is always in flux. Though demand for office space is changing, taller towers continue to pop up, replacing old structures and filling every last plot of land. It’s predicted that New York’s iconic skyline will be unrecognisable by 2030. And yet, rather than constantly building anew, a handful of developers have set their sights on transforming existing buildings, creating state-of-the-art facilities that meet new workplace standards while also preserving original characteristics.

Promenade Samuel-de Champlain, Canada

Quebec's Promenade Samuel-de Champlain has opened to the public, with the third and final phase of the project now completed, comprising some 2.5km of a waterside urban boulevard. The finished development is a new community space, ideal for bankside walks, beachside cafés, and recreational activities, carefully intertwining urban design with its surrounding context. Architecture studio Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecke wrapped up this final phase 15 years after its initial proposal from Commission de la Capitale Nationale du Québec. The area, set in the heart of the Canadian city, along the St Laurence River, previously consisted of neglected highways and rail corridors, which felt unwelcoming and unloved. The goal was to return the river to the local community.

House Under the Ground, The Netherlands

Eindhoven-based architecture studio WillemsenU has hidden a house in an undulating meadow on the edge of a nature reserve in The Netherlands. Surrounded by wild flowers and meandering streams, House Under The Ground has a curved concrete, green roof that rises from the ground and could easily be mistaken for a grassy hill. Occupying the plot of a former goat house, the two-bedroom house has a compact footprint yet feels generous and expansive inside. The poured concrete roof hides three levels of living spaces beneath it, two of them below ground level. Though, contrary to what you might expect from a mostly underground house, this one is filled with daylight and cleverly connects its inhabitants to the outdoors.

Terremotto, USA

Terremoto is the kind of firm that enthusiastically describes its approach to a recent project as ‘hippie-dippy gooey goodness.’ The landscape architecture design studio with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco digs a countercultural vibe. After all, they did restore and enhance the landscape of the Sea Ranch Lodge, the historic (and famously hippie modernist) outpost on the Northern California coast master planned by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. Their gardens and landscapes are mini habitats—places where people, pollinators (birds and bees), native plants, and even art share the love. In the 7th Avenue Garden, designed in collaboration with artist David Horvitz, a weedy, vacant lot was transformed into a small park made up of a jumble of milkweed, plumeria, and wildflowers. Terremoto added a few chunky wood benches and a deck, and rubble and rebar from the demolished LACMA buildings were shaped into found-object sculptures. 

Villa M, France

This architectural garden is a vetical one. Design by Brazil and France based Triptyque Architecture and Philipe Starck, the project features an extensive green facade, built around the principles of biophilic design and wellness. The mixed use scheme houses healthcare professionals in an innovative mix, including a hotel, restaurant, bar, conference area, a check-up area, a co-working space, and a showroom for start-ups in the world of health. The idea is ‘to promote mixing, exchanges and mutual aid between the different specialties and the different generations of health professionals,’ explain the architects. 

1105 West Peachtree, USA

This new mixed-use development in the heart of Midtown Atlanta features a garden at its heart. Designed as a ‘sky terrace', this expansive architectural garden not only adds a green lung to the heart of the city but it also helps direct circulation and connects the three different buildings it's placed among (the development comprises residences at 40 West 12th). Designed by Atlanta-based firm SITE solutions, this green space was created around the scheme's masterplan, conceived by architects Rule Joy Trammell + Rubio. The aim was ‘to bring the human experience of the street to the development’s many users, offering a strong sense of community through smart design.'

Hillcrest Meadow Gardens, Canada 

Canadian ecological designer Nina-Marie Lister has been recently announced as the recipient of the prestigious $50,000 Margolese National Design for Living Prize, which is offered by the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture. Recognized by the jury for ‘her commitment to addressing and nurturing the coexistence of wildlife and people in safe, healthy, and interconnected landscapes, as well as connecting people to nature in cities,' the designer has several green projects under her belt. One of them is Hillcrest Meadow Gardens - Lister's own personal home garden, a pollinator meadow with a biodiverse, native urban habitat (pictured above). 

GuangzhouGarden, UK

2021 Chelsea Flower Show’s Gold Medal Winning GuangzhouGarden, created by Grant Associates includes five latticework bamboo structures developed and fabricated by Bristol-based advanced timber structure specialists Xylotek. ‘Taking part in our first RHS Chelsea Flower Show is an exciting creative challenge for us as we look to capture the essence of vast and vibrant Guangzhou, with a population of 15 million people, and distil it down into a garden plot just 20m x 10m!,' says Grant Associates' director Peter Chmiel. Xylotek's Martin Self adds: ‘We were thrilled to work over the past two years with Grant Associates on the design and realisation of the ‘Guangzhou Garden. We particularly enjoyed exploring bamboo’s technical potential and harnessing its capacity to create poetic new forms.'

FormaHQ rooftop, UK

One of London's latest cultural hubs, FormaHQ in Southwark, also boasts a fabulous green roof. The existing modernist building was refurbished and reimagined by Sanchez Benton Architects with international artist Gabriel Kuri and features a cleverly planted rooftop with a garden by Nigel Dunnett. Offering views of the surrounding cityscape as well as respite from its central London's densely built setting, this little gem plays with colour as the greenery contrasts the redesigned building's vibrant orange hues. The building hosts a varied artistic programme and the garden will be open to the public during office hours. 

Garden Among The Courtyards, Italy

Milan has long been a city of secret gardens. In this dense, industrial, grande dame of a metropolis, composed of large apartment blocks and walled-off palazzos, one of the great joys of wandering aimlessly is accidentally discovering the planted clearings and courtyards that offer respite from its fabricated scenery. Still, many such green spots remained private and off-limits to most until recently, when more parks and community vegetable gardens slowly started to make an appearance. Milan Green Week in 2019 and local organisations such as Clever Cities and RoofMatters have been helping to foster sustainable practices in the city, including a culture of urban gardening and green roofs. Brera-based architecture studio Piuarch has been cultivating its own planted roof since 2015, titled Garden Among the Courtyards – enhancing liveability, wellbeing and social relations for both employees and the local neighbourhood. Directors Germán Fuenmayor, Gino Garbellini, Monica Tricario and Francesco Fresa believe that while the design community is aware and engaged in the dialogue about creating more green space in their city, there’s still much to do. ‘It is not only about urban planning but also about subverting social, cultural and educational policies within the city and people,’ says Fresa.

Sky Garden, UK

This new indoor botanical delight is Sky Garden; a green space in the heart of London, right at the top of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Commissioned by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and its charity CW+, the piece was designed by award-winning landscape designer and CW+ Artist in Residence, Jinny Blom. ‘Gardens, quite simply, improve our lives,' says Blom. ‘To go and sit amongst plants and nature, especially in the context of a bustling hospital, has an immediate positive impact on stress levels.  The Sky Garden will provide an irreplaceable source of respite to those in need.' The design takes its cues from Modernist architecture and features clean planter shapes engulfed in greenery and calming colours. 

South Ken Green Trail, UK

The South Ken Green Trail is a new series of green interventions on London’s Exhibition Road. The three projects are ‘The Algae Meadow' by Seyi Adelekun and Wayward (in collaboration with the V&A, and working with specialists from UCL and Imperial College London), ‘Home away from Hive' by Mizzi Studio (pictured here), and ‘Windflower' by Urban Radicals with Adam Harris. They are free for all to visit and together are ‘supporting the post-pandemic recovery of London’s arts and science district,' say the project's organisers. Highlighting our natural environment as well as great design and architecture, the installations are part of the 2021 London Architecture Festival and will remain in place until the Great Exhibition Road Festival which runs from 9-15 October.

Taiyuan Botanical Garden, China

The botanical gardens at Taiyuan City in China commissioned Austrian based studio Delugan Meissl for a new home; and the results are impressive. The team transformed a former coal-mining area into a landscape park, incorporating architectural structures, like pathways, greenhouses and a bonsai museum (pictured above) with planting and greenery of all kinds in a harmonious, eye-catching design. ‘The centrepiece of the buildings, which are very precisely inserted into the modelled topography, consists of three greenhouses, which were realised as three hemispherical timber lattice domes,' explain the architects. Publicly accessible areas are matched by a cleverly integrated research centre containing laboratories, studios, office buildings, workshops, meeting rooms, lecture rooms and a library. 

RHS Hilltop, UK

Designed by architecture studio WilkinsonEyre, RHS Hilltop is the gardening science hub for The Royal Horticultural Society at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey. Blending modern architecture with lush gardens, the project is an exciting new centre for horticultural science and learning, and the result of a five-year transformation. The surrounding green spaces of the newly landscaped Wisley gardens, have been masterplanned by Christopher Bradley-Hole, and designed in detail by Matt Keightley and Ann-Marie Powell. ‘The new centre is designed to integrate with the working gardens and provide a central hub for the scientific community based at RHS Garden Wisley and the million plus visitors that come each year,' says WilkinsonEyre's Geoff Turner. 

New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing Dedicated to Victims of Gun Violence, USA

According to data collected by Gun Violence Archive, at least 5,132 children were shot in the USA last year. As a response, Svigals + Partners have created a garden that ‘honours the lives lost to fatal gun violence in New Haven and raises awareness of the immense emotional impact of the crisis.' The project is located in New Haven and was envisioned as both a green space for healing and a call for action for the local community and beyond. Leafy expanses and sculpture blend in this architectural garden that is perfect for contemplation. 

Silence by Pawel Althamer at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Russia

Nature, art and contemporary building design meet in this green installation at the Garage museum of contemporary art in Moscow. The brainchild of Polish artist Paweł Althamer, this spatial piece was conceived as a garden for meditation. The project has a clear collaborative and therapeutic nature, according to the artist. ‘Each element of the garden—be it a fallen tree or a particular deciduous bush—is a hidden quote, while the composition as a whole is a unique environment where the restless city dweller of today can alter the regime of time, as if transported to a picturesque space in a past era, where the rhythm and pace of life were not by default accelerated to the limit,' says the museum's statement.

Elephant Springs, UK

There is an exciting new natural stone and water landscape in London. Elephant Springs, located in Elephant Park in South London and designed by landscape architects, Gillespies in collaboration with artist Mel Chantrey of The Fountain Workshop, blends greenery, natural materials and water features in a sculptural environment that is open to all. ‘Elephant Springs sits at the heart of this landmark regeneration project, nestled in an ever-expanding central park that saw the first phase open in 2017 before any of the buildings,' says Gillespies' Armel Mourgue. ‘Our landscape-led approach created very early on a destination for relaxing walks, playful times and essential human interaction. The new phase will see all these activities expand into a much larger park, where unforgettable moments of play and water are revealed amongst a landscape of rain gardens, pockets of lawn and groups of mature trees.'

Little Island, USA

A new public park has opened on the Hudson River. The new green space, which encompasses three new performance venues for New York, is designed by London based Heatherwick Studio, who was invited to the project by philanthropist Barry Diller and the Hudson River Park Trust. Set on an impressive sculputral constellation of some-280 concrete piles that rise from the water, the park was created as a haven for both humans and wildlife, filled with nature and opportunities to connect with it. Its construction was impressive and the result is certainly eye-catching. ‘The project began when we were asked to conceive of a sculptural structure to go on a design for a newly enlarged piece of the Hudson River Park promenade,' says studio founder Thomas Heatherwick. ‘The project was interesting, but we saw the opportunity to create a more engaging experience for New Yorkers and to build on the city’s heritage of inventing exciting new public spaces. Instead, we had the idea to make an entirely new type of pier as a lush rectangular garden island, connected to the land with generous gang-planks as bridges, aligned to the street grid of New York.' This undulating pier structure is like no other. 

Swing Bridge, UK

A project instigated by the community of Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, this elegant new bridge forms part of the landscape at the well-known South London Crystal Palace Park. The structure was designed by architecture studio Tonkin Liu, and it's inspired by the architecture team’s decade-long immersion in biomimetic studies. The project was launched to create a necessary and secure crossing to the park's Dinosaur Islands and their sculptural displays. The Swing Bridget is a pivoting design with one central foundation; this allows it to move and only allow access to the island when needed, therefore protecting the exhibits. Made out of steel, the structure is visually powerful through its skeleton-inspired design and geometries. 

Al Fey Park, Abu Dhabi

Al Fey Park claims to be the Middle East's very first urban biodiversity park. Boasting great biodiversity in its wildlife and planting, as well as its own microclimate and a design by Danish landscape architecture specialists SLA, this green expanse is located in downtown Abu Dhabi. The public park spans. some 27,500 sq m. ‘Al Fay Park is a new type of forest park in Abu Dhabi. Through our extensive research in the region’s flora and fauna, we create a new paradigm for how to think and design public realm in the Middle East. Al Fay Park is a celebration of Abu Dhabi’s native nature and culture and a prime example of how to maximize climate action, increase life-quality, and radically improve the biodiversity of an entire city – all on a former sand site,' says SLA design principal and partner Rasmus Astrup.

Between Heaven and Earth, China 

Created for the Shenzhen Flower show in China, this garden, entitled ‘Between Heaven and Earth', is the brainchild of garden and landscaping outfit McWilliam Studio. The space feels at once delicate and deeply grounded to its site, respectful and expressive. It ‘explores the connections between space and form and the interactions between woodland and water, land and sky,' explain its creators. Combining the water element with paved surfaces, light and textural planting, the design features a series of irregularly placed vertical metal poles, which mirror the surrounding woodland's trees. Some span some 10m high and each carries either a small LED or a misting spray at its top, adding an extra dimension to the installation. With this design, the garden experts scooped the show's Gold Medal.

Hidden Burle Marx Gardens, Brazil

One of Sao Paulo's iconic modernist-inspired office buildings, Condomínio São Luiz was designed by Brazilian architect Marcelo Fragelli in 1984. What many didn't know, is that the development had a Burle Marx designed garden ‘hidden' away in its grounds. Now, a sensitive restoration by Perkins & Will meant the gardens by the iconic landscaping artist could open to the public for the first time in almost 40 years. The architects' retrofit included unifying the workspace's former two receptions into one central hall. This allowed the removal of partitions that surrounded the building, thus creating access into the garden for pedestrians.

The Waiting Room, Somaliland

A small project created and built by architect Rashid Ali Architects with students at Abaarso Tech, the first school of architecture in Somaliland, The Waiting Room is a light, open air, planted structure in the city of Hargeisa. It is also the first structure in the city to be entirely made out of timber. The building sits just outside the city government’s land registry office, within a public courtyard, and offers much needed space for waiting and socialising for both visitors and staff. It connects users with the context and leafy planting in the courtyard. ‘The idea was to design and build a small contemporary building, while also introducing and experimenting with materials and construction techniques that are not familiar locally,' explains the team. ‘Our aim was not just to use such materials just for the sake of it, but to build in a relatively short time from pre-fabricated components and leave possibility for disassembling and for reuse in future.'

Terra Dominicata, Spain

Part of a hotel and winery experience in the Tarragona area, called Terra Dominicata, this expansive terrace and gardens was designed by Spanish architecture and landscaping studio SCOB. Taking its cues from the surrounding Montsant Natural Park, the design included the refurbishment of a set of abandoned, formerly agricultural buildings previously belonging to a monastery, and a series of outdoors spaces, from small courtyards to paved terraces and a swimming pool deck. ‘The materials, the vegetation, the textures and colours, as well as the traditional ways of building are representative of the place together with its historical and cultural heritage,' say the architects. Drawing on the region's planting, the surrounding vineyards and adding climbing frames for wisterias, the team created a green haven, particularly suited for southern gardens with a Mediterranean climate.

scob.es

Samos Garden, Greece

Created to compliment the restoration of a historic villa on the island of Samos in Greece, this garden is the brainchild of Stockholm based architecture studio OOAK. The architects got involved in the scheme to develop a landscaping strategy for the property's grounds, to add a pool and work with the garden in front of the main building and the guesthouse. The team drew inspiration from medieval hortus conclusus (enclosed gardens of the time) and a nearby overgrown space within a fortified monastery. A geometric carpet of recycled brick, gravel and plants was applied, creating a soft, leafy environment. This is contrasted by the sharp, minimalist, black-coloured pool that sits within. OOAK worked with Athens based agriculturist and gardener Marios Virlas, for specialised advice and insights on the horticultural side.

ooakarchitects.com

Brooklyn Heights Garden, New York, USA

NYC-based architecture office Worrell Yeung has led the renovation of a family home's outdoor space in a Historic Landmark District in Brooklyn Heights. The commission consisted of the front and back gardens of a typical brownstone building. The architects also made sure to fine tune existing details to support and enhance the new design; for example, by restoring the historic forged iron fencing and gate details on the front entrance and by enlarging the steel casement openings towards the back, to bring plenty of light into the interiors and better visually connect indoors and outdoors. The project features stone paving, new planters and a new, black custom metal staircase that leads directly into the small rear garden below. ‘This is consistent with a lot of the interior architecture work we do, in which we deploy ‘objects’ within a space. We treated these objects like vitrines, which helped us to organize the cubic hot tub with the plantings, for example,' says co-founder Jejon Yeung.

worrellyeung.com

Guangming OCT Trail, China 

Conceived by international landscape architecture, planning and urban design firm SWA Group, a new circulation route has been installed in China's Guangming District, located north of Shenzhen. The region's picturesque, forested mountain landscapes are a major nature attraction and now, a system of three bridges that float above the undulating terrain allow visitors to take in the rich greenery from a vantage point. Simple, geometric and dynamic, the design is contemporary and invites pedestrians into the tree-filled expanses of the Chinese countryside. What started as a smaller project to expand and finess a regional jogging and biking trail, has now developed into a ‘an iconic destination that adds value for locals and tourists, while supporting goals for healthy living and urbanization, connecting the city of Shenzhen with its surrounding towns and national parklands,' explains the design team.

swagroup.com

Moor Lane Community Garden, London, UK

Bringing nature into the urban heart of the British capital, a new pop-up community garden has been installed in the City of London. Designed by local landscape firm Wayward, with the support of local community and resident groups, the City of London Corporation and its cultural district, Culture Mile, the project is titled Moor Lane Community Garden. The piece – a series of interlocking, leafy planters – features robust, sculptural bases inspired by the character of the nearby Barbican housing estate and London Wall. Created as a temporary project, but in place at least till next summer, the structure offers a breath of fresh air and acts as a testbed for a future landscaping project in Moor Lane.

wayward.co.uk 

ISPACE, Val Calanca National Park, Switzerland

This project, designed by Davide Macullo Architects, is nestled within rich woodland outside the village of Rossa, in the Calanca Valley of Switzerland. Created with the support of the RossArte Foundation, the municipality of Rossa and the Swiss National Park Val Calanca, and titled ISPACE, the small timber structure offers an architectural resting spot within nature for visitors to the park. ‘ISPACE is a project born out of an idea combining art and architecture in the creation of environments that stimulate people to perceive the influence of a space on their moods,' say the architects. ‘It is a re-evaluation of the territory, allowing us to rediscover our bond with nature.' This structure is the first in a series of similar installations in these woods; nine more architectural sculptures are set to appear in this part of the world in the next months. 

macullo.com

The Landroom Observatory, Israel

The majesty of nature spans thick, green forests, more tropical climes, as well as drier, desert environments. French-Israeli architect Ben Gitai has recently completed a striking architectural installation that harnesses the power of the last – the new Landroom Observatory has been designed to overlook the world's largest geological crater: Makhtesh Ramon in the Negev desert. This structure, created as a sculptural star and desert-gazing observatory, is made entirely out of local sandstone and limestone extracted from the ground around it, making it look and feel entirely of-its-place and camouflaged within its surroundings. It provides visitors to the area a shelter from the sun and a spot to sit, relax and take in the magnificent scenery. The boutique piece is designed to accomodate only two people at a time.

gitaiarchitects.com

Dream Within A Dream, China 

Created as a property sales centre with a twist, Dream Within A Dream is a concept by Shanghai-based Wutopia Lab. ‘Shanghai Huijian invited Wutopia Lab to design a welcoming stage in front of the sales’ center of their project in Huzhou,' explain the architects. ‘The only request from the client was to make it different.' The team drew on the power of nature and landscaping to create an environment that challenges the norm about what a ‘modern city' is. The steel construction includes a forest of volumes, perforated screens and bright white surfaces, which house different ‘landscapes', such as caves, hills, streams, rocks, highlands, waterfalls and auditorium formations.

wutopialab.com

Grosvenor Square, London, UK

Architecture studio Tonkin Liu is behind the revamp of one of central London's rare beasts – the garden square. Upon completion, Grosvenor Square, the second largest garden square in the capital, will be formed by four interlocking gardens based on the project's original oval shape. Principles Anna Liu and Mike Tonkin shaped their design through feedback from local residents and Londoners, and input from experts including Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, LSE Cities and the Green Infrastructure Consultancy. The result is a design that promises to increase biodiversity and double the number of trees in the open space. The refreshed square will include corner gardens with ‘options for small dynamic structures welcoming visitors', as well as shaded seating under the canopy of trees, a sense of openness and a secret water garden.

tonkinliu.co.uk

Houston Botanic Gardens, USA

An island in Houston's Bayou system has recently been re-introduced as the American city's very first botanic garden. International landscape firm West 8 is behind the transformation, which includes a collection of tropical, sub-tropical, and arid plants from around the world. Underpinning everything in local flora and fauna, the garden is also set to showcase the area's amazing biodiversity, which the project encourages. ‘The intent of the site design is to seek balance in all aspects, from planting and soils, through to topography and materials – the careful juxtaposition of order and chaos that is at the heart of enduring gardens,' says West 8 New York office's Donna Bridgeman-Rossi. Working to amplify the existing site's qualities and support sustainability and diversity, the project also features elements to make the user experience as comfortable as possible, such as a series of 21 thin shell concrete vaults that line the perimeter of the main global collection garden (pictured); the alcoves offer shaded rest spots for visitors. 

west8.com

With the new year come new opportunities for weekend getaways, city breaks and time out. We’ve updated the must-sees on our London tour – discover a hyperlocal design hub, a cosy cocktail bar in Covent Garden, a Wallpaper* Award-winning restaurant, and more destinations recommended by our junior digital news editor and native Londoner Martha Elliott. For more inspiration, also see our guides to the latest London art exhibitions and London’s best gallery restaurants, which demonstrate that there is no better city for a visual feast. 

Take our London tour: must-sees of the moment

Atelier100’s hyperlocal design hub

Atelier100’s west London store opened at the end of 2022 and is pushing ‘hyperlocal design’ in a reshuffling of the manufacturing process, focusing on products made within 100km of the city. Featuring limited-edition works by 13 creatives (selected through a programme run by fashion retailer H&M and Ingka Group, the holding company behind many Ikea stores), the store-cum-creative sounding board is not only a space for the featured designers to receive mentoring and business expertise, but is also a kind of gallery, displaying unique pieces from emerging talents including Andu Masebo, whom we dubbed a Wallpaper* Future Icon in our January 2023 issue.

atelier100.com; Livat Shopping Centre, King St, London, W6 9HW

Ikoyi

Originally opened in St James’s in 2017, the two Michelin-starred restaurant Ikoyi, which built its reputation on an eclectic, but fundamentally West African-influenced menu, has undergone a transformation – which earned it the Best Restaurant title in the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2023. Its new space at 180 The Strand is designed by Danish architect David Thulstrup, best known for the interiors of Copenhagen’s Noma. Wall panels are patinated copper, the floor is lined with slabs of grey stone, while stretching across the ceiling is a woven steel mesh evoking sieves used to sort spices. This is complemented by specially commissioned tableware, leather seating, and red oak tables custom-made by Benchmark Furniture. 

ikoyilondon.com; 180 Strand, Temple, London WC2R 1EA

Ælfred vintage goods

Whether you are in search of vintage midcentury design gems for your home, or just after a dig around some lovely-looking furniture, Scandinavian vintage furniture shop Ælfred is full of design offerings. Founder and dealer Nina Hertig sees the store as a chance for people to ‘celebrate the dying art of discovering treasures in real life’. The Hackney Wick emporium houses reasonably priced lighting, ceramics, furniture and glassware sourced from the Nordics, and has a fresh arrival of stock every two weeks, avoiding the dwindling of choice pieces that so often makes vintage shopping a tiresome charade. 

aelfred.co.uk; Unit 2B, Autumn Yard, 39 Autumn Street, Bow, London E3 2TT

Outernet: a multifaceted entertainment spectacle

For central London’s Outernet, interior design studio Archer Humphryes combined the typology of a Georgian brickhouse and a 19th-century blacksmiths with a futuristic body, and coated it in digital projections. For those tantalised by state-of-the-art audio systems, the building houses two music venues, as well as a free-to-use recording studio, bars and green rooms. A public digital artwork inspired by Porsche’s brand purpose, Driven by Dreams, in collaboration with Wallpaper* and digital creative studio Lusion, will be on display on 19 January, on the building’s exterior. 

outernetglobal.com; Charing Cross Rd, London WC2H 8LH

Battersea Power Station

Thanks to its distinctive chimneys, Battersea Power Station has long been a defining feature of  London’s skyline, and – having undergone a revamp – it can be added to the list of must-visit attractions. It is now the heart of a sprawling industrial complex that offers luxury shopping, offices, and residences, with artwork sprinkled throughout. Transformed by architecture studio WilkinsonEyre, the Grade-II listed building provides a towering industrial backdrop to its surrounding complex, which feels much like a compact city in itself. Panoramic elevator experience Lift 109 offers views from one of the chimney tops.

batterseapowerstation.co.uk; Circus Rd W, Nine Elms, London SW11 8AL

Common Decency bar at NoMad hotel

Recently opened in the basement of the NoMad London hotel in Covent Garden, Common Decency is an underground haven from central London’s bustling streets. The building, the former Bow Street magistrates’ court, hosted the trial of Oscar Wilde for his ‘affront to common decency’ and the bar’s tongue-in-cheek historic reference sets a playful tone. The drinks menu is led by Leo Robitschek, VP of food & beverage at NoMad Hotels, with input from the mixologists behind the bar; they bring twists to classic cocktails, such as with salted caramelised quince, fermented cucumber and Szechuan oil. See more suggestions for the best London cocktail bars.

thenomadhotel.com; 28 Bow St, London WC2E 7AW

Akub

Opening 16 January, Akub sees chef and restaurateur Fadi Kattan and business partner Rasha Khouri introduce Palestinian cuisine to Notting Hill. Kattan’s French, Sudanese, Japanese and Indian ancestry informs the menu, which uses local seasonal British produce to its full potential. Small-batch Palestinian spirits, craft beers from Taybeh, classic wines and an apricot-fuelled margarita, amongst other cocktails, fill the drinks list, and interiors by Fare Inc nod to Palestine's landscape.

akub-restaurant.com; 27 Uxbridge Street, London, W8 7TQ

Cecilia Vicuña: Hyundai Commission

Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña is taking over Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall until 16 April 2023 with Brain Forest Quipu, an installation exploring ecology, femininity, community and social justice. As the artist told us recently: ‘Even though [the installation is] inside the museum, people take it differently, perhaps because it’s an industrial space, it belongs to everybody. Experiencing – sensing, feeling – is the most powerful way of transmission.’ The monumental work recently clinched Best Art Installation in the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2023.

tate.org.uk

The Connaught Patisserie

Now delivering its artful pastries to the local Mayfair area, The Connaught hotel’s patisserie is a London must-visit. The interiors, designed by London design studio Ab Rogers Design, feature rosy marble floors and glossy white marble counters, soft-edged seating that resembles ring boxes, and hand-blown pink crystal lights that hang overhead, evoking blown sugar. All this centres around an exquisitely presented glass counter, where head pastry chef Nicolas Rouzaud's tempting, symmetrical lines of perfect pastries sit, ready to be paired with coffee, tea or champagne.

the-connaught.co.uk; The Connaught, Carlos Place, Mayfair, London, W1K 2AL

The best gardening tools will ease your way to success: whether you are crafting your dream garden, adding a touch of greenery to your urban balcony, or venturing into growing your own veg. From Ilse Crawford’s visionary watering can to efficient Japanese garden scissors, our selection is based on form as well as function. Here, we round up gardening tools that are a cut above, and sure to sharpen up your prowess. 

Gardening tools: Wallpaper* picks

Japanese garden scissors

Name: Sentei Garden Scissors Uekibasami
Brand: Niwaki 
Price: €29

Perfect for cutting blooms for flower arrangements, dead-heading and light pruning. With round handles made of forged carbon steel, the scissors are comfortable to use and work well for smaller hands, while being strong enough to make precise cuts, adding to the simple, satisfying pleasure of snipping back. Care for your scissors with camellia oil and occasional sharpening over time. Crafted in Sanjo, Japan.

Shop via: niwaki.com

Flower scissors

Name: Ikenobo Basami Flower Scissors
Brand: Banshu Hamono
Price: €155

Made using the same techniques that have been employed for generations by Japanese craftsmanship, these flower scissors are ideal for cutting thick stems, such as lilies. The blades are at an acute angle in order to cut without crushing the plant fibres, allowing for flowers to absorb water and last longer in your vase. The scissors are forged by hand by a 90-year-old craftsman using a single iron rod. Banshu Hamono originated as a family business, producing swords, then kitchen knives and now other items including gardening tools such as shears.

Shop via: japan-best.net

A sophisticated watering can

Name: Nurture Watering Can
Designer: Ilse Crawford, for Skultuna
Price: £160

Ilse Crawford brings Aladdin’s lamp to life to grant your garden wishes. The vibrant brass finish will bring a welcome gleam to your tool shed or greenhouse. Swedish brass specialist Skultana is known for its timeless home accessories, and this watering can will endure season after season. 

Shop via: scp.co.uk

An essential toolbox

Name: Grib Toolbox
Brand: Ferm Living
Price: €79

Providing portable storage for your gardening tools or serving as a trug for cut flowers, the Grib Toolbox is a handy solution outdoors and indoors. As well as black, Ferm Living offers softer colours: cashmere (cream), light grey, and olive. In simple, powder-coated metal, the toolbox features a spherical handle designed to rest comfortably in your palm.

Shop via: fermliving.com

A creature-inspired gardening kit

Name: Garden Fetish Tools
Designer: Godefroy de Virieu for Bacsac
Price: From €59 to €79 per tool

This playful trio comprises garden tools in the form of a stag beetle (fitted with mandibles for raking, a sharp spatula body for digging, and a wooden stand that lends the tool sculptural appeal when you're not using it); a mole (with claws to aerate the ground); and a toucan (with a beak that cuts). The tools are hand-forged by a small family business in the Netherlands in light yet robust carbon steel and bring fun to garden chores. 

Shop via: bacsac.com

Essential gardening set

Name: Garden Tool Set
Brand: Hay
Price: $39

Keen gardeners and budding beginners alike will dig Hay’s cute and simple aluminium alloy tool set. With two trowels and a fork, it makes the perfect gift, or treat yourself and get started on those weeds. 

Shop via: clothbase.com

Dustpan & Broom

Name: Dustpan & Broom
Brand: Normann Copenhagen
Price: £24

Spring is a busy time in the garden but it can also be difficult to keep up with the mess. This dustpan and broom offers functionality and an appealing aesthetic in one. The dustpan is shaped to fit comfortably in the hand and the brush, in wood and natural bristle, stows neatly in its hole when not in use. 

Shop via: nordicnest.com

The legacy of the 20th-century American landscape architect James Rose (1913 – 1991) is thrust into the spotlight, thanks to a new exhibition of contemporary art and design installed in his preserved, idiosyncratic midcentury home and garden in the suburbs of Ridgewood, New Jersey (9 September – 2 October 2022). Handbuilt by Rose, known for his use of readymade materials and pioneering approach of fusing the indoors and outdoors, the home, which now functions as the non-profit James Rose Center for Landscape Architectural Research and Design, is an inspiring and tactile example of the architect’s philosophy, in design, spirituality and beyond.

Titled ‘At the Rose House’, the exhibition is organised by New York-based design firm Green River Project and art and design platform Object & Thing – known for its collaborative, site-specific shows within 20th-century artists’ and architects’ homes – and celebrates Rose’s design accomplishments by highlighting the extent of his influence, both then and now.

By bringing in objects, art and furniture by both Rose’s contemporaries, such as Charles and Ray Eames, Nancy Holt and Anne Truitt, and today’s rising talents, such as new furniture by Green River Project, chairs from the artist Hugh Hayden, ceramics by Johnny Ortiz-Concha, as well as garments by the fashion label Bode that are inspired by Rose’s personal style and eccentricity, the exhibition emphasises the ingenuity and value of the handmade by capturing how fleeting and rare these unique aspects can be.

For Green River Project, bringing this exhibition to life had an especially poignant significance. ‘The ease in which Rose expanded the home using ready-made materials was an early reference for our practice,’ says Aaron Aujla, who co-founded the company with Ben Bloomstein. ‘In particular, there is a kitchen with mahogany shelves and pegboard that we must have spent over one hundred hours dissecting and referring back to over the last five years. Ben and I also started Green River Project as a gallery, in the barn of his family’s farm in upstate New York, so organising this exhibition with [Object & Thing’s] Abby [Bangser] was a great exercise that brought us back to one of our original goals.’

To honour the milestone, Green River Project has created new work with Rose’s spirit in mind. Imagined as if he were making work today, the studio also unveiled pieces made with longtime collaborators and members of their team, such as a cast metal side chair by Bloomstein Industrial,  a wooden chair in Rose's mother;s room Luck Carpentry and rice paper lamps from Preziosi Lighting that can be seen in the dining room, as well as elsewhere.

To accompany several of the artworks that are being displayed, such as paintings by Louis Eisner and Matt Kenny, Green River Project also created new frames that nod to Rose's existing interventions in the house. The firm also created a rosewood  pedestal to accompany an edition of Charles and Ray Eames’ Plywood Sculpture, 1941, which is being released by Eames Office for the first time.

At one time the home of Rose, his sister and his mother, the James Rose Center eventually became a place where research, design and rebellion against the norm is celebrated. Its unique, two-storey structure, which features an open-air upper floor, as well as self-made pools, ponds and fountains that can be seen through the house's windows, would be rare to find today. 

‘Rose was an impossible maverick, called by one author “the James Dean of Landscape Architecture”, but I think he would be very happy with the vision Green River Project LLC and Object & Thing have brought to his house,’ says Dean Cardasis, director of the James Rose Center. ‘We look forward to welcoming new audiences throughout the exhibition.’

INFORMATION

The James Rose Center is open for public visits Tuesday to Sunday, 10am – 4pm during the exhibition. There is a $10 admission fee that benefits The James Rose Center and is charged upon entry.

‘At the Rose House’ runs from 9 September to 2 October 2022

object-thing.com
jamesrosecenter.org

ADDRESS

James Rose Center
506 E Ridgewood Avenue
Ridgewood, New Jersey
T: 1 201 466 6017

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In the climate crisis landscape, we seem to be experiencing a shift; sustainability is now a widely accepted necessity, we’ve stopped talking about single-use plastic and are realising ideas aimed at reducing (and undoing) our impact on the planet. We’re seeing aquaponic farming in cities, bridges made from manipulated vines, stone quarries turned into cultural spaces and houses designed to be overtaken by nature; these can all seem like grand gestures of sustainable innovation – gorgeous and important – but perhaps removed from what we can all hope to attain in our everyday lives. 

Happily, Tectum Garden – recognising the cabin fever engendered in many of us by office life, the common craving for green oases, and the desire to reconnect to nature’s cycles – is facilitating a route back to the earth that we can all engage with. The Catalan company was founded in 2020 and, as the brainchild of the Sostenipra research group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, creates products grounded in ecology. The group of urban agriculture specialists is looking to make farming more accessible and wants to bring about green cities as a firm reality, in which hydroponic gardens play a substantial role. 

A hydroponic garden for the office

Now Spanish design brand Kettal has teamed up with Tectum Garden to bring hydroponic gardens – and locally grown veg – to the office. Kettal has explored modular office pavilions in recent years, and this new collaboration cleverly unifies minimalist design and real-world change. 

The boxy structures that comprise the hydroponic gardens are made from recycled and recyclable materials, are compact, subtle and sit comfortably in interior spaces. A light substrate replaces soil in the indoor vegetable patches, making for easy management, and the plots are drip-fed water for maximum efficiency. Fertilisers are added to the water which, once nutrient-rich, is kept in the hydroponic cycle, reducing waste and allowing the structure to remain largely self-contained. The unit’s lighting can be adapted depending on the crop, giving way to a wider breadth of vegetational options.

The indoor gardens introduce a refreshing touch of greenery to indoor spaces and take an invested step towards altering our immediate environments, encouraging us to contribute to a circular green economy (and tempting us with freshly grown produce). 

INFORMATION

kettal.com
tectumgarden.cat

When the medieval cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris caught on fire in 2019, the world was devastated. Now, as plans for the restoration of the important monument are underway, Bas Smets has plans to help bring the beloved, iconic space back to life. The Belgian landscape architect has been appointed to redevelop the expanses around Notre-Dame, greening the Île de la Cité into a mini, verdant paradise in the heart of one of Europe’s largest metropolises. 

His mission, however, goes beyond the immediate landscape. Using plants to help manage temperature, especially in a big urban hub like Paris, is a key tool against climate change. ‘It [climate change] is such a hard thing to grasp and we all feel so small, but we can work on a smaller scale and make a big difference through microclimates. My work is about creating these microclimates. As soon as you can understand how a city works you can “hack” it and improve on current conditions. I don’t think I have a style, but I have a methodology, and that is to try and understand a site and improve its resilience. Use the force of nature to improve life and the environment.’

Landscaping Notre-Dame

Working with architecture studio Grau, Smets also collaborated with a variety of consultants on lighting, water, engineering, public space safety, preservation, and even philosophy, to carve out his proposal. The team worked on enriching an extended area around the cathedral with new trees and all manner of leafy delights, stretching the planted sections, unifying public space, while aligning it with the city around it. A large, paved area right in front of Notre-Dame’s main entrance preserves the important, well-known views of the monument, celebrating it from every angle. 

‘We had to rethink the area of Notre-Dame, but also rethink the whole city, as the Île de la Cité is the cradle of Paris. For example, nobody [used to go] behind the church, even though there was a green space – Parisians never went there,’ Smets points out.

Design development begins immediately, and while works might stall around the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the aim is for the landscaping to be finished by 2027.

Features will include a new – and rare – linear park along the Seine, offering views of the Pantheon and the Paris skyline across the water; a brand new, dedicated visitor centre; a mix of species, including chestnut trees, European nettle tree, and others suitable for drier climes; and a fountain-type feature that will see the paved open space in front of the cathedral flooded with a thin film of water once a day, probably at a set time, imitating the wet pavement after a summer rain, cooling the area down while adding one more element of dynamism and nature to the composition.

‘What we are doing is using shade, humidity, wind and water to lower the temperature in the heart of Paris,’ says Smets. And he should know, as it’s exactly what he managed to do in other locations, such as the Parc des Ateliers, home to Luma Arles, where Smets turned what was a very dry landscape into a leafy green lung. Other past works in Smets’ portfolio include the Part-Dieu square in Lyon and the Sunken Garden in London, a private leafy microclimate within a heritage building. A sculpture garden in Long Island, USA, is among ongoing works.  

As for his ambitions for Notre-Dame? ‘We wanted to make a nuanced composition,’ he says. ‘You’ll walk in, sit, stay, go underground, open towards the river, emerge close to the entrance… More than giving a form, we are giving an experience.'

INFORMATION
bassmets.be

From left, ‘Kasbah’ sofa, price on request, by David Lopez Quincoces, for Living Divani. ‘Sedia 1938’ chair, from €2,650, by Franco Albini, for Exteta. Executive Producer : Kate Collins. Photo assistants: Giovanni Romboni and Andrea dalle Luche. Interiors Assistant: Markos Ioannides. Assistant + backstage: Flora del Debbio. Retouching: Vitali Studio. Special Thanks to: Ufficio Demanio, Comune di Livorno and Simone Lenzi Assessore alla Cultura, Livorno

For the May 2022 issue of Wallpaper*, we invited legendary photographer Massimo Vitali to interpret this season's best outdoor furniture. Based in Lucca, Tuscany, Vitali is best known for his Italian beach panoramas and photographs of crowded public spaces defined by saturated pastel palettes. Although it is rare to see Vitali take on still-life assignments, is the second time the photographer has collaborated with Wallpaper*, following an outdoor shoot in 2019.

Styled by our head of interiors Olly Mason, our 2022 outdoor space story was shot on location in Italy at Le Vaschette, a 2km-long rocky sandstone cliff that extends along the ancient Etruscan coast, south of Livorno. Excavated by the Etruscans, the quarry produced dark pietra serena and yellowish pietra ruspa stone, with sponge-like textures caused by alveolar erosion. The seafront location made it easier to transport the materials by sea. Over the years, the quarry’s geometrical-shaped cavities have been partly submerged due to rising sea levels, which make them look like little pools (vaschine), making it a popular spot for locals in search of a refreshing summer dip.

Take a peek at the season's best outdoor furniture, and enjoy the views – plus watch our behind-the-scenes video, below. 

Behind the scenes: Massimo Vitali on set at Le Vaschette

The right dose of visual tension between the natural and the human-made can breed harmonious results, as this pool house and garden scheme in the depths of Surrey’s countryside demonstrates. A collaboration between London-based architecture practice Surman Weston and local garden architecture and landscape specialist Matthew Childs Design, it includes a finely crafted building and pool platform set in an expansive ‘wild’ landscape that perfectly contrasts with the sharply lined pavilion. The lush greenery extends to the edges of the Surrey garden site, which includes a main private residence that, funnily enough, was once the pool house of a nearby mansion. 

It all started when Childs was approached to work on the environment around the main house back in 2019. He invited Tom Surman and Percy Weston to create the pool structure – the two studios had crossed paths before as Surman Weston had designed Childs’ Reigate studio a few years back. The team, which included project architect Hilton Murrell, knew from the start that they wanted to have a unified approach for the overall design, developing architecture and landscape hand in hand, on equal footing. ‘We wanted a really integrated scheme,’ Childs says.

Naturalistic Surrey garden and geometric pool house

Yet equal does not mean the same. ‘The landscape has a sort of ruggedness and a wilder feel to it,’ says Surman. ‘We liked the idea of adding a more geometric, bolder centre point to contrast with the landscape – they would enhance each other.’ The architects cite as references Palm Springs’ Frey House II, for its metal roof and austere architecture set against a dramatic natural landscape, and KGDVS’ Solo House in Spain, for its geometries and openness. Meanwhile, Childs drew inspiration from the work of landscape architect Thomas Church, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Fallingwater. ‘In particular, how contemporary architecture and natural landscape can work in harmony, be given dynamism by moving water and softened with plants,’ Childs explains.

Their joint, general principles decided, the team got to work, with garden design and architecture developing independently but in dialogue with each other. The landscaping (constructed by Belderbos Landscapes) borrows elements from the architecture and vice versa. For instance, rounded outdoor seating echoes the shape of the pool house.

The pool house architecture appears simple – a Douglas fir timber construction, topped by a light corrugated aluminium roof, and sat on top of a concrete base, which holds the water and transforms into a hardwearing, textured and anti-slip floor inside. The interior contains a main open-plan space for seating around a wood-burning stove, as well as a separate bathroom. Everything is finely crafted (the structure was prefabricated and swiftly assembled on site, featuring bespoke kitchen and cabinetry) and there’s an overarching sense of lightness about the design. ‘We designed it like an outdoor room,’ says Surman. ‘I imagined that the sliding doors would always be open, but equally, in the winter, you can close it off and it’s just big enough to have the fire on and be cosy.’

Westmorland stone found on site and traces of abandoned water features from the garden’s past lives inspired Childs to create a naturalistic landscape of water and rock. The intention was to make it all look as though it had always been there. ‘Matt came up with this wild scheme that had lots of water, reintroducing waterfalls, cascading into a bigger and then smaller pond that then becomes the concrete disc of the pool and pool house,’ explains Surman. ‘He’s managed to keep an idea of the wilderness that was there before, but he’s injected routes, areas for sitting, a firepit and more.’

The result is perfectly poised and carefully planned but not overly manicured. New mature trees help create the sense that this richly wooded landscape has always been there, while also concealing the pool house from the main home, fostering a sense of discovery.

Meanwhile, the sides of the concrete disc that holds the pool house structure cantilever out, extending into the surrounding greenery. ‘Cantilevering over the bank makes you feel like almost all of the landscape around the home is part of the garden,’ says Childs, pointing out this is a technique that has often been used in historical landscape design. ‘In a similar style, we are “borrowing” the views and making them part of our project.’

INFORMATION
surmanweston.com

matthewchildsdesign.co.uk

A version of this article is featured in the March 2022 issue of Wallpaper*, on newsstands now and available to subscribers

Urban gardens, for those lucky enough to have them, are usually on the small side, meaning compromises must be reached on how the space is best used. Now, innovative companies are rethinking what is possible with landscaping solutions, thoughtful re-uses of outhouses, and clever tricks to hide children’s play equipment, creating urban gardens that everyone can enjoy.

Simple garden sets for urban garden TLC

At the coldest point of the year, motivation to show your garden some love can be low, but put the work in now and you'll reap the rewards later. The Stem, one of our favourite digital stops for hardy house plants, also has a range of handy tools. We love the clean simplicity of this gently curved set from Sophie Conran, with beech handles comfortably moulding to the shape of the hand, making gardening a pleasure.

thestem.co.uk

The design furniture increasing biodiversity

Vestre Habitats have collaborated with Arde and Rethink Studio on a range of design furniture which aims to increase biodiversity in outdoor urban environments. The pieces don't impede the natural cycles of processes such as the decomposition of dead wood, and create a habitat where fungi, insects, beetles and birds can thrive. 

vestre.com

The space-saving play equipment for children

Children's play equipment doesn't have.to be unsightly or enormous; on the contrary, it can be both be compact and elegant. Plum Play thoughtfully design children's outdoor toys from sustainable wood for toys which will endure. Children will love this pretty easel, and parents will love the small size and handy storage for brushes and paints.

plumplay.co.uk

The sustainable plant pots for elegant patios

London-based Mexican designer Arturo Soto creates beautiful pots and pedestals for bonsai trees, using gleaming recycled wood. Bonsais can be easily removed from their walnut and ply homes, making watering them effortless. Soto's brand, Memories of green, subscribes to a zero waste policy from his woodturning studio in Deptford's Cockpit Arts.

cockpitarts.com

The portable greenhouse for the green-fingered

Garden too small for a greenhouse? Try a portable one which offers no need to compromise on design. The Bramber has been crafted by designer David Le Versha, who brings an expertise in the construction of Victorian-inspired iron objects to a beautifully formed portable greenhouse. Formed from stainless steel and aluminium, each detail is carefully considered to ensure easy usability. The glass lid can be kept open in all positions, and two handles mean the greenhouse can be rolled like a wheelbarrow depending on whether your plants require sun or shade. Water them by simply raising the tilting windows.  

revised.com

Hidden trampolines to thrill children (and parents)

Most parents living with small urban gardens will know there comes a point when you must decide if you are willing to compromise precious outdoor space on unsightly trampolines. Giving the children years of joy, yes, but potentially kissing goodbye to an evening G&T in the sun – it’s a tough decision we may not have to make. Sunken Trampolines creates safe trampolines that are flush with the ground for safety purposes, but can also be hidden with a lid to match your grass – letting the space double as the perfect spot for a barbecue. ‘Both the trampoline and the lid can be made to suit the size available,’ says Sunken Trampolines’ director Angus Macwatt. ‘Putting them in the ground dramatically decreases the visual size of the trampoline. Many clients are amazed at how the large trampoline just disappears once it has been installed. Any garden can be transformed with a Sunken Trampoline no matter how small a space.’ 

sunkentrampolines.co.uk

The compact urban garden (that still has space for everyone)

Angus Thompson Design’s award-winning urban garden proves space restrictions don’t need to mean a compromise. ‘Like many town gardens, this relatively small space had to fulfil multiple roles: family garden, access to work studio, entertaining space, and place to unwind amongst beautiful, romantic planting,’ say the designers of the Oxford garden. Embracing a juxtaposition of textures – stone, glass and wood – gives the garden a wilder aesthetic that is often lost in a city space. ‘Planted to create a lush woodland-edge feel, we used cow parsley, ferns and foxgloves giving way to astrantias and late season aster divaricates in summer, creating a pleasing indulgence against the crisp, hard detailing,’ they add. 

angusthompsondesign.com

Urban gardens offering space for grown-up children

A bungalow annexe dating from the 1970s gets a sleek and useful update in this Kingston-upon-Thames garden by architect Stephen Coates. He and his wife have grown-up children, and wanted space for them to visit but without having unused and empty rooms for the rest of the time. The new annexe, doubling as a garden study, provides the ideal solution – created from prefabricated structural insulated panels and clad in Siberian Larch, it makes the most of a small garden space. 

acta.com.sg

The history, culture and use of edible flowers is explored in a fragrant new tome from Phaidon, Edible Flowers: How, Why, and When We Eat Flowers. Author Monica Nelson has joined forces with photographer Adrianna Glaviano on the definitive guide, which pairs recipes with personal essays and striking imagery of flowers, in environments from urban gardens to wild meadows. 

‘The research was really nothing but a delightful journey of surprise,’ says Nelson. ‘Every flower I wrote about had a fact that revealed something new, either about the history of a place or the people that ate it or a herbal property. My favorite flowers to write about were ones that gave me a view into the indigenous culture of the Americas, like dahlia, sunflower, marigold – flowers that made the ‘old to new world’ trade routes and became iconic to other cultures; like sunflowers to Arles/Van Gogh, or marigold to Diwali in India.’

Catching her favourite flowers in bloom proved a challenge that took Nelson around the world. To capture okra’s single-day of bloom, she travelled to a Savannah, Georgia, community garden, for example.

Chefs, artists and writers, including Fanny Singer, Julia Sherman, Loria Stern and Laila Gohar, have contributed personal essays to the book, which takes a close look at 100 different flowers, organised alphabetically. ‘The proposal was written to include “flower eater” essays and recipes from contributors,’ Nelson adds. ‘The book would not function without them. The contributors are from a variety of disciplines and from around the world. I learned about so many new flowers from them and also let some of the contributions function as the flower entry itself, like for banana flower and mahua.

‘For the “flower eaters”, I left the call to writers very open-ended, and there are moments that range from political to cultural to very sweet and personal. The recipes are very accessible and written in casual paragraph form and often in the first person. The tone of these makes flowers seem really easy to bring into your life.’

As well as reference notes, the book gives an insight into each flower’s taste as well as its traditional and suggested uses. With such a wealth of information, where does Nelson think we should begin? ‘A beginner should always start with curiosity! Search every flower you come across with the added search term “edible?”. There are also pre-packaged flowers shelved near the fresh herbs at some stores.

‘You can start by treating edible flowers as you would cilantro or parsley – just sort of tossing over a cooked dish like rice, pasta, a cheese board, or in a salad as a bit of garnish. By eating them this way you’ll start to understand the flavour profiles and how they mix with other flavours, and then you’ll start thinking about the peppery quality of nasturtium and how to incorporate it into cooking.’

INFORMATION

Edible Flowers: How, Why, and When We Eat Flowers is published by Monacelli

monacellipress.com

Lancashire-based greenhouse and glasshouse manufacturer Hartley Botanic intertwines tradition with contemporary craftsmanship in its long-lasting and arresting structures. The company, founded in 1938, is thought to be the first to have used aluminium in its greenhouses, making a technically accomplished replacement for the wood and wrought iron structures favoured by the Victorians.

‘We handmake all our glasshouses in the north of England using the finest materials with unparalleled durability, safety, and beauty,’ says

Tom Barry, CEO of Hartley Botanic. ‘All of the aluminium sections have a structural purpose. Short cuts, such as “sticking” aluminium to glass for aesthetic reasons, are never taken. We are confident of their structural integrity and offer a 30-year lifetime guarantee.’

The greenhouses the company creates are classified as Victorian design, Heritage, or Modern Horticulture, a category which encompasses minimalist and intricately engineered structures abundant with light. Bespoke and one-off designs are also available, with customers able to design greenhouses to their exact requirements, even if an urban garden is the only space at their disposal.

‘At Hartley Botanic we have continuous conversations with our customers that inform the introduction of new designs and styles,’ Barry adds. ‘Our highly personalised approach also serves the development of our products, it means we stay very close to what today’s Greenhouse owner is looking for, both practically and stylistically. Tradition plays a role in some of our designs – our Heritage range, for example, features silhouettes that were popular when the business was founded. But more importantly, our tradition is worked into our commitment to craftsmanship and service.’

The company has embraced all eras of design in its 80-year history, with its recent stand at the Chelsea Flower Show showcasing key designs from the decades. Structures on show included a vintage semi-dodecagon greenhouse built in the 1950s; a greenhouse nodding to the suburban design codes of the 1960s and 1970s; a 1990s Victorian terrace; and a modern-day structure defined by a clean form and hidden engineering.

INFORMATION

hartley-botanic.co.uk

‘Miyawaki’ a planting methodology which gives forests four ‘layers’ – shrubs, sub-trees, trees and a canopy – is a Japanese concept that has a success rate for tree survival with little to no maintenance. It's this approach that is being adopted by Louis Vuitton, property manager, investor and developer Cadogan and SUGi, the globally renowned organisation dedicated to restoring 100% native forests in urban spaces, for an 8-10-year-spanning conservation project encapsulating 240sqm in London's Chelsea, that will rewild part of the upmarket area's Pont Street. 

‘The forest will be a green space for local neighbours to find quiet moments of respite and to take in the joys of nature in a vibrant and busy city,' says Elise van Middelem, founder of SUGi, of the pocket forest that will see 630 native trees including Red Campion, Sessile Oak and Hawthorn, plus 77 species of shrub planted in total. ‘Visitors can take in the changing colours of the trees, the aromas of the blossoms and the sound of rustling leaves.'

Rewilding London's Chelsea with 630 native trees and 77 species of shrub

The planned pocket forest, which is close to Louis Vuitton’s Sloane Street street boutique and part of the Cadogan Estate, aims to increase the neighbourhood’s biodiversity and highlight an innovative way for businesses and landowners to collaborate together in an environmentally conscious way. SUGi's pocket forests thrive on six continents, rewilding the gardens of Santiago's Children's Hospital in Chile, restoring the King Charlemagne Forest in Belgium and creating a bee-friendly forest in the UK's Wiltshire. Their rewilded spot in Chelsea is intended to become self-sustaining within three years.

The urban rewilding project also aligns with Louis Vuitton and Cadogan's sustainability-focused initiatives. Cadogan has recently launched a 10-year sustainability strategy Chelsea 2030 which maps out ambitious targets contributing to a more sustainable city, including an increase in Urban Greening Factor by 25% over the next decade. Vuitton's ‘Our Committed Journey' sustainable development plan is dedicated to preserving natural resources by 2025 based on a set of quantitative targets. An internal Positive Impact Committee has been created to lead projects such as this one.

INFORMATION

cadogan.co.uk; louisvuitton.com; sugiproject.com

Designed to complement a renovated and extended 1920s timber chalet in the Swiss countryside, this lush Geneva garden is the work of Belgian landscape architect Erik Dhont. A deft hand at blending nature and architecture to produce artful, flowing, rich compositions, Brussels-based Dhont created this green design for Karin Handlbauer, founder of Galerie Mezzanin, whom he first met ‘on a sunny afternoon in Geneva at a dinner under the oak trees’. Fittingly, nature became a recurring theme in their relationship and this garden project. 

Working against a backdrop of the Frey Architectes-designed contemporary addition to the existing chalet structure, Dhont composed an arrangement that promotes ‘a new spirit of art, nature and balance’. About two thirds of the 1.86-acre garden are dedicated to greenery and ‘reforestation’, including a leafy, undulating landscape and ponds to attract wildlife. 

Among Handlbauer’s wishes for the garden was for it to feel ‘natural and easy-going’, and Dhont obliged. The result is a seemingly ‘unstructured’ garden that combines an organic feel with the right elements and proportions to cater to a range of functions – from swimming to entertaining and relaxing. ‘Architectural gardens are about framing the landscape, but here we worked differently. The void is the architecture, the hard surfaces we use are like spaceships floating in nature,’ says Dhont. He cites creatives such as British gardener Russell Page and Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa as sources of inspiration. 

Oak, pine, black alder, and evergreen shrubs, such as yew and holly, are key features in the garden. Accents are created by cherry, alder buckthorn, lilac, chequer and hornbeam trees. A sculpture by artist Gianni Motti sits among the plants. A swimming pool that Dhont designed together with the architects in Vals stone, next to a terrace made of local granite, completes the design, adding a cooling water element to the soft, verdant landscape.

INFORMATION

erikdhont.com

A version of this article appears in the November 2021 issue of Wallpaper* (W*271), now on newsstands – subscribe today.

Turin is now host to Europe’s largest hanging garden, set high above the concrete modernist curves of the Fiat company’s Lingotto Factory. A collaboration between Turinese architect Benedetto Camerana and the botanist Cristiana Ruspa, La Pista 500 is a new public space and urban garden for Turin. It’s joined by Casa 500, a dedicated exhibition space within the Pinacoteca Agnelli, the Fiat family foundation housed in the Renzo Piano-designed structure built atop the Lingotto complex in 2003.

Casa 500 is dedicated to Fiat’s most celebrated model, the Fiat 500, both in its original 1957 incarnation and its hugely successful 20th century revival. Featuring original artwork, models and ephemera from the company’s collection, Casa 500 was designed by the Italian firm LAB71 Architetti, led by Massimiliano Gotti Porcinari.

La Pista 500 is a linear park in the sky, enhancing the city’s biodiversity with 40,000 plants comprising of 300 species, housed in 28 island planters set within the factory’s original concrete test track. Giacomo Mattè Trucco (1869 –1934) originally conceived the Lingotto complex as a temple of manufacturing, a five-floor production line that eschewed the sprawling facilities of Fiat’s American counterparts in favour of a more vertical solution.

Components and raw materials went in on the ground floor and production snaked its way up towards the roof, complete with dramatic spiralling concrete ramps at each end of the 1.5 million sq m complex. On the summit was the company’s crowning glory, a test track with steep concrete banking. Over the next half century, some 80 models of Fiat were built here, including the original Topolino city car of the 1930s. 

Piano and his team spent 20 years working on the renovation of the structure after the factory closed in 1982, transforming the former production lines into offices, two hotels, a conference centre, and retail space.

The transparent ‘bubble’ structure on the roof is the most obviously high-tech addition to the study of concrete modernism, counterbalanced by the exhibition space at the opposite end of the long, slender structure. 

Urban oasis for Turin

The La Pista 500 celebrates this enduring structure, saved from industrial oblivion by Piano’s interventions. The 7,000 sq m of new planting runs the 1.2km length of the test track, which has been given a new lease of life as a place to drive electric only vehicles, including bikes and scooters.

The new vegetation has been designed to maximise biodiversity, avoiding the need for excessive water consumption, and there’s an education space, a kitchen garden, and even zones dedicated to contemplation and meditation. Stellantis, Fiat’s parent company, acknowledges that the transformation of a concrete factory into a verdant public space is a ‘deeply symbolic’ act, and hopes it’ll be seen as a physical representation of its ongoing sustainable ambitions. 

INFORMATION

Pinacoteca Agnelli

Niwaki is a new shop bringing the craftsmanship of Japanese gardening tools and workwear to the streets of London. 

The Chiltern Street shop is the brainchild of Jake Hobson, a pioneer of Japanese pruning styles in the United Kingdom, and it has already garnered a devoted following through its Dorset, UK, outlet; Kagurazaka, Tokyo store; and popular online shop. 

The brand will no doubt find an equally, if not more, enthusiastic audience at its London storefront with its collection of novel and practical products imported from Japan. These include three-legged tripod ladders (which allow gardeners to get much closer to the hedge for pruning than a four-legged model), steel bonsai branch cutters, and ‘Kenzan’ pin-prick holders for ikebana flower displays. 

The products are so exquisitely crafted they are practically works of art in themselves, which makes the gallery-like interiors of Niwaki particularly fitting. The space has been fitted by Jones Neville architects with quarter-sawn Douglas fir and earthy-hued felt display cases that complement the minimalist elegance of the products inside. 

And while garden enthusiasts will be in retail paradise at Niwaki, the store offers a wide enough range of products that those without a green thumb will also enjoy it. Fashion connoisseurs will likely lust after the denim workwear ensembles, while chefs can admire the remarkable collection of flawlessly crafted knives. 

Almost all of the objects at Niwaki are made in small batches by artisan craftsmen, often with generations’ worth of experience. Speaking about the small business he works with, Hobson says, ‘What I most like about working with Japanese blacksmiths and factories is learning about the family.

‘Most businesses are family run, often with two or sometimes three generations working together. Our GR Pro range of Secateurs with yellow grips are made in Yamagata by the Kudo family, run by one son, along with his brother and both parents.’ 

Hobson continues, ‘There are three crucial elements to any tool: good material (high-quality carbon steel), good design (usually as simple as possible), and good craftsmanship (passed down generation to generation).

‘[The Japanese tools] don’t stint on any of these: they look and feel good, they do the job they’re meant to do, and they last a long time, holding a sharp edge and rewarding the user with years, decades, and even lifetimes of pleasure.

INFORMATION

niwaki.com

Milan has long been a city of secret gardens. In this dense, industrial, grande dame of a metropolis, composed of large apartment blocks and walled-off palazzos, one of the great joys of wandering aimlessly is accidentally discovering the planted clearings and courtyards that offer respite from its fabricated scenery. Still, many such green spots remained private and off-limits to most until recently, when more parks and community vegetable gardens slowly started to make an appearance. Milan Green Week in 2019 and local organisations such as Clever Cities and RoofMatters have been helping to foster sustainable practices in the city, including a culture of urban gardening and green roofs.

Brera-based architecture studio Piuarch has been cultivating its own planted roof since 2015, titled Garden Among the Courtyards – enhancing liveability, wellbeing and social relations for both employees and the local neighbourhood. Directors Germán Fuenmayor, Gino Garbellini, Monica Tricario and Francesco Fresa believe that while the design community is aware and engaged in the dialogue about creating more green space in their city, there’s still much to do. ‘It is not only about urban planning but also about subverting social, cultural and educational policies within the city and people,’ says Fresa.

Their Re-Made response? An urban gardener’s survival kit, conceived as a design object that bridges functionality and aesthetics, while providing a muchneeded horticultural solution for city dwellers with no access to green spaces. The aim is to develop ‘a modular totem of urban agriculture for individuals living in cities’, explains Fresa. ‘The module combines multiple functions, becoming a sort of multi-tool, a place to read, work, meditate, listen to music and work out.’

The practice is no stranger to exploring the environmental and social aspects of architecture. ‘For us, the very concept of sustainability has many different meanings, not only in terms of energy and preserving the environment, but regarding landscape and social elements, too,’ says Fresa. ‘That is why cities have kind of lost their sense of place in their attempt to be smarter than ever. They are losing contact with both the human and the natural dimensions.’

The team has been involved in a variety of projects around urban agriculture and sustainable food production. Examples include the vegetable garden on their own green roof, conceived as an ecosystem that fosters biodiversity, improves the food supply chain and guarantees quality products; Espaço, a 2018 installation in São Paulo, aimed at restoring neglected urban areas and empowering the local community, especially children, involving them in play-training and food gardening activities; and Synergy Gardens, a 2018 network of urban gardens on rooftops of Chicago Public Schools, in the so-called ‘food deserts’, low-income neighbourhoods with limited access to nutritious food. For Piuarch, this Re-Made project is part of a wider discourse about reimagining cities and envisioning a more sustainable future for all.

‘The kit aims at creating a domestic Eden to grow plants and bring nature back into people’s lives, as well as taking care of wellbeing, and fostering healthy and enriching activities in a small place. It’s a sort of cabinet for multiple uses,’ says Fresa. ‘While we all agree on the benefits of open-air activities and consuming healthy organic food, we also know that not everyone living in big cities is able to do that on a daily basis. It can be an issue of time, space, money or the recent pandemic.’

While the project was developed before Covid-19 hit, the Milan-based team’s recent experience of lockdown has given the concept – a product to improve small-space living – new meaning and importance. ‘It can become a powerful tool,’ points out Fresa.

The kit comes as a simple, totem-like piece of furniture, which unfolds into a little garden, complete with hydroponic system and solar panels, a table, seats, telephone charger pad, sound amplifier and yoga mat station. Inspiration came from multifunctional objects that transform to accommodate a range of uses, and even the efficiency of the old-school one-man band. The team are on the hunt for the right manufacturing partner, and they say that options such as recyclable biocomposite plastics or timber, or even renewable, intelligent packaging material, are appealing to explore.

‘Everyone should have a rooftop garden, everyone should be able to enjoy the benefit of urban agriculture,’ concludes Fresa. ‘It is challenging, pleasant and helps to raise awareness of food and ecological choices.’

INFORMATION

piuarch.it

Italian wellness specialist Kos has a long-standing collaboration with Ludovica and Roberto Palomba, resulting in several bathroom designs as well as a collection of mini pools, that contirbute to the brand's vast selection of sculptural mini pools and outdoor tubs. Presented here through a series of evocative images that bring the rigorous and minimalist designs into a dreamy atmosphere, the pools are compact enough for a small space, and available in several designs to fit any style.

Ludovica and Roberto Palomba have created multiple designs for Kos (and sister brand Zucchetti), covering every aspect of the bathroom suite with their distinctively rational minimalism. Imagined for the outdoors, from urban gardens to terraces, but suitable for indoor spaces as well, these pools are a fitting example of the Palombas’ sleek and well-considered aesthetic.

For Kos, the Palomba-designed ‘Minipool’ is ‘an informal living room to relax and recharge body and mind’. Originally conceived in 2012, its round design fits up to five people, and is equipped with powerful hydro massage jets. Featuring an infinity edge and an LED water illumination system, the pool's design has recently been updated and is now available in a new rectangular version, with the addition of colour therapy and the ‘Milk’ system (Kos’ own technology using the properties of oxygen for a massage effect that promises enhanced wellbeing).

Other mini pools in the wider Kos collection include the ‘Faraway’ pool, the largest in the series; a built-in infinity-edge mini pool defined by a clean, graphic outline; as well as freestanding pools such as the ‘Quadrat’, a square design with a floating effect that comes with an integrated sun deck and lounger in its ‘Relax’ version. 

The pools are presented through a series of landscapes created by unreal realities specialist studio Newnewnew. The imaginary scenes in the images reference the dark, volcanic earth of Lanzarote, and a misty morning in an Icelandic lagoon. Demonstrating how these pools are at ease in any location, the settings also include a brutalist garden in the Mexican jungle and a deck facing a hilly landscape covered in Scottish heather.

INFORMATION

zucchettikos.it

Stuck in the city for the summer, but dreaming of sun-drenched escape? Allow us to direct you to Hermès lush outdoor terrace in Mayfair, where immersed amongst its undulating fresh flowerbeds, you can almost feel yourself serenely sipping something fruity on the shores of the Mediterranean.

In celebration of the summer months, the French luxury house has transformed the terrace of its New Bond Street flagship into a lush, plant-teeming landscape, inspired by the flora found in South Africa and the Mediterranean. For the floriculturally fantastic project, Hermès has enlisted garden and landscape designer Sarah Price, whose has also designed for the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, and Cadogan Café in London's Chelsea. Here, guests are invited to sip on a selection of teas and coffee, plus thirst-quenching soft cocktails, cleansing concoctions and cold pressed juices.

Inspired by the maison's overarching epic theme of the year, ‘Hermès, A Human Odyssey’, Price has looked to plants and flowers native to the Greek islands inhabited by Homer's Odysseus, Fynbos, a small belt of scrubland of the Western and Eastern Cape of South Africa and the shrubland Garrigue regions of southern mainland France. The terrace is populated with sub-shrubs, herbs, flowers and resinous trees, in a fabric of complex colours of greens accented with yellows, pinks, whites and purples, featuring an Afhghani Fig tree, soft mounds of hair clover, Lavenders, zingy green Euphorbias and white and pink Cistus flowers.

A serene symbol of the atmosphere, Henry Moore's ‘Draped Reclining Figure’ sculpture also sits within the blooming space.

In a sublime shift from the epic tradition to the circular one, all of the plants, flowers and materials in Hermès' garden terrace will be donated to The Exchange, a community-run organisation that uses the heritage of Erith’s Old Library in south-east London as a space that was designed and built by local people to inspire new community-led programmes and activities. That's green-fingered thinking through and through. 

INFORMATION
Open until 1 August; hermes.com

ADDRESS

155 New Bond St
London
W1S 2UA

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Renowned Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf has created a lush 4,000 sq m perennial garden for Vitra, bringing a touch of nature to the company's headquarters in the southern German town of Weil am Rhein. Its opening could not be more perfectly timed: having endured long stretches of domestic confinement in the past year, we now crave gardens, fresh air, and horizons afforded by wide open spaces. 

Vitra Campus: a haven of architecture and design in Weil am Rhein

The Vitra Campus is a stone’s throw from the Dreiländereck, where the borders of Germany, France and Switzerland meet. It’s a corner of Europe rich with art and design institutional muscle; Fondation Beyeler, the Museum Tinguely, and Art Basel, when in session, are all less than a 15-minute drive away. Buildings on the campus include a fire station by Zaha Hadid, a Jasper Morrison bus stop, a viewing tower with a slide by Carsten Höller, a petrol station designed by Jean Prouvé, a conference pavilion by Tadao Ando, a geodesic dome by Richard Buckminster Fuller, a small cabin designed by Renzo Piano, and more. VitraHaus – the flagship store that Oudolf’s garden surrounds – was designed and built by Herzog & de Meuron in 2010. The clean, exacting lines and modern fabrications of the architecture both contrast with and complement Oudolf’s landscaping – his complex planting techniques favour texture and structure over frothy blooms, creating year-round ambience so natural as to appear free of human intervention. 

‘As we do not intend to construct new buildings in the foreseeable future, it seemed that a garden would be an interesting expansion of the campus’ concept,’ says Rolf Fehlbaum, Vitra’s chairman emeritus. Fehlbaum had been impressed by Oudolf’s work for the 2010 Venice Biennale and the High Line in New York. ‘I found his approach fabulous, so when the theme of a garden on the Vitra Campus came up, I immediately thought of him.’ 

Integrating nature with architecture

Fehlbaum, who is no gardener and has no plans to become one, still extols the powerful ‘potential of integrating nature in the campus, helping Vitra to go further and develop the whole campus as a cohesive landscape’. He points out that landscaping has incrementally become part of Vitra’s HQ; first when Álvaro Siza designed the factory building and the adjoining parking lot, in 1994, and more importantly with the Álvaro Siza Promenade, in 2014.

Initially, the new garden was to be planted around the Frank Gehry-designed Vitra Design Museum, but Oudolf persuaded Fehlbaum, and his brother Raymond, a director at Vitra, that it would be more captivating set in front of the VitraHaus. ‘They had this place with fruit trees in the front of the restaurant, and I thought it would be great if people coming in and out could see something dynamic with plants and flowers,’ says Oudolf . ‘You immediately take the visitors in.’

Captivating the audience is always Oudolf’s starting point. A composer of sorts, he artfully crafts pathways through bushes of allium and echinacea, fluidly guiding visitors to experience and enjoy every inch of flora. ‘The idea is that people can wander there, sit and spend some time, and experience the plants from all sides. I think that is important, especially in public spaces. You can walk around and lose yourself a little bit, it’s not a straight path,’ he says. 

Piet Oudolf's garden design for Vitra

Oudolf’s planting feels characteristically accidental, but is incredibly precise and intentional. The Vitra Campus garden uses more than 30,000 plants with many species and this takes expert organisation: feathery Asclepias tuberosa; reddish Sporobolus heterolepis; giant daisy-like Echinacea pallida; raspberry-coloured brush heads of Sanguisorba menziesii; violet fuzzy baubles of Echinops ritro; candy floss clouds of Filipendula rubra. 

‘I use many design narratives and concepts in one garden. Part of this garden is wilder with more grasses that are dominant, and there’s an area where the plants are taller and more robust. Around the building we have a different concept, a “matrix” planting. There are many considered things you might not notice individually, but you can feel the ambience when you are in the garden,’ he says. 

When planning, Oudolf considers the calendar of the garden, creating points of interest that will flourish year round. ‘Gardens should be interesting all year long,’ he insists. ‘The plants that I choose in my designs often have another life after flowering. The colour is only there for a month or two.’ Part of Oudolf’s genius lies in his appreciation of the architecture and structure of plants beyond petals, the framework they provide to an outdoor space. 

He works by first of all sketching his designs on drafting paper, much like an architect, and will colour code the plants according to flowering schedule or their physical properties. Next, he draws a grid over the design, which will later be marked out on the ground using string, to create a guide that allows him to transfer the designs on paper to the soil, one square at a time. 

Needless to say, the planting of a garden as intricate as this during the pandemic was challenging. Although planning began in October 2019 (in preparation for the full bloom grand opening originally scheduled for summer 2020), Oudolf was constrained to his home in Hummelo, the Netherlands, for most of the duration of the preparation. The plants, in their thousands, were positioned in situ under Oudolf’s guidance via video calls. Although he has no employees, he works with a network of trusted individuals and organisations. A local planting team, led by the landscape architect Bettina Jaugstetter and supported by Jelle Bennema of Deltavormgroep, carefully executed his plans under his stewardship. 
 
In July 2020, while the regional lockdown was temporarily lifted, Oudolf was able to drive the seven hours south from his home to the Vitra site. He met Jaugstetter on site and they reviewed the planting, noting any inconsistencies. ‘Often there are varieties that get delivered incorrectly, misnamed by accident. If you buy or order from a grower, you have to account [for the fact] that they also buy from other growers,’ Oudolf explains, observing that every industry has its supply chain issues. ‘We made some adjustments and moved some plants around.

‘In the fall of 2020, we had to prepare a bulb plan for crocuses, snowdrops and narcissi, so in February 2021 there would be something in flower. Perennials that grow in full sun start [to bloom] in May and June, and the main flowering period is August and September. In November 2020, pruning and more planting prepared the garden for a snowy winter so that it could emerge in spring 2021 in good shape, along with the rest of us.’ 

The past year has sparked an exodus from many of the world’s major cities as residents pursue a newly discovered desire for more outside space. ‘You hear, in general, that people want more greenery, and cities are spending more money on gardens and so on, and that happens more and more. You see that people that stay at home are starting to garden more, and you realise that we need more of this in our lives,’ says Oudolf. ‘I like gardens to be for everyone. I hope what I do inspires people to start with plants, and also inspires them to see the power of plants. You can only do that by creating a design that has a layer over it you cannot define, the thing that makes the garden so good and makes you want to stay. That is what I try to emphasise, to create something that is more than just plants.’ 

INFORMATION

vitra.com
oudolf.com

ADDRESS

Vitra Campus
Charles-Eames-Straße 2
79576 Weil am Rhein
Germany

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The sun's here, and hopefully to stay: our selection of contemporary garden parasols is an ode to summer and a practical edit of some of the best parasols from the world's leading designers and manufacturers. Creatively conceived and robust for the outdoors, these parasols are perfect to add a bit of shade as well as colour and creative inspiration to your family-friendly urban garden, poolside or balcony. 

‘Free’ Parasol by Ethimo

Ethimo’s outdoor furniture expertise comes to life in the ‘Free’ collection of parasols: featuring a solid aluminium frame (with multiple weights available for bases, depending on its use), it is available in red, white and dove grey, and comes in two square sizes and one rectangular. The essential sunshade design is a perfect complement to the architecture of both large and small outdoor spaces. 

ethimo.it

Two Tone Patio Umbrella by MoMA Design Store

Available in orange and blue, MoMA's bi-colour lightweight parasol is made in Italy with waterproof canvas, and its orientation can be adjusted to shade a desired area and to regulate its height. The practical, classic design features a pointed stand that can be inserted into the ground, or can be used with a stand. 

store.moma.org

‘Atlantis’ Parasol By Skagerak

The classic striped motif of this large parasol brings to mind beaches along the serene holiday moods of the French Riviera and Italy's Versilia. Skagerak's ‘Atlantis’ Parasol also features leather-reinforced fabric and a metal-reinforced wooden pole, making it more resistant, while a pulley system to open and close the umbrella contributes to the ease of use. 

skagerak.com

‘Shadoo’ Garden Parasol by Fermob

Available in three pastel shades, Fermob's Shadoo Parasol features water-resistant Sunbrella fabric and a wide shade with a clean silhouette. The French, outdoor furniture specialist created a parasol that easily adapts to any space, thanks to the traditional, minimalist shape and fresh colour palette, ideal to get your garden or poolside for the summer.

fermob.com

Shadylace parasol by Chris Kabel for Droog

Rotterdam designer Chris Kabel has created a city parasol for Dutch design collective and brand Droog, whose shade mimics the green foliage of a tree, made in collaboration with Dessailes lace. The Rotterdam-based designer has brought his fascination for nature to a popular outdoor product, drawing from the natural shade of trees for inspiration. Filtering the sun through a composition of delicate leaves, the parasol offers a moment of connection with nature that can be added to any city balcony.

droog.com

‘Ensombra’ Parasol by Odosdesign for Gandia Blasco

Inspired by the design and movement of a fan, the ‘Ensombra’ parasol from Spanish outdoor furniture specialist Gandia Blasco is a welcome variation on the garden parasol theme. ‘We have transferred the system of opening and closing a fan to a different product type, the sunshade, to obtain a simple system that can be opened and closed over a single slat,’ say Odosdesign, the creative team behind the piece. The parasol features a galvanised steel base and a stainless steel thermo-lacquered shaft. The shade's adjustable slats are available in white, agate grey, concrete grey, bronze, sand, black, blue grey, wine red, orange brown and grey brown, to add a pop of colour to your garden. Create a dynamic chromatic composition by combining a few.

gandiablasco.com

‘Gea’ Parasol by Chi Wing Lo for Giorgetti

Giorgetti’s outdoor offering made its debut in 2017 with a collection by Chinese designer Chi Wing Lo. Named after the Greek word for ‘earth’, the ‘Gea’ collection celebrates the openness of outdoor living. Mounted on a 360-degree swivel frame with a stainless steel or marble-insert base, the sail-like parasol is a welcome breath of fresh air in the world of sun screens.

giorgettimeda.com

‘Bistrò’ Parasol by Fattorini + Rizzini + Partners for Paola Lenti

Paola Lenti collections aim to create new domestic landscapes, and this sunshade by Milanese design studio Fattorini + Rizzini + Partners is a playful nod in this direction. The parasol sits on an upholstered pouf, and is equipped with a detachable side table.

paolalenti.it

‘Meteo’ Parasol by Konstantin Grcic for Kettal

Konstantin Grcic's practical parasol design for Kettal started with a simple idea: turning the obstacle-like parasol foot into something useful and beautiful. The ‘Meteo’ collection marks the first collaboration between Grcic and the Spanish outdoor furniture brand, and ‘aims to explore the largely untapped design potential of modern parasols’. The base of the parasol becomes seating, dining table and even a planter, offering ‘a useful gesture to an otherwise obtrusive element’.

kettal.com

‘Titan’ umbrella collection by Janus et Cie

Janus et Cie's parasol collection comprises classic sunshades in bright and traditional colours. ‘Sleek lines and modern shapes provide the framework for these stunning umbrellas,’ says Janice Feldman, the brand's founder. ‘“Titan” is one of those rare examples of quantity and quality. The umbrellas are huge – and among the most innovative, elegant shade solutions in the industry.’ Built with superior aluminum alloy and an interior galvanised steel stem, the parasols can be customised in more than 85 awning-grade textiles. Each model is also available in three sizes, for maximum garden design flexibility. 

janusetcie.com

Harry and David Rich are often referred to as enfants terribles of the great outdoors. The Rich Brothers garden design enterprise was set up by Harry and David Rich in 2013 following landscape architecture studies, and the duo have since worked on gardens all over London and abroad, successfully taken part in the Chelsea Flower show and even collaborated with Chanel on a special garden inspired by Coco Chanel.

The Rich Brothers’ garden design features a fusion between landscape, greenery and architecture, based on a close relationship with the outdoors to inspire people to enjoy their gardens and outdoors spaces. The latest venture for the pair is a more intimate garden project, featuring their signature approach to gardening in a personal dimension.

The Rich Brothers design their own garden in Wales

‘Ty Gardd’ (Welsh for garden house) is the Rich Brothers’ personal garden project, started in February 2021 at Harry’s own home in Wales. ‘Ty Gardd is a diary of our process that will no doubt become a lifetime of work, and one that we will undertake together,’ the pair shared on Instagram.

The project, the brothers say, will touch upon their ongoing wider research surrounding garden design, including using plant species that can control the environment. Documented through an online visual journal, the process will include design, plant and material selection and sustainability in garden design. ‘Our first real experience of the garden was in December 2017. The sun hid behind the hill, nowhere to be seen, and the garden fell still. Another month, and it appears again, casting a beautiful light through the trees and a warmth to the soil,’ the inaugural entry of the brothers’ garden diary reads. They poetically list the plants originally in the garden, from a Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena’ (witch hazel), known as the winter jewel, to an ‘unmanaged but healthy’ wisteria growing on one side of the house.

They admit to having a relaxed approach to this project, and the design will evolve during their time experiencing the garden, with procrastination being a ‘key ingredient’. The garden design process is purposely slow, the pair say, to allow them to fully understand the place and experience it through the seasons. 

The garden features a small stream, that the designers imagine having played a central role in the house’s past lives. ‘It currently lies hidden away from view, the slope suppressing its connection to the garden,’ they write. ‘We are excited to reconnect it, sculpting the land to reveal its presence. It’s exciting to have so much variety within the garden, each layer adding interest and diversity.’ Another important element of the garden design is the surrounding woodland, which their new outdoor space will complement.

The latest focus for the pair as they progress their work on the garden is the secluded courtyard, a forgotten area that, they say, ‘evokes excitement and anticipation’. It is a more controlled, shaded area of the garden, the duo explain, separated by yew hedging (eventually trimmed to an organic shape) and featuring a geometric layout with topiary, planting beds and paths. ‘We want this part of the garden to feel unique, to home some of our favourite plants and new combinations that we are eager to try,’ they say. 

‘We love formality; the strong lines of topiary, pleached trees and stone walls provide the garden with fairness and balance but, without its opposite, can feel a little too regular,’ they mentioned as they shared the garden’s initial plans. ‘Cobbled paths diffuse into the lawn, soft undulating landforms and rambling roses spill out from trees. It’s a garden of conflict but hopefully one that sits well.’ 

INFORMATION

Follow the Rich Brothers’ garden design progress from tygardd.co.uk

Whether it's venturing out into the great outdoors or just simply being outside in a park or garden, reconnecting with nature has been a welcomed byproduct of the pandemic and a luxury we certainly couldn't live without. A new collaboration between the Finnish home tools icon Fiskars and fashion designer Maria Korkeila celebrates this relationship to full effect, with a genderless line of outdoor garments designed for gardening and urban exploring in general. Made from organic and recycled materials, along with some vegan leather thrown in for good measure, the collection blends functionality with a cool streetwear aesthetic that should be appreciated in public.

As Fiskars' first ever foray into fashion, the 11-piece capsule collection re-envisions traditional garden wear through the lens of Fiskars’ Nordic design heritage. Korkeila, who works as a fashion and textile designer in Paris and Helsinki, has fused her flair for handcrafted punk aesthetics with rich textures, nature-inspired prints and colours.

Finnish home tools icon Fiskars' first foray into fashion

The styles range from modular outerwear, including a water-repellent coat that features a removable hood, sleeves and base, and a vest whose lower section can be detached for greater flexibility and comfort, to a gardening apron that boasts tear and abrasion-resistant pockets as well as elasticated loops to keep tools securely in place, as well as style-forward trousers and overalls that exude an stylish, utilitarian silhouette while still built for hard wear; adjustable openings and pockets allow for additional knee padding while working in the garden, while removable pant legs mean they can be instantly shortened, when the weather calls for it.

‘The collection found its roots in the immensely rich history of Fiskars and its surroundings. Looking at the tools, they are highly functional and streamlined, occasionally even futuristic, but they are also firmly linked to their ancestry, so to speak; traditional yet progressive all at once. I wanted to take this idea of the Fiskars DNA and try to distill that into the clothing,’ says Korkeila. ‘The shapes and forms of the collection are also firmly rooted in the activity of gardening itself – the different movements and positions you would take while crouching in your garden or the conditions the clothes would be exposed to while outdoors.’

She adds: ‘We also wanted to use materials that were respectful to the nature that they’re intended to be used in. In practice, that meant using materials that are PFC-free, vegan, organic, recycled.’

INFORMATION

fiskars.com

Expormim

Our outdoors seating selection of lounge chairs includes ‘Armadillo’, MUT Design’s new take on the classic rattan papasan armchair created for Expormim.

Vondom

Ramón Esteve’s ‘Frame Vineyard’ triangular daybed for Vondom features a pitched sunshade that provides refuge from the demands of the outside world, while making us dream of a sunny escape.

 Wallpaper* Design Awards 2021

Giorgetti

Dominic Siguang Ma and Feng Wei’s ‘Clop’ for Giorgetti isi a playful birch plywood design that can be used either as a rocking chair or a small armchair. 

B&B Italia

Naoto Fukasawa's ‘Ayana’ collection is described by its maker B&B Italia as ‘warm minimalism’. The seats feature a backrest with spindles that recall a Swedish wall bar – thankfully, you’re not expected to use it for a workout, but rather to admire its solid wooden frame from all angles.

Kettal

Another design by Fukasawa, the elegant ‘Half Dome’ lamp for Kettal, will add the perfect lighting to your new outdoor stage.

Ethimo

A dining table that becomes a ping pong table is our idea of outdoors fun: Ethimo’s ‘Play’ dining/ping-pong table is a perfect example of multifunctional garden furniture

Lego

Lego’s Colosseum – its biggest set ever at 9,036 pieces –  features mostly pieces of the same colour, so you’ll have to arm yourself with patience (rather than a gladiator’s sword) to complete it.

For a new exhibition titled ‘Spontaneum’ (until 15 March 2022, Via Privata Rezia 2, Milan) Italian leather goods brand Marsèll commissioned photographs of Piet Oudolf's private garden at his home in Hummelo, the Netherlands. The company enlisted Dutch photographer Awoiska van der Molen, known primarily for her black and white abstract images of nature, to explore his space. She visited Oudolf’s gardens in September 2021 – a particularly captivating time of year for plants, at the turning of the seasons. The colours of Oudolf’s garden in turn inspired the S/S 2022 collection by Marsèll.

On the occasion of the exhibition, we showcase the new photographs and revisit a Wallpaper* interview with Oudolf from May 2020, when much of the world was in lockdown.

Step into one of Piet Oudolf’s gardens and you will be transported into a dreamlike meadowscape. His ability to create transportive private gardens extends into our bustling cities and his work can be enjoyed in many urban public spaces. Rating the ‘architecture’ of a plant just as highly as its colourful bloom, his complex plantings are layered with a multitude of species – evoking a sense of spontaneity, although nothing is ever left to chance.

He has designed gardens for Serpentine Galleries in London and Noma in Copenhagen, filled Hauser & Wirth’s Somerset garden with 57,000 plants, and created a private, perennial-packed rooftop in Manhattan. Believing in plants as therapy, he completed the garden for Maggie’s Centre at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton, which opened in 2019. Speaking from home – an old farmhouse on an acre of land outside the village of Hummelo, in the eastern Netherlands, where he has lived with his wife Anja since 1982 – Oudolf shares his thoughts on how to transform a miniature plot, work for Vitra’s HQ (completed since our interview), and our future reliance on finding pleasure closer to home – and ultimately, in our gardens.

Piet Oudolf on gardens: ‘Buy the plants you like, don’t try to be a designer’

Wallpaper*: How are you doing currently, at home in Hummelo?

Piet Oudolf: We are doing well. My life is already sort of isolated from living on a farm. So, it sort of feels natural but I can’t travel to other countries due to the restrictions. It’s not too bad. We have three acres of garden here which is taken care of by someone. Because I’ve worked so hard in gardens for many years, it feels good to me that I’m not doing the actual work anymore! Our garden is so established that it needs no more than two days a week of maintenance. Other than that, I work in the office surrounded by the garden.

W*: Is the anticipation part of the joy of gardening? What are you looking forward to?

PO: For me, it’s all about the moment, the now. If I go out into the garden, I will see something today that was not in flower yesterday. As a gardener, you have an expectation. When I plant a tree, I have an expectation of what it will be next year and in five years' time. Last week I planted some small trees that I will probably never see mature. But you can see it in your imagination. Being engaged, involved and busy with plants, it’s my life. I don’t think too much to be honest, I just do it.

W*: A lot of your work is related to planting in urban spaces, such as the High Line and Battery Park, both in New York. Why do you think it’s important to have planted areas in our cities?

PO: In cities, so many people don’t have access to nature. Either they don’t have the money to travel outside the city, or if they can afford it, they go on holiday to places where plants are not so important. To do it in the city, and especially in public space, it makes people ‘meet’ with things they probably would not have otherwise met. Creating something like the High Line makes people think, ‘OK, this is also existing in the world.’ Because it looks sort of wild, which it is not, it makes them think and ask questions.

W*: Do you approach designing public and private gardens differently? 

PO: Private gardens are usually all about a family, or an owner who has their own ideas about the parts of my work they like. Perhaps they have grandchildren that want somewhere to play. It’s very personal. And can be complicated – as complicated as public parks are – but in a very different way. A public garden is for more than one family, more persons. It has its own restrictions, such as safety and what you can do in a city. 

W*: You often work in expansive spaces, but how do you approach smaller spaces? What do you advise for people who are starting a small garden at home?

PO: I’ve done many, many small gardens – small public office gardens or private gardens. Most people are not designers, what they see is the plants they like. I say to budding gardeners, ‘Buy the plants you like, don’t try to be a designer.’ That is what people can take from my work. If they see a combination they like in the gardens they visit, such as a grass with a plant, that’s perfect. I say, ‘Don’t think bigger, because then you can do it yourself.’

W*: How far ahead do you work when designing a new garden? How much planning time do you take?

PO: It’s at least one year. My planting palette is different to other landscapers, so we need to be sure the plants are available in growing season, or we have to let them grow. We use plants not only from the Netherlands but also from America. Some things like the High Line go on for years and years. I started in 2004 and the opening was in 2009, so five years. 

W*: Do you have rules for colour combinations, mixing textures and using different heights and variations of species?

PO: When I’m designing, texture is on the first plan; colour comes second. Texture is the architecture, or the character, of a plant. When you meet a person and you see their body language or expression, you know if it’s someone you like or don’t like. It’s the same with plants, and they don’t have to flower to show you their character. A flower is exciting of course, they are beautiful, put them in a vase on your desk. But for many plants, the flowers are only for two or three weeks, or less, and then they are gone. So, it’s good to have plants that have more to them than just flowers.

W*: Your approach to garden design considers all seasons. What’s important about designing a garden that can provide joy year-round and in all weathers?

PO: I think every season is important, and everything that happens within that season is important for what you feel in the garden. When I design a garden, everything is thought of, including how it develops. In spring, at this time of the year, you don’t need much [in your garden]. There is so much happening around you in the woodlands, in the fields, that is so fresh and energetic, that every little thing that happens captures your attention. The colour of the leaves in the woodland that sprout out very white and green, or a little bulb or flower that shows up in your garden. Everything is accelerating. That’s how I think about making gardens, it’s not just about the whole picture but about the details.

W*: Can you tell me about current projects, including Vitra garden you are creating, and the Detroit Oudolf Garden in Michigan?

PO: The planting at Vitra’s headquarters is happening even though we cannot travel. We have good friends in France and Germany who have a network of people who really understand my planting schemes and can carry this out. Also, the team at Vitra is great so we communicate by WhatsApp or Facetime to get the technical details right. Detroit is going ahead, too. The design is done and I have a good network of people in America so if I can’t come over they can set out the plants using my drawings. There is a really good understanding there.

The Garden Club of Michigan asked me if I was interested to do a garden and that’s how it came about. Detroit is a city I was always interested in and I had never been, and it was just recovering from all the things from the past. It was the combination of exploring the city and creating a garden. The city is very interesting.

W*: You have said, ‘Planting is good therapy for the times we live in.’ What do you mean by that?

PO: We live in a terrible time at the moment [during the Covid-19 pandemic], and many people are rethinking their lives. People may not be out of jobs now, but you never know what happens after this. So many people were working in the city, and if you are a younger person, and you always were very stressed and working hard to get a good income, especially in very competitive businesses, wouldn’t you think about what to do with your life? I’ve noticed that people in their careers sometimes can be very intelligent and have very good jobs, and then turn to something different, and I think the times we live in now will make that happen more than ever.

W*: How do you think these times will change our relationships with our gardens in the future? 

 PO: I think the circles will become smaller, of what will be produced and used. You can imagine that we won’t want to import everything anymore. By rethinking our lives, we will become more engaged by nature and what is happening in our worlds. That’s generalising, because many people don’t even think about it, but I think a lot of things such as cities will become self-sufficient in a way.

You can imagine that the many farmers producing for export will consider producing smaller amounts to sell locally rather than to other countries. I think we are going to travel less for pleasure. We will try to find our satisfaction closer to home. And that’s why I think gardening will be more important for the future.

Browse more Piet Oudolf gardens below

INFORMATION
oudolf.com

When we approached Seoul-based interior design firm Teo Yang Studio and Mallorcan tile manufacturer Huguet (both winners in the 2019 Wallpaper* Design Awards, W*239) to create a contemporary birdbath, both parties were intrigued. For practice founder Teo Yang, it was a particular challenge, as birdbaths don’t exist in Korea. The initial reaction from his studio was one of delight and surprise (‘Do birds take baths?’). Huguet’s owner Biel Huguet had a similar response.

The inspiration behind Yang’s ‘Three Isles’ series of birdbath designs plays partly on the theme of this year’s Handmade exhibition, love, which led to the idea of love birds. But Yang was also keen to connect the birdbath to Korean traditions, and he looked at the symbolism found in local garden design and the importance placed on connecting nature, people and water.

‘Koreans have been making beautiful gardens for at least 2,000 years,’ says Yang. ‘Three is a symbolic number in Korean garden design – three islands on a lake, and three trees and three rocks on each island, is a design that is often seen in parks, and also serves to create resting grounds for birds and other small creatures.’ The importance of encouraging a peaceful co-existence between nature and humans led Yang to the idea of a trio of birdbaths, titled ‘Forgiveness’, ‘Generosity’, and ‘Kindness’, three essential attributes in any loving relationship.

As Yang researched the history of birdbaths, he learned that water cannot be too deep, should ideally flow, and that there is a hierarchy among birds in terms of access, with larger birds, such as crows, pushing out smaller birds. Yang’s designs are sensitive to this social construct, with areas laid out for birds of different sizes, giving each group their own domain in which to bathe. This also links to his interest in connecting the birdbaths to Taoism and its principles of simplicity, patience and compassion.

Like Yang, who lived in Chicago, LA and Amsterdam before returning to his native Seoul to start his own practice, Biel Huguet is passionate about his cultural heritage. For both parties, there came a point in their careers when they needed to return to their roots. When Huguet took over as head of his grandfather’s company in 1997, after working in Barcelona as an architect, he never imagined where it would take him.

‘I originally thought about traditions, materials, making by hand, and Mallorcan culture,’ he says. ‘But we are now producing contemporary tiles with architects and designers such as Herzog & de Meuron, Alfredo Häberli and David Chipperfield, which is incredible. And just when you think you have done so many things, a project like this birdbath arrives and it is a new and exciting challenge for us.’

Yang and Huguet had never met before this commission, but thanks to Instagram and other digital tools, both quickly understood they had a shared concern with heritage. ‘Blending cultures, views and traditions is very interesting,’ says Huguet. ‘It makes us richer with more to contribute.’

Reflecting both a Mediterranean and an Asian heritage in a completely unexpected way, the birdbaths were made using white and peach terrazzo tiles and terracotta-toned bowls and cylinders. Terrazzo has been used for centuries in Mallorca, but is not common in Korea. Yang loved the look of the material, but he had to get to grips with working with it. The terrazzo tiles were assembled to form a cuboid pedestal, with circles cut out, revealing ribbed clay tubes that accommodate a water pipe. A terracotta bowl or cylinder rests on top or to the side of each pedestal.

The finished pieces feel romantic and evocative of the past, like they could have been installed in an 18th century garden, and yet they are also completely contemporary.

As originally featured in the August 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*245)

INFORMATION

teoyangstudio.com; huguetmallorca.com

HASA Architects has transformed a derelict glasshouse into a modern, minimalist event space in a north London former nursery. Drawing on their fascination for beautiful sites and unconventional projects, the team of architects – headed by Charlotte Harris and Mark Stevens – worked to adjust, expand and bring the existing structure to the 21st century; all set amid a leafy landscaped site by designers Buono Gazerwitz Landscape Architecture. 

The architects approached the current owners, Karen and Lekhu Pagarani, in 2017, proposing the update of the neglected glasshouse in Highgate, and despite time and budgetary constraints, they created a striking space that combines glass and birch plywood. The ply panels are finished in white Osmo oil for a light, smooth feel, while careful detailing and architectural gestures, such as replacing the original doors with plywood ones, create a sense of seamlessness and coherence throughout. 

The simple nature of the original architecture served as a source of inspiration, so the interiors are now suitably clean and uncluttered – fittingly so, for a multi-functional space that caters for a range of activities, from talks to exhibitions and other private and community events. Flexibility was key and the architects went back a few months after completion to adapt the space even further, adding a functioning kitchen to the mix.

Now, the glasshouse at Omved Gardens is a thriving place for inspiration and events of all kinds, and its contemporary, well thought out architecture plays a key role in that. ‘The project aims to explore the possibilities of this forgotten piece of the city', say the architects on their website; and it sounds like thanks to their design, this architectural space is now back at the heart of the local community. 

INFORMATION

hasa-architects.com

The search among the architecturally articulate for texture in the plant world has lately led to moss. ‘If you look to Japan, there is a long, artful, intelligent history of gardening using moss,’ says John Tebbs, editor of biannual publication Pleasure Garden. ‘We so often seem to be fighting it, but I love to see moss embraced more in the context of a natural garden.’

Meanwhile, London-based designer Pete Pongsak, of Archive & Archive, explores the trainability of moss in his new series of sculptural outdoor planters. Like Tebbs, he was inspired by Japan, taking the grassy/moss element of bonsai displays (shitakusa) and isolating it so that focus can be thrown entirely on the colours, textures and shapes of moss. ‘My planters don’t need soil, only a rough surface to hold on to, so the depth of the planter can be removed from the equation.’ It’s time to still our stones and embrace moss appeal.

As originally featured in the September 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*234), and shot inside London's Royal Opera House, which has been newly reconfigured by Stanton Williams.

Cacti and other genres of xerophyte plants need very little water and can adapt to extremely harsh environments. What more appropriate place to celebrate this fact than on a once-industrial wasteland on the outskirts of Madrid?

Situated on a plot adjacent to the thundering AI Highway, Desert City is the largest cactus garden in Europe and has an aim to educate the public at large on the ecological and aesthetic benefits of xerophyte plant life. It’s an idea from Mercedes Garcia, an agronomist who firmly believes that low-maintenance, low-water gardens are the way of the future: a philosophy she has named ‘zerolandscaping’.

Over 16,000 sq m of wasteland was claimed to create Desert City, a third of which is occupied by an enclosure designed by the Madrid-based Jacobo García-Germán architecture studio. Along with guided tours, research and breeding of cacti, Desert City offers a retail space, workshops, event facilities and even a restaurant.

These facilities are enclosed in García-Germán’s building, a landmark-proportioned horizontal structure with a greenhouse at its centre where visitors can peruse a large selection of plants displayed in peaceful symmetry. The architect describes the project as a mammoth oasis – one part open to the sky (the garden) and the other part enclosed in his structure.

García-Germán chose materials and scale that responded to the building’s close proximity to the highway and the constant presence of speeding traffic, which is seen through green-tinted photovoltaic windows that surround the structure. The central greenhouse is protected by a lightweight roof made cables laid to the principles of transegrity and reinforced with a ‘cushion’ of ETFE, which regulates temperature. Surrounding the greenhouse are lookout points, bridges, walkways, terraces and other devices that work together providing cross ventilation, thermal protection and shade; all features of the project’s strict environmental criteria.

The plot was originally a dumping ground for waste created by the construction of the highway. The project, García-Germán says, ‘has been regenerative by returning the land, at least in part, to nature, and creating a new landscape that is paradoxically natural and artificial, exotic and regressive’.
These facilities are enclosed in García-Germán’s building, a landmark-proportioned horizontal structure with a greenhouse at its centre where visitors can peruse a large selection of plants displayed in peaceful symmetry. The architect describes the project as a mammoth oasis – one part open to the sky (the garden) and the other part enclosed in his structure.

García-Germán chose materials and scale that responded to the building’s close proximity to the highway and the constant presence of speeding traffic, which is seen through green-tinted photovoltaic windows that surround the structure. The central greenhouse is protected by a lightweight roof made cables laid to the principles of transegrity and reinforced with a ‘cushion’ of ETFE, which regulates temperature. Surrounding the greenhouse are lookout points, bridges, walkways, terraces and other devices that work together providing cross ventilation, thermal protection and shade; all features of the project’s strict environmental criteria.

The plot was originally a dumping ground for waste created by the construction of the highway. The project, García-Germán says, ‘has been regenerative by returning the land, at least in part, to nature, and creating a new landscape that is paradoxically natural and artificial, exotic and regressive’.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Desert City website and the García-Germán Arquitectos website

ADDRESS

Autovia A1 – KM 25
28708 San Sebastián de los Reyes
Madrid

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The otherworldy appeal of Tillandsia, or air plants as they are more commonly known, lies not only in their spellbinding silvery green tendrils but also in their remarkable self-sufficiency. Most of the 500 or so identified species flourish entirely without soil, instead absorbing all of their nutritional and water requirements from the air.

Recognising the growing popularity of air plants, a new generation of botanical enthusiasts, such as East London outfit Conical, have started terrarium businesses, and miniature air plant gardens in elegant glass vessels can now be found in design stores across London. As well as selling seven air plant species, Aram also stocks a line of geometric ‘plant cages,’ made from bent black, white or rust wire, that serve as the perfect minimalist trellis.

As originally featured in the January 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*214)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Conical website and The The Store website

Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco is known for his soft watercolour series, his abstract paintings and totemic wooden sculptures, and now it seems, he is adding horticulture to his repertoire. 

‘The invitation to create a garden as a permanent art work presented a unique opportunity,’ explains the globetrotting artist of his latest work, the garden design at the South London Gallery. 

Two years in the making and unveiled last weekend as the winter’s chill takes hold of the capital, the garden was designed alongside 6a architects – the same firm behind the gallery’s award-winning 2010 extension and current renovation of the former Peckham Road Fire Station – and horticulturists from the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew. 

Struck by the commitment of the gallery to its local community, Orozco set off to design a space that would help that relationship blossom, to ‘create something which could provide an inspiring platform for all of them,’ he says. ‘I started to think about various geometries emerging from the architecture surrounding the space and how they might be re-integrated into it as the basis of a design.’

Circles – a recurring motif favoured by Orozco – form the basis of his geometric design. Intertwining rings are delicately marked out using materials that reflect and continue the physical language of the gallery’s Victorian building (including bricks from the newly opened up rear facade) as a game of symmetry and asymmetry unfolds, creating in its wake a series of ‘spaces’ or ’rooms’. The character or purpose of each designated by the plants that inhabit it, the rise and fall of the ground beneath, and various seating options available to the public. These notional rooms will be used by other artists and, without a doubt, the neighbouring community in the coming months.

Playing on the idea of urban ruin, the garden will evolve to become rambling and overgrown, allowing the omnifarious grasses, low level creepers and fragrant plants to really grow into their own. In the meantime, working drawings and a film capturing the transformation of the garden over the past year take centre stage within the gallery itself.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the South London Gallery website

ADDRESS

South London Gallery
65-67 Peckham Rd
London SE5 8UH

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Summer days are dwindling but within the (very) green walls of 'The Plant Show', currently on view at 99¢ Plus Gallery, the vibrancy of the season remains on full-display. The exhibition is the second in a series held at the Brooklyn-based gallery exploring common household objects, the first being 'The Lamp Show', exhibited earlier this year and at Collective Design during New York Design Week.

Just like it’s predecessor, 'The Plant Show' brings together an eclectic group of artists and designers to redefine a banal object by responding to an open-ended prompt, to ‘make something that brings plant life into the home’.

‘The shows were born from our interest in how art objects can be brought to life through function, how presenting straightforward parameters gives artists the opportunity to play and explore how function is important to them,’ explains curator and co-director Simran Johnston.

The decision to focus on vessels for plant life was inspired by the gallery’s next-door neighbour – and official plant supplier – Florencia’s Flower Shop, after witnessing how the presence of a lush storefront can transform an entire city block through the daily presence of beauty and life. City-dwellers often have to seek out alternative ways of injecting nature into living spaces, and the range of work in the exhibition reflects that – with 23 artists on view, there are just as many interpretations of the initial concept.

Some have already been exploring the theme in their work – like Adam Frezza and Terri Chiao’s papier mâché plant forms. Others, like David Franklin’s Tentacle Table, which appropriates a standard Kohler sink in a fusion of function and art, and the textured Play-Doh aesthetic of Sean Gerstley's metallic funnel planter, approach it with fresh eyes and a range of perspectives from the literal to the conceptual. One thing is for sure though: each of the objects embodies its own distinct character – a quality we often overlook when we bring objects into our homes. 

INFORMATION
’The Plant Show’ is on view until 11 September. For more information, visit the 99¢ Plus Gallery’s website

ADDRESS VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

99¢ Plus Gallery
238 Wilson Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11237

Japan has long fascinated photographers – from Tokyo’s futuristic architectural tapestry to awe-inspiring natural marvels (Mt Fuji springs to mind), it is a visually charged place that stirs fantasy. The latest artist to turn his lens to the curious country – more specifically, Kyoto and its ancient gardens – is Israeli photographer and 2015 Prix Pictet nominee Ori Gersht, who recently debuted his new project ‘Floating World’ at London gallery Ben Brown Fine Arts.

Gersht began work on the series towards the end of last year, visiting and capturing the gardens of Buddhist Zen temples in and surrounding Kyoto. He was intrigued by their inherent stillness and the preservation of history; these gardens lend a meditative escape from a turbulent modern world. ‘I am fascinated by the complex and intricate relationships that the Japanese have developed with their gardens and with the landscape,’ explains the photographer. ‘I was drawn to the cyclical relations of these gardens with the past, present, and future, their flow of movement in contrast to its sudden photographic arrest.’ 

Here, Kyoto’s gardens are rendered as Monet-esque landscapes as Gersht hones in on water reflections, seamlessly fusing ‘reflections with the reflected world’ in his photographs. Through this he explores the tension between what he dubs ‘the virtual and the material’, pitting illusion against reality and uncovering hidden worlds beneath the surface. ‘The philosophy of these ancient gardens seems to align with my interest to reflect an essence of nature rather than its actual appearance,’ he adds, ‘heightening the dialectic between utopian and real places, between the imagined and reality.

But underneath the surface of these sylvan settings, something more mercurial lays in wait. Gersht explains: ‘These ancient fragile gardens are resting upon volatile, unstable tectonic plates. Despite the peaceful nature, they are under constant volcanic threat. Contained within Buddhist temples they were created to reflect the essence of nature.’

This latest endeavour is an extension of a prior series from 2014, ‘On Reflection’, which revisits early seventeenth-century paintings by Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder. ‘In my work I often explore the relationships between tradition and past memories with the present, between history and contemporary life,’ says Gersht. ‘In doing so I try to push the technical limitations of photography, questioning its claim to truth.’

Gersht hopes to return to Kyoto to continue his investigation of these spaces. ‘I believe that in this context, the description of my work by the writer David Chandler [to be] very relevant: “A meditation on the poetics of fragility, a reminded that all images are transitional. They show us nothing more – for certain – than the absence of the object of representation,”’ he muses.

INFORMATION

‘Floating World’ runs until 16 June. For more information, visit Ben Brown Fine Arts’ website

Images © Ori Gersht. Courtesy of Ben Brown Fine Arts

The swirling grey waters of the Thames are about to be disrupted for the first time in over a decade. This Spring, work begins on two piers between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge, the foundations for the newest and perhaps boldest Thames crossing to date. We spoke to the Garden Bridge's designer, Thomas Heatherwick, about the current state of the project. 

'It's at a very exciting stage,' says the designer from his Kings Cross studio. 'We've completed the first full-size mock up section at the factory outside Venice. Now we can inspect the welds and shadow gaps and see how everything meets up.' The first section is a part of a mighty metal jigsaw, forged from roll-bonded copper-nickel, a hard-wearing material suggested by the Arups, the consulting engineers on the project. 'The South Bank is known for concrete, and the north bank for brick and stone,' Heatherwick explains, 'the bridge had to be agnostic. But it's also a harsh context in a salty river with a 6-7m tide.' 

The brief called for a structure that's elegant but tough. 'We need a substantial amount of concrete inside to withstand a ship hitting a pier, for example, but we felt raw concrete was just too harsh,' Heatherwick says. Metal was felt to be a complementary solution, but regular shipbuilding steel would have to be regularly repainted. 'That's a big maintenance liability, so a metal that doesn't need painting seemed obvious,' he says, 'stainless steel was a candidate, but it has a cold colouration. Copper-nickel is used in making oilrigs and ship's propellers - it's a bronze-like alloy that doesn't go dark, but it still has a warmth. It's important that the bridge is beautiful from the underside as well as the side. We want something that can take the bashing of the decades with a patina that emerges.' 

As the supports fan out from the river to the bank they will taper away to a slender section in the middle, where the planting will be lowest and the views will be best. 'It's really just two planters, their foundations sprouting from the river bed,' the designer explains, 'placed in the only two places the Thames Harbour Master would allow. In a way they're like two ships. They'll be brought by sea from Venice up to Tilbury and then floated down the Thames into place, where they'll be attached to the foundations and then filled with concrete.' On top of the 366m span will go 2500 square metres of planting area, the essential layer that will sustain the garden above, at depths of between 40cm and 2 feet (the High Line, in comparison, has a maximum depth of 45cm).

Heatherwick is adamant that the new structure is a garden first and foremost. 'We're designing it for Dan Pearson's planting,' he explains, 'the hero of a garden bridge is the garden, not the bridge. My studio's job is to hold up the garden.' Pearson has been on board since the beginning and will bring his romantic, wild but structured style to the new garden. 'We felt strongly about the naturalistic dimension,' says Heatherwick, 'there are plenty of formal gardens in London, but this one is intensely naturalistic. People misunderstand it - it's not like a park. Everything has been about having a horticultural element.' 

Over the years the planting will evolve, as well as change over the seasons, with the tallest trees eventually topping out at around 15m high. 'We want it to frame London, not create a giant leylandii hedge,' says Heatherwick. As well as the shape and construction of the structure itself, his studio has been closely involved with Arups in planning the four different circulation routes across the bridge, which will be used by an estimated 9,000 commuters a day. 'It's a transformational experience to cross the bridge,' he enthuses, 'your experience will depend on your route, the season and the maturity of the garden. It should be different every time you cross it. I think it will be sensational.'  

If the court of public opinion held sway over city planning, it would be a miracle if anything were built in London at all. So far, criticism of the £175m project has focused on the apparent creation of a great slab of corporate space over the Thames, to the possible exclusion of the general public, as well as high profile broadsides against the need for a new bridge at all, particularly in this spot. Heatherwick acknowledges the bridge is largely privately funded, but stresses that the Garden Bridge Trust 'doesn't want it to have an agenda… it's not a royal project or commemorating anything. It's not being branded or named.' Instead, it's a structure engineered for a lifespan of a millennium, designed to evolve and change over the decades. 'It's a platform for Londoners,' he says, 'the project is about the human scale. It's a link, but it's also a place to meet and the best place to see London from.' In 2018, we'll have a chance to discover it for ourselves. 

INFORMATION

For more information on Heatherwick Studio visit the website

Enter through the doors at 18, rue de la Verrerie in Paris’ Marais district, walk through the courtyard and into the space that occupies Galerie Alaïa and discover a secret garden of sorts, 'planted' by designer and artist Kris Ruhs. The fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa commissioned Ruhs, who has also designed jewellery for Alaïa, to create his own magical world. Titled Hanging Garden, and on view until 27 December, the installation invites viewers to use their own imagination to transport them to a place of wonder.

Over a year, Ruhs and his team worked painstakingly with porcelain, brass and iron thread, creating over 45,000 pieces for the installation, which also comprises his first solo show in Paris. Curved brass forms delicate flower petals, while carefully formed pieces of porcelain are shaped to look like leaves. The dangling flowers hang over three islands that visitors can walk through.

'The experience of it is to look and get lost,' says Donatien Grau, an academic who works with Alaïa. Adds the artist, 'I like the movement, when people brush by it or whatever, it kind of gives you a little bit of lightness to it.' The walls of the space were also covered with swirls, and leaves and blossoms in metallic hues of gold, silver and bronze, accented with the same pieces in the garden. The project also got the local community involved; artists Julian Schnabel and Mike Bouchet participated in the installation, as did Alaïa and members of his team.

'Everybody has a different approach to it,' says Ruhs. 'Everybody has a different feeling. Everybody has a different reference, so that’s nice. It’s like theatre. I leave it in the hands of the audience.'

INFORMATION
Hanging Garden is on view until 27 December

Photography courtesy Galleria Carla Sozzani

ADDRESS

Galerie Azzedine Alaïa
18, rue de la Verrerie
75004 Paris

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Unexpectedly offset by their formal landscaped surroundings, four of John Chamberlain's towering, twisted aluminium sculptures in glittering shades of pink, bronze and green are currently dotted around the grounds of Inverleith House at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh as part of the the late American artist's first show in the UK.

A key figure in the New York art scene during the 1950s and 60s, Chamberlain (1927 - 2011) was often overshadowed by his American abstract expressionist contemporaries yet his work continues to exert a powerful influence on artists working today. Although renowned for his welded sculptures of discarded car parts, Chamberlain was a self-described collagist who worked with a broad range of media including urethane foam, paper bags, plexiglas, galvanised or stainless steel. 

It is this breadth and diversity of his oeuvre that the exhibition at Inverleith House seeks to highlight. While the ground floor is given over to his colourful crushed car sculptures - displayed on plinths, casually leant against or elevated on the walls- upstairs, the artist's Stuffed Dog sculptures - squidgy pieces of urethane foam tied together with cord and spattered with painted marks - are part of a set of 19 sculptures on loan from the Dia Art Foundation in New York which have never before been exhibited outside of North America. 

In the darkly lit basement, Chamberlain's 1969 experimental film 'The Secret Life of Hernando Cortez', featuring Chamberlain himself alongside a number of Warhol superstars such as Ultra Violet and Taylor Mead, also makes its UK debut.

ADDRESS

Arboretum Place, Edinburgh EH3 5NZ

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In the spring light of the Gardens of Versailles, there are winks and flashes from every gilded surface. Yet few of them radiate quite like the 2,000 Murano-glass globes filled with gold leaf that dance across the remodelled Water Theatre Grove.

Paris-based artist Jean-Michel Othoniel designed Les Belles Danses in homage to the Sun King, Louis XIV, who first commissioned the classical gardens here. The difference between his contemporary fountain and the surrounding landscape, masterminded by André Le Nôtre in the 17th century, is the audience. 'This is my republican project,' says Othoniel. 'This fountain is literally for the public. It serves the people.'

The elaborate Water Theatre Grove historically served as an outdoor stage where spectacles were performed for the king's pleasure. Louis XVI had it dug up during his reign, and a series of storms in the 1990s destroyed it completely. When palace officials chose landscape architect-du-jour Louis Benech to bring it back to life, he plucked Othoniel to fashion its central feature. The public will first experience this fresh take on the Sun King's legacy when the grove opens on 11 May.

Othoniel arranged the glass bulbs - his artistic signature - in three seemingly abstract arrangements titled 'The Entrance of Apollo', 'The Rigadoun of Peace' and the 'Bourée of Achilles'. In fact their shape can be traced back to 17th-century ballet notations popularised by the king and published by Roger-Auger Feuillet. Othoniel discovered Feuillet's artfully printed work - one of only three in existence - during his 2011 residency at the Isabella Stewart Gardiner museum in Boston.

'When I first saw them, they were so similar to my own sketches. They were exactly what I had been missing in my research. As a French artist, being asked to do this project was very moving, but also stressful. Those drawings formed the connection for me. They were my key to entering the world of today.'

The recreated grove is the first modern addition to the Versailles landscape since the French Revolution and 'Les Belles Danses' is the most significant project of Othoniel's career. In one of Versailles' largest groves, the grand scale of the fountain has been a revelation.

It's also the artist's first moving piece. To complete it, he expanded his studio from five to 10 employees, who spent a year installing it alongside Versailles' official fontainiers. It all slipped into place when they began testing the jets, which force the water through the glass in the same arc as Versailles' historic main fountain. 'Antique jets coming from the contemporary sculpture,' says Othoniel. 'That's where the piece takes its rhythm.'

ADDRESS

Les Jardins de Versailles
Place d'Armes
78000 Versailles
France

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One of the highlights of this month's issue (W*188) is a detailed tour of Kickstarter's unique Brooklyn headquarters. Earlier this year the crowd-funding authority not only moved its operations to a nondescript industrial block in Greenpoint but bought the new digs outright – a rarity in the start-up world.

At 29,000 sq ft, Kickstarter's new space is a world away from the three narrow floors it previously occupied in a crumbling tenement building in Manhattan's Lower East Side. It's located in the Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory Historic District, a complex of eight buildings constructed in the 1890s and landmarked in 2008 as testament to Brooklyn's industrial age.

Although moldings of large pencils flank the topmost windows in neighbouring buildings, Kickstarter's two-storey acquisition was largely in disarray initially, having been gutted when the previous owner hoped to turn it into a high-rise hotel (then abandoned it when those plans fell through). All that was left were the walls and a makeshift roof. There were no pencils on its red-brick façade, only graffiti.

While architect Ole Sondresen worked his magic to rehabilitate and transform the building, repurposing as much of the original infrastructure as possible, designer Camille Finefrock was the force behind the charming interiors and the distinctive rooftop and courtyard gardens. Finefrock's vision for the ground-floor courtyard was to offer an unkempt moment of calm for Kickstarter employees.

'Because Yancey [Strickler] and Perry [Chen] had the foresight to make the centre of the building a garden,' she says of the CEO and chairman, 'my perception of the space was that this is the heart of the building. I wanted to create a portrait of the woods. At any time in the year, people can look through the window and connect to what's happening in nature.'

Filled with ferns, river birches, swamp azalea and other plants native to Long Island and the Northeast, the luscious garden is an uplifting feature. Apart from installing a Japanese-inspired rain chain, which gently jiggles as rain runs down it, Finefrock also created a flat meditation stone under a redbud tree, which is available for anyone's use.

In contrast to the serenity provided by the courtyard, the rooftop garden offers a different type of reprieve. It includes a solarium, where people can recline in rattan loungers and peer down at the main work hub, and a gravel walking path that meanders around woodland plants and blossoming flower beds that change with the seasons. In the edible food garden, staff can graze freely on blueberries, tomatoes and kale by a cut-flower patch where they can collect blooms for their workspaces. A decked portion facilitates working outdoors and allows for movie screenings when the sun sets.

'I wanted to evoke the feeling of what would have been in this spot on Long Island hundreds of years ago,' says Finefrock. 'The pine barrens, coastal plants and beech plum trees growing in sandy soil – they're all reminders of the water being right there.'

The designer's eye for detail doesn't stop there. Indoors, custom-made standing lamps, artfully placed vintage furniture and topographical maps on the library walls perpetuate a sense of wonder. 'A lot of the thinking revolved around how to turn an old factory into an ideas factory,' says Finefrock. 'Pencils were a creative tool, and Kickstarter is a creative tool too.'