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INTRODUCTION
BBUK is an award-winning landscape practice led by Harriet Bourne.
From its inception in 2002 the Practice has delivered transformative landscape design on a wide range of projects including public realm at large scale residential developments, civic masterplans, streetscape design guidance, public parks, private gardens, roof terraces and open spaces, with the overall purpose of making the lives of the people that experience them better.
BBUK tailor each project to suit both the existing landscape and the client’s vision. Our design philosophy is based on a belief that we should not impose our personalities on a site, but through immaculate detailing, seek to discover and reveal the essential characteristics of each place, by immersing in the ecology, landform, vegetation or urban context.
A sustainable approach to every project is central to our philosophy, be this through the specification and sourcing of hard and soft elements, recycling and re-using site won materials or innovative sustainable drainage solutions.
Our ethos has resulted in a portfolio of sensitive and beautifully crafted projects that work on many levels, and always seek to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
OUR SERVICES INCLUDE:
LANDSCAPE DESIGN
BBUK is at the forefront of UK landscape design practice. We create sensitive and appropriate landscape solutions for complex urban and greenfield sites. In a time of increasing pressure on our built and natural environments, landscape architects are uniquely positioned to create spaces and places which improve the lives of people, and we believe our landscape designs add significantly to the aesthetics, biodiversity, commercial, social and environmental value of developments.
PLANTING
BBUK use plants to structure space, and we specialise in producing enduring schemes with a high degree of textural and seasonal variation. Our staff have exceptional horticultural knowledge and always seek to develop planting designs that enhance the natural assets of any site we work on. We always pay particular attention to shape, size, texture, sun patterns and existing soils as well as the future maintenance team proposed by the client.
COMMUNITY CONSULTATION
BBUK put people at the heart of our designs; We strive to create environments which promote choice and flexibility of use while enabling everyone to participate equally. We welcome the opportunity to engage with the public and other stakeholders and to receive feedback on our work. For communities to be sustainable they need to build in the capacity for growth and change, and spending time understanding the key stakeholders and listening to their needs is an essential starting point for our work.
ENGAGEMENT
Our rigorous research process enables us to engage with each landscape’s cultural, social, and historical context. We create spaces capable of meeting the complex and changing demands of all users; serving as inclusive community spaces and business zones that visitors are happy to revisit.
SUSTAINABILITY
We design landscapes which balance human and environmental requirements, offering creative and pragmatic solutions often in densely urban contexts. Implementing sustainable landscaping practices is essential to help preserve our local ecosystems and prevent air, water, and soil pollution. For us sustainable landscaping involves water conservation, improving soil health, reducing maintenance / labour and organic waste generation, and creating biodiversity through appropriate plant selection.
ECOLOGY
At BBUK we have an acute awareness of the climate and biodiversity emergencies facing us all. Plants are central to a functioning global ecosystem, and so as Landscape architects, we have a growing responsibility to contribute to the revival of biodiversity and ecosystem services: Increasingly we are asked to design landscapes that are more resilient to rapid environmental change and unpredictable weather. Our strategy to incorporate ecological principles into our work, is to implement ecologically driven planting design that strives to enhance biodiversity at the genetic, species, community, and ecosystem levels. Our work always seeks to balance human requirements of the public realm with those of biodiversity.
MASTERPLANNING & STRATEGY
BBUK believe that a genuine landscape-led approach to masterplanning creates a specific kind of value. Green infrastructure and Masterplanning is a social endeavour, and if it is to deliver on its social purpose, the best way to achieve this is to connect people to place through landscape. A successful masterplan should ensure that any new infrastructure results in a better place to live, work and visit, and we believe that this can be achieved through the synthesis that landscape brings.
BIM
BBUK progressively champion the use of key design and project management tools in our workflows to deliver fully integrated landscapes. There has been a growing demand for landscape architecture to move into the world of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and BBUK view this development as an amplification of the design work we already do. BIM is an effective way to make holistic, informed design decisions earlier in the design process enabling us to be an integral part of the review and coordination process with other disciplines and consultants.