You will need to have an Adobe Acrobat Reader to access the documents on this page. You can download it from their website.

DESIGNS

A designer produces concept plans that don't all go on to full design and implementation. Here are some of my designs that were built and, also, some that I really liked, but the clients were less moved.

CO-HOUSING IN THE COLNE VALLEY, February 2007  NEW

Two families have made their home in the farmhouse and barn of a farm in the Colne Valley, West Yorkshire. A small dairy farm sometime in the past, these families are not dependent on the farm for an income, but they want the land nearest to their homes to supply them with vegetables, fruit and poultry. The remainder of the farm land will be maintained as conservation meadow, with some wetland and woodland in a new conservation area. They called me in to analyse their needs and the site resources, and present them with a concept plan to guide their development of the site. The analysis covers soft and hard spaces; sun, wind and rain sectors; field access; water capture and management; parking and play areas; wind breaks and growing areas; conservation areas; and shows the overall zoning of the 5 ha site. (PDF 1,258kb)

DESIGNS FOR THE LANDSCAPE AROUND THE ECOLOGY BUILDING SOCIETY HEADQUARTERS, November 2004

This a report to the Ecology Building Society containing the final designs for the landscape around the Society's new HQ. The report is in the form of a Word document (1,487KB) and should be read in conjunction with the Concept Designs.

CONCEPT DESIGNS FOR THE ECOLOGY BUILDING SOCIETY HQ, October 2004

The Ecology Building Society moved to new offices in Silsden in 2004, that were designed and built for low impact and high energy efficiency. The landscape around the HQ took on a less deliberate path, very quickly establishing the typical vegetation cover of disturbed ground and brought-in top soil. The Society contacted the Permaculture Association, to engage a Permaculture Designer who would make some sense out of their landscape. These concept designs are the solutions I came up with. The Concept Designs are in the form of a PowerPoint presentation (1070kb)

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT PLANS FOR OPEN HOUSE PLUS, May 2001

Here are some landscape designs for the grounds around a new hostel built by the M25 Group in Doncaster. I made the mistake of over-designing the concept plans in anticipation that the clients would get funding (798kb Word document)

After presenting the Concept Design for Sandall Grove Paddock to the Glass Park Trust, I worked with a small design group of Trustees to develop the full design for a community market garden. The design report is in the form of a WORD document (3,159kb) and it is worth reading it in conjunction with the Concept Design presentation below.

CONCEPT DESIGNS FOR SANDALL GROVE PADDOCK, AUGUST 2000

I worked with the community of Kirk Sandall, near Doncaster, on a number of projects including a Planning for Real exercise and forest edge, orchard and tree plantings in and around their Millennium Green. The community were very good at doing land deals on the back of Section 106 planning agreements, and were in the process of obtaining a 1 acre paddock close to their Millennium Green that they wanted to develop as a working horticulture demonstration site. Here are the Concept Designs (PowerPoint 174kb). The full design is described above.

THE MOTTE AND BAILEY GARDEN, May 1995

The Economic Initiatives Division of Bradford Council commissioned me to design two pocket parks to be built in the city to coincide with an Environment Festival. Both parks were to serve office workers during their lunchtime breaks and one was to be a boule track (French bowls) and the other would be an edible garden. Neither of the initial concept designs were accepted, but a revised design for the boule track was eventually agreed and I built it for the festival. The design for the edible garden - the Motte and Bailey Garden - was far more interesting to do than the boule track. (PDF 297kb)

THE ORNAMENTAL KITCHEN GARDEN, Winter 1993

Built as a demonstration garden in Halifax, this was inspired  by the late Geoff Hamilton. It was paired side-by-side with a Forest Garden so that the two styles of garden approach could be compared (PDF 77kb).

SPRINGFIELD COMMUNITY GARDEN - A TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION AND MAINTENANCE SCHEDULE, AND FUTURE USES OF LAND, August 2001

I started tree planting on the 3-hectares of Springfield on a cold, wet and windy day in March 1994. There were just the two of us, a young lad and a yappy dog. Thousands of trees later, three buildings, forest gardens, water and willow features, food growing areas, a wind turbine and composting lavatories are some of the developments of the first publicly funded community horticultural project in Britain to be designed and built using Permaculture Principles. Here is a description and maintenance manual of the landscape elements written for the current and future users of the site. It explains the Permaculture thinking behind much of the landscape development. (PDF 986kb)

TRAINING IN FOOD GROWING, May 2000

The mid-nineties saw an upsurge in community food projects and presaged the linking of food growing and distribution with the health and local sustainability agenda. National organisations were often slow to catch on to this, but eventually mainstream funding drew them in. I had just completed running and reporting on a Train the Trainers project on food growing for the Healthy Bradford Group when I was asked to write a report for HDRA. This organic gardeners organisation had secured funding to run a program on food growing and cooking for the disadvantaged from which they would then produce materials and programs for other trainers to use in running similar programs. HDRA was not a training organisation, nor did it have any knowledge of contemporary approaches to training the disadvantaged. The report was a snapshot review of that information. Unfortunately, HDRA showed little understanding of how important outreach is for such a program. (PDF 52kb)

LOW IMPACT DEVELOPMENT AND PERI-URBAN PRODUCTIVITY IN SE BRADFORD, Jan 2000

Open countryside next to large urban estates has the potential to provide a range of farming and forestry goods to its local population. An area master plan for a new class of smallholdings based on landscape subdivision and low impact development is a key to unleashing that productivity. The planning system presents one of the hurdles to these new smallholdings, and so their concept is tested within existing policies. (PDF 605kb)

You may also like to see the report on LIDS in Wales, which is on the Chapter 7 website.

www.thelandisours.org/chapter7

RESEARCH