The Importance of Collaboration: Garden Designer and Architect

The Art of Collaboration

More than half of our work involves working with other professionals with joint clients. This might be the Architect, Interior Designer, QS or the Clients Project Manager. We also construct many gardens for other Garden Designers and Landscape Architects and work for a number of Developers, so this is an area in which we feel very comfortable.

Our skills run from planning drawings and concepts, construction detailing, right through build implementation, project management to completion and even maintenance. You are welcome to pick whichever elements of this work for your project at the time and we will dovetail in with the rest of the team

Overall Approach

Whether you are an Architect, a Garden Designer or a client Project Manager, your priority will be to have a happy client at the end of the day and a smooth and well managed process. It is of course essential that we are good at the design and build works, but this is not sufficient on its own.

We have long term relationships with our professional partners and this is achieved through remembering whose client we are dealing with. We work tirelessly to ensure that co-ordination is good, that channels of communication are agreed and maintained, and that hiccups are dealt with professionally and with the minimum of fuss.

Our drawings and models can be shared in a range of formats and we have good internal visualisation resources to allow us to ensure that your parts of the project look as good as ours – particularly important when landscaping around a new build!

Our industry leading project management platform is helpful in this, ensuring bullet proof document and communication trails, acting as a shared 24/7 resource and maintaining drawing and programme version control.

Architects

Many of our projects relate to construction work led by Architects, whether this is for a new-build, an extension or a refurbishment. We pride ourselves on being good responsive people to work with. We can help with as much of the process as you and the client find useful – from early planning drawings and submissions, discharge of planning conditions, through to full design and construction issue drawings and on through variations and adjustments during the build.

We are happy to be guided by the Architect as to how they want the project to run – some are keen to leave the landscaping entirely to us, others prefer to have much more design input. There are projects where we are essentially a ‘safe pair of hands’, passed on to work directly for the client and others where our reporting line is directly to the Architect – either works well (as long as everyone is clear which is which).

Our ability to then move straight into the build phase if desired often proves critical as landscaping is often left a little late in the planning process and not at the forefront of everyones’ minds when thinking about the main build. We love a good, organised process and we are also often seen as the problem solvers on site, finding ways to make things happen fast to allow the client to move in when they want!

Garden Designers

We work extensively with a number of top garden designers, from RHS Chelsea show gardens where we work with the Crocus build team to create marvels each year, to private projects for these and other designers. We find that far from causing friction, the fact that we also have an in-house design team means we are particularly sensitive to client management issues and design priorities. Ensuring the Designer is delighted with the work is critical to the process – following through your design intent and capturing your input where you want to give it.

The trick here is getting a sense of how you want the process to run, how you want to manage your client, and earning your trust. We never forget whose client it is.