Backweston

The insertion of a large and significant research complex onto the site, which had low visual amenity value, required the development of a landscape installation which accommodated all the site elements required by the complex as well as creating a landscape setting for the buildings themselves. Similarly the scale of the site as a recreational resource for staff needed to be exploited, together with the visual assimilation of the buildings into the landscape.

The positioning of the buildings themselves, the response to this placement in topographical terms and the structural site planting all contribute to the successful integration of development into the existing landscape, and the creation of a sense of place for its population of scientists. Therefore, the site plan/landscape design treatment serves to create a unified well-designed set-piece, which will also function as a strong visual focus for the whole area. The layered configuration of the laboratory blocks allows for the insertion of a series of courtyards into their respective structures. Each courtyard is designed as an unique and autonomous landscape set - piece, which allows for a diversity of treatment between courtyards. The whole complex is surrounded by parkland, graded from fine lawns to wildflower meadows,all held within an enclosing band of dense native woodland in order to provide visual enclosure and privacy to the development,in the traditional manner of the great Irish estates.