landscape

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Charlotte Church - The Dreaming

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Charlotte Church - The Dreaming

Reconnecting with Nature: Charlotte' Church’s Biophilic Retreat offers Healing and Wonder. The Elan Valley, nestled in the heart of mid-Wales, is a hidden gem of serene beauty and wild grandeur. Here, the landscape unfurls in soft, rolling hills, dotted with ancient woodlands and heather-clad slopes, while the deep, verdant valleys are carved by the meandering course of crystal-clear rivers. The air is fresh, tinged with the earthy scent of moss and pine, and the sky, often painted in hues of blue or grey, seems endless above this tranquil expanse.

Here is where The Dreaming is.

The Dreaming, which is a haven and a place of retreat for everyone, is the creation of Charlotte Church. Charlotte. Is known to many as a singer, but maybe fewer know her as a visionary of this beautiful space in Wales. It’s a place where she is manifesting her vision to help people reconnect with nature, both inside and out, where biophilia threads through the hills, waterfalls, valleys and right into the house where you stay.

And it is this house which is the epitome of Biophilic Design. It is designed not only with heart and honesty, but has been a work of love by Charlotte and the designers who helped create this home. The former home of the designer, Laura Ashley has fallen into disrepair when Charlotte came across the land.

Turning her desire to make a difference in the world for people and planet, the land informed her decision to create a retreat centre, transforming the land and the house into a Biophilic haven.

In a secluded corner of the Welsh countryside, internationally renowned singer-songwriter Charlotte has created a sanctuary that blends the power of nature, music, and design. The Dreaming, her newly opened retreat centre, is a testament to her lifelong passion for the restorative qualities of the natural world.

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Making a Difference, One Roof at a Time

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Making a Difference, One Roof at a Time

Did you know that London is an average of 10 degrees warmer than other cities in the UK? Imagine if we had green roofs on every building in the city, the temperature of our city would reduce and lessen our impact on our fragile planet. Sedum absorbs the heat, it doesn’t bounce the heat back into the atmosphere. The plants are also air purifying, afford insulation, they help mitigate flood risk, encourage biodiversity, reduce air pollution and the urban heat island effect and also prolong the lifespan of the roof covering. One amazing fact I learnt today, was that they also increase the efficiency of solar panels, with a 5% gain as they stop the UV rays hitting and damaging the roof. Liv Eyres from Sedum Green Roof who will also be at Planted Country 9-11 June 2023 at Stourhead in Wiltshire, shares with us why they make for good habitats for biodiversity and so much more. Liv Eyres from Sedum Green Roof who will also be at Planted Country 9-11 June 2023 at Stourhead in Wiltshire, shares with us why they make for good habitats for biodiversity and so much more.  

A sedum roof is essentially an additional layer on top of a finished waterproof roof. Little plants nestle in a tray, sitting in healthy (peat-free!) soil, on top of filter fleece and a drainage layer.

Read on, listen to the podcast and watch the DEMONSTRATION video too…

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Designing the Way Nature Would

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Designing the Way Nature Would

Merging nature and design together, Outsidein, as their name suggests, does exactly that, they bring the outside in. They were Platinum winners in this year’s 2022 Biophilic Design Awards with a project they designed for a large litigation firm in New Zealand, where the CEO had given them the specification to bring the experience of the wilds of New Zealand into the office to help give their workforce respite and relief during what is often a pressurised workday. Not only does this give relief, but also it is an amazing space to be in, people want to be there, they are drawn to the area. With the recruitment of the best and most talented staff a challenge in many countries, we might be wise to take a leaf (excuse the intended pun) out of this book.

We sit down with Ryan McQuerry, Creative Director of Outsidein, who dialled in at 5am from New Zealand to speak with us to find out about his journey into greenscaping and discuss how Biophilic Design when incorporated into the built environment and cities transforms lives. From his first forays into his grandpa’s garden in America to starting his first landscaping business at the age of 17, to being inspired by Patrick Blanc and seeing someone hanging off a building installing plants. He and his family live and breathe the biophilic life, their home is in the countryside, where every window has a view of nature, and materials are organic and natural, it’s no wonder that his work, installations and vision for design is sensitive to the beauty and benefits our natural world brings to us. He shares with us how they designed the winning greenscape using a change of temperature, natural light, indigenous plants, local rocks, terrarium concepts and so much more. It is beautiful…

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Pioneer Nature Method in Architecture

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Pioneer Nature Method in Architecture

How can we work with the landscape more as architects and designers to not only create beautiful spaces but ones that also have a positive impact on our and nature’s wellbeing? We speak with Stephen Melvin, of Atelier Architects who desribes himself as a “landscape facilitator”. How he looks at how the landscape itself is structured and presents itself and then see how to weave the design into the natural space. He has developed the “Pioneer Nature Method” which he tells us about in this podcast.

Steve highlights the need to respect that underlying process of nature that will outlive us, how we need to build in and with the landscape and really consider how our buildings can live with nature. By talking through images shown in the video accompanying this podcast (viewable on YouTube and also on the Journal of Biophilic Design website here), he shows us a project as a case study, so we can follow his thought processes from concept through to render, looking at different aspects from materials, light, air to how people will use the space and also how it represents the client’s aims too.

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Biophilic Design Awards

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Biophilic Design Awards

For Elliott Bennett, editor of i-Plants Magazine and founder of The Biophilic Design Awards, Biophilic Design gives us an holistic approach to bringing positivity and energy into the built environment on multiple levels, and if we can make it affordable and sustainable, then even better.

Plants can be a luxury item, but, Elliott, argues, they really boost the overall environment. Coming from a B2B background, actually selling and installing plants into buildings, he descirbes just how "alive' people become when you install living plants into a building. It's simple, plants are alive, when you bring plants into a space, you bring life.

It's the same with the wider principles of Biophilic Design, bringing patterns of nature and our living planet into a space, you bring life and energy of the outdoors.

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Vertical Gardens with Daniel Bell

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Vertical Gardens with Daniel Bell

Daniel Bell is an award winning landscape garden design guru, he is also a pioneer of successful eco sustainable vertical gardens. We catch up with him to find out what he plants, why he uses the system he does and how it works. He gives us a demo in the video as well, which is really well worth watching. He was inspired by French botanist, Patrick Blanc, and went on to champion this incredibly low-tech vertical garden solution…

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