December 13, 2018
A degree in engineering may not seem the most obvious route to a career in garden design. But it provides the perfect skill set to solve construction and logistical challenges in garden plots of all shapes of sizes. Here’s how our engineering excellence helps us create gardens that look and work beautifully.
The source of our expertise
People come to garden design from different roots: for some, it’s a love of gardening, for others it’s enjoying envisioning what could be. For our founder, Eugene Hill, the motivation was both a love of design and a love of the craft in building and creating restorative natural spaces.
An engineer by training, he has always been fascinated by solving problems in creative ways and maintains that to be creative you have to first understand. This natural curiosity and application led to him to Graduate top of his year, with a first-class degree from the University of Warwick.
But alongside his passion for understanding how to make things work is his innate flair for creating and designing; although he chose the sciences and studied engineering at university, he was equally as keen at school on art, in particular sculpture and ceramics, but also wood and metal work.
Garden design provided the ideal career for Eugene to make things work beautifully, while also making them beautiful. He has consolidated his specialist knowledge by gaining a Postgraduate Diploma in Residential Garden Design with distinction from the Oxford College of Garden Design. This has allowed him to guide the company to deliver the excellent standard of service you see when we undertake projects.
“Having Eugene on the job was a bit like organising a dance class for your family, and John Travolta turns up to teach!”
What our engineering expertise means for your garden design
Our engineering expertise allows us to tackle problems that many garden designers don’t have the skill set to deal with. For example, steep hills are no issue for us – we can turn it into an opportunity for a tiered garden layout, or manufacture appropriate beds that not only look stunning, but fit perfectly and are constructed to last.
Eugene’s engineer’s eye means that he sees problems from a different perspective, which also means he delivers imaginative solutions – that both look and work beautifully. ‘When I arrive on a new site, I see through the layers of what is already there to perceive alternative possibilities. For example, on one project the whole approach to the house was poorly thought out; rather than creating a garden design that made the best of what we had to start with, I literally went back to the drawing board to reimagine the whole approach to the house given the opportunities the landscape provided. This involved optimising parking, garaging, and access to the property, to create that wow approach and a house and garden that worked together beautifully.’
You want a garden design that looks beautiful. But it’s also important to create a design that works beautifully, optimising your outdoor living space and how your whole plot works together. Our engineering excellence enables us to deliver that, whether you have a challenging town house plot or a rambling country estate.
