About - Arkwood

About

We are an agile landscape architecture practice delivering big on a number of services including strategy, design, planning, engagement and policy. By having problem solving discussions with clients, stakeholders and the wider public and with the help of our regular trusted collaborators we strive to achieve the best solution for the client, the users and the planet.

We are committed to improving the world around us and our role as stewards is important to us. We will deliver inclusive and accessible spaces and incorporate environmental advocacy, habitat protection and human connectivity with nature in all we do.

Services

Landscape Strategy and Natural Capital

Our approach seeks to harness the capacity of green infrastructure to build sustainable communities, mitigate against the impacts of climate change and address habitat and species loss. In practice, this will mean working in new ways to propose how green infrastructure can improve health, enhance economic growth and sustain bio-diversity.

As a practice, we have developed new green infrastructure strategies for the London Boroughs of Barnet, Barking and Dagenham, Lewisham and Croydon. Most of these have included Corporate Natural Capital Accounts (CNCA’s). The CNCA’s demonstrate that the value of economic, social and environmental benefits flowing from green infrastructure significantly outstrips the cost of sustaining these assets. The CNCA’s have provided our clients with robust business cases for investing in green infrastructure and have supported informed decision-making on the investment of scarce resources where the return on investment will be greatest.

The value of the outcomes delivered by good quality greenspace is well-established and Arkwood’s ground breaking work on natural capital accounting for green infrastructure has developed into best practice across the sector. Arkwood’s Natural Capital Accounts for the London Boroughs of Barnet and Barking and Dagenham won Landscape Institute awards in 2017 and 2018.

Heritage

The landscape of the British Isles has evolved over time in response to changes in approach to land management and our psychological and intellectual response to the world around us. Our work on heritage has included landscapes created to express the Baroque (Greenwich Park World Heritage Site), the English Landscape Movement (Repton’s gardens at Langtons House and Richard Woods’ arcadian landscape at Great Linford Manor) and the Picturesque (Avenue House). All of work on heritage landscapes is based on a thorough assessment of landscape development and landscape components, usually expressed in the Conservation Plans that we prepare for our clients.

We also recognise and understand the significance of natural heritage and the symbiotic relationship between management practices and sustaining diverse habitats and species. Our project at Hainault Forest will restore a SSSI through the re-introduction of the grazing practices that sustained the forest for centuries.

We are extending the scope of our work on natural capital accounting to include an assessment of ‘heritage value’, providing a business case for investment in our precious national assets.

Our understanding of external funding for heritage landscapes has been obtained at first hand and has helped us to secure over £17million for our clients over the past three years.

Engagement and Consultation

Part of our responsibility as Landscape Architects is to realise the needs and ambitions of everyday users in respect of the world around them. These need to be translated into proposals for tangible change that are practical, affordable and sustainable.

We work intensively with users and stakeholders to capture their views and express their aspirations through our work. Wherever possible, we base our approach to engagement on a proposal that there is always an opportunity to improve and that past successes can support success in the future. Rather than focusing intensively on problems and issues, we encourage participants to consider what an ideal future might look like and develop with them, strategies for getting there.

Throughout, our approach is collaborative, respectful, generous, and pragmatic and focused on delivering solutions that work for the specific context, relationships and available resources.

We use a variety of techniques and media to engage with users and stakeholders. Our over-arching aspiration is to make engagement honest, stimulating and fun.

Engagement will typically continue throughout (and sometimes beyond) projects and we use the outcomes to further refine and modify our thinking, emerging ideas and final outcomes.

Landscape Management Planning

Landscape is a fluid entity that evolves over time. Effective landscape management planning is essential to ensuring that landscape continues to deliver valuable social, environmental and economic outcomes and that these outcomes are appropriately balanced through management interventions.

Our Landscape Management Plans are informed by our first-hand experience of managing complex portfolios of greenspace. This allows us to provide bespoke solutions for clients facing specific management issues.

Through our corporate natural capital accounting methodology, we are able to assess the value of benefits flows from landscape over time and asses these against on-going revenue costs. The use of these metrics helps our clients to develop more informed thinking around targeting maintenance resources to achieve the best range of outcomes.

Landscape Visual Impact Assessment and Landscape Planning

Fundraising

By developing an understanding of the value of social, environmental and economic benefits flowing from green infrastructure, we are able to establish business cases for investment in these assets. We have used these metrics to secure significant funds from the National Lottery, local, regional and central government, independent agencies and trusts and foundations.

Over the past three years, we have secured over £17m for our clients from these sources. All of these resources are being or will be invested directly into green infrastructure assets.

For any given project we can work with our expert Associates to draw on specialist knowledge and expertise to help our clients deliver comprehensive solutions that are strongly evidence based.

We have worked closely with specialist experts in play, food growing, interpretation and activity planning, ecology, arboriculture and hydrology for example on recent commissions.

Studio Philosophy

We deliver projects from the strategic level through to design and construction.

We like to work creatively and collaboratively; we try to challenge assumptions and encourage the cross-pollination of ideas.

We work with a trusted network of talented Associates and draw on the best available expertise to deliver comprehensive solutions that are strongly evidence- based.

We work with integrity to achieve the best outcomes for end-users and asset managers.

We are committed to the sustainable use of resources, the mitigation of the impacts of climate change and addressing species loss.

We are committed facilitators, focusing on solutions and successes rather than problems.

We are end-to-end people, supporting our clients before, during and after projects.

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