I recently spoke on HRT1’s programme Kod nas doma about urban trees, the conditions they grow in today and why we can no longer assume nature will take care of them on its own.
At one point I said: ‘We no longer have that luxury.’
I was talking about trees, but the sentence also captures a broader shift in how we need to think about places today.
A tree begins below the canopy
When we notice a thinning canopy, slower growth or a tree struggling through summer, we’re looking at the visible signs.
But much of the problem lies below the surface.
Roots need space, air, water and functioning soil. In cities, these conditions are often the most altered: soil is compacted, surfaces heat up, water runs off quickly and infrastructure and buildings limit the space roots have to grow.
Choosing a ‘resilient species’ doesn’t mean the job is done.
The HRT feature also showed one way of working in the root zone: vertical mulching, which aims to improve conditions for air, water and biological activity in the soil.
It is a practical example of a wider principle: what we see above ground often depends on what we have made possible below it.
The same applies to designing the whole space
That is why, for me, a landscape project doesn’t begin with choosing plants.
It begins with trying to understand the place.
On one project, the main challenge may be sun and overheating. On another, wind. Elsewhere, it may be a slope, water or the way the ground behaves after heavy rain. Sometimes an existing tree is worth more than anything we could plant later.
On larger or more complex sites, this may involve analysing terrain, sunlight and wind, and, where useful, thermal or vegetation data from the wider area.
For a small site or terrace, analysis of the wider area may not be necessary.
I don’t analyse for the sake of it.
If a piece of data doesn’t change a decision, looking technical gives it no value on its own.
But when it reveals something that isn’t obvious from a single visit, it can change a project significantly.
From the bigger picture to an individual site
That shift in scale is what particularly interests me.
At city scale, we can look at heat islands, connected green spaces, tree canopies, soil and water.
At the scale of a garden, those same questions become very practical:
Where will it actually feel comfortable to sit in summer?
Will a tree that looks good today still have enough room in ten or twenty years?
Where does water go after a downpour?
Does part of the space need shade or shelter from the wind?
Which areas should stay open, and where should planting take the lead?
The answers don’t have to produce a complicated design.
Often, quite the opposite.
The better we understand a place, the less we need to put right later.
Design follows from understanding the place
That is the approach I’m building through Dandelion Studio.
Photorealistic 3D visualisation is an important part of the process because it lets a client see and understand the design before it is built.
But before there is an image, there needs to be a reason for arranging the space that way.
Why the tree is there.
Why an area has been left open.
Why we have added shade in one place and a permeable surface in another, retained the existing terrain here and worked on the soil or drainage there.
Good design doesn’t mean fitting as much as possible onto a site.
It means reading the place well enough to do what it actually needs.
The HRT feature on urban trees is one small part of that same story.
Whether we’re looking at a whole city, a residential plot or a terrace several floors above it, the question is much the same:
What is really happening in this place, and what should we do differently because of it?
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