Gardens as a form of enclosure – property – are inequitably distributed in our built environment. Elements of a Biocene Garden are intended to be dissociated – interlinked or interspersed throughout a human habitat. We are interested in the activation of interstitial spaces between buildings and gardens, as well as reconsidering how to approach landscape design to prioritise biodiversity and create meaningful ecological niches. To do this, we have formed key partnerships to explore various aspects of radical and provocative garden design.

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St Andrews Botanic Garden

The

The Biocene Garden is a major, multi-year project that will create an immersive landscape of c. 8,000m² in the heart of the Garden that not only celebrates the richness of mutli-trophic interactions but sets up research questions that will lead to industry change. This opens the potential for us to investigate some of society’s most pressing questions, including the nature of ecological resilience under climate change scenarios, the extent to which successional pathways can be steered in future urban environments, and fostering nature-connectedness in disturbed urban landscapes

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Barking Riverside

As part of the Stockpile garden project (involving the design practice Periscope) and on a Meanwhile site within the Barking Riverside development, we have been exploring the creation of temporary landscape to enhance biodiversity and soil health. Our work on impact pronting is part of a longer exploration into the role of the kerb, or the delimitation. We believe that these interfaces hold enormous opportunity for design, and to enrich the ecology of a site.

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We are interested in creating opportunities to work with other meanwhile sites, and collaborate with built environment practitioners to design more creative outdoor spaces that encourage people to engage with their environment. To fully explore this research area in a quantitative sense we are actively building a network of botanists, experts in metagenomics, health practitioners and behavioural scientists where we can create an evidence-based approach to landscape-scale design.

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Selected publications:

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Robinson, J.M.; Watkins, H.; Man, I.; Liddicoat, C.; Cameron, R.; Parker, B.; Cruz, M.; Meagher, L. 'Microbiome-inspired Green Infrastructure: A bioscience roadmap for urban ecosystems health'. In Architectural Research Quarterly, Vol. 25, Issue 4. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 2022

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Watkins, H.; Robinson, J.M.; Breed, M.; Parker, B.; Weinstein, P. 'Microbiome-Inspired Green Infrastructure: A Toolkit for Multidisciplinary Landscape Design'. In Trends in Biotechnology, Vol. 38, Issue 12. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2020

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