Residential Landscape Architecture and Garden Design

Alistair McVean, BSc, PhD, Dip OCGD, GenusLoci-Designs,
Chestnuts, Frith Hill, South Heath, Gt Missenden, Bucks HP16 9QF
Telephone: 01494 86 5152

Alistair McVean worked for many years as biologist at London University. Much of his work was in marine biology in France, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Antarctica. Recently he trained at Oxford in residential landscape architecture and garden design and now lectures at the Oxford School of Garden Design and runs GenusLoci, a garden design practice. The advantages of using GenusLoci is that you can develop your ideas with a sympathetic, trained designer with biological expertise, who will work with you to create a finished project which will stand the test of time.

Design Philosophy

My work focuses on designs that connect architectural spaces to their immediate and more distant surroundings. Because gardens are often used as an extension of domestic space, their design can often be treated as an branch of interior design. Treating them this way fails to do them justice and inhibits their full potential. Gardens should relate the outdoor space in which they are set both to the landscape around them and to ecological concerns. Outdoor spaces need to be treated sympathetically and with imagination and should connect us to the different scales of the natural world, with its constant facility to change with time and season. Our buildings, with their strong visual and cultural resonance have to fit into this living system. In well-designed landscapes the building footprint sits easily within the immediate landscape which, in turn, connects to the larger landscape around it.

The Process

I would be pleased to visit you and show examples of how good design can transform a garden. If you want to redesign your garden we start by finding out what you want from it both in the immediate future and in the longer term. Both partial and complete designs are achieved through a series of steps which starts with a site survey. This establishes the exact dimensions of the garden, the items you want to keep and the potential of the site. The survey is used to produce an accurate, scaled design which you can comment on and make changes to. Only when you are satisfied with all the elements is the final design crystallised. The next stage is the production of planting plans which show what plants will be used and where they will go. I then produce a series of technical drawings and paperwork which allows landscape contractors to give an accurate quote for the work. While your garden should be designed as a single piece, the work can be carried out in stages. You can view examples of each stage in the design process by clicking on the following : Survey, Site Analysis, Functional Analysis, Outline Garden Plan, Setting Out Plan, and Planting Plan. These have been taken from the same project, though each drawing does not necessarily represent the full set of drawings associated with each stage.

Costs

The cost of design varies with the size of the project. I will be able to give you a written quote for the design costs after our first meeting. If you live within 25 miles of Great Missenden the initial consultation is free. For distances over 25 miles the consultation fee is £50. This is refunded if you decide to go ahead with having your garden designed by GenusLoci.