Grand Designs Live, 2006 at ExCel London

Sustainability was given huge prominence when I designed a landscape for the Grand Village area of Kevin McCloud's Grand Designs Live show at ExCel, Docklands, London, held on June 2-4th 2006. The area was outside the main west entrance, on Royal Victoria Square and featured a full size Huf Haus and Pad modular home. Other modular housing systems were also present.

The landscape formed a communal focus to the homes and demonstrated that we can build gardens in a sustainable manner without sacrificing good design. This is important because if we are looking to housing of the future then we must also look at gardens of the future.

The sustainable landscape at Grand Designs Live demonstrated the use of low energy, low impact materials, water recycling, energy generation and an edible landscape. For more information on the plants used, go to the edible landscape page.

I also took part in two seminars there on Saturday 3rd on the sustainability theme. The first asked “What is Sustainability?” and the second was on “Sustainable Gardens.”

The garden was a great success and was enjoyed by the public as somewhere to relax in an otherwise hectic show. The garden looked so established that some didn't realise it was a temporary show feature!