Squareyard Landscape Architecture Studio Turns 1 - Happy Birthday Us!
May 2017 marked the First anniversary for Squareyard Design Studio
A lot of people have asked where the name came from and how we ended up where we are so we thought our birthday might be a good time to tell the Squareyard story.
Squareyard began in New Zealand as a re-brand of my previous landscape design business ALV. The market there was primarily garden design so we started offering our services quoted by the Square yard. The aim was to give our clients an easy way of calculating the cost of design and to give us a competitive edge.
Below - Squareyard Garden Design NZ
The NZ company did well and our marketing with the Squareyard grass car went global with news articles published as far as the US. Almost everywhere we drove the Green Machine got photographed and I regularly returned to my parking space to find a group of tourists laying on the bonnet!
Below: The Squareyard Green Machine - AKA The Astroturfed 1990 Nissan Bluebird - Now owned by an Artist who sells bottled Air out of the boot?!?
Shortly after forming Squareyard I had a baby and wanted to be nearer to family in the UK, and so starts our journey back in Manchester. While it was difficult to leave the life in New Zealand behind, I have enjoyed being back in my home city working on larger commercial schemes again.
The name Squareyard was always intended to allow growth. The name simply describes what we do. We design anything from a humble back yard right up to civic squares and anything in between. Now entering our second year we are somewhere between our beginnings and our goals. Squareyard have secured a number of ongoing commissions and partnerships on various commercial schemes and continue to provide high end garden design to domestic clients.
Our 2016 projects have included landscape design for a 250 bed student accommodation scheme, a large industrial food manufacturing plant, a trampoline centre, three new car dealerships, various landscape and visual impact assessments and a number of masterplans for housing schemes. We have also completed a couple of commissions promoting rural properties via the Paragraph 55 route along with numerous private garden designs.
We are now looking forward to growing and expanding in our second year and are excited about what projects are around the corner. For further updates on Squareyard follow our social media pages:
- @YD2studio
- www.facebook.com/yd2studio
What We Do: “Spaces for now, then and everyoneâ€
· Now – Spaces that are simple, contemporary and multi-functional
· Then – Spaces that are timeless, robust and sustainable
· Everyone – Spaces that are culturally and physically accessible to all.
How we do it: “Look out > look in > pioneer > establish > developâ€
· Look Out to the surrounding landscape, cultural context and community
· Look In to the core of the brief and the history of the site
· Pioneer new ideas, new connections and new habitats
· Establish cultural ties, diverse ecosystems and a strong sense of place
· Develop dynamic communities, social cohesion and sustainable futures.
If you are interested in hearing more about Squareyard please get in touch