Chetwoods Architects

Laurie Chetwood and Patrick Collins won a third consecutive Show Garden Gold Medal for a record-breaking 9 metre tall garden designed for B&Q at the 2011 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

The conceptual garden demonstrated how any available space in an urban setting has the potential to be used to develop new local and sustainable food growing spaces while enhancing urban greening.

The garden was laid out to replicate a model Modernist landscape, mixing typical urban profiles with references to horizontal and vertical allotments. It demonstrated how many elements of a traditional allotment could be located in a wide range of urban settings represented in a 9-metre tall ‘tower block’ and 5-metre high 90 room ‘insect hotel’.

The central structure embodied environmentally sustainable features including a hydroponic wall fed by a borehole via a water tower and power to irrigate provided by a wind turbine and photovoltaic wall converting daylight into electricity.