Mark Darwent, Director, BA(Hons) DipLA CMLI MCIHort
Mark is at his best when resolving difficult design issues, finding elegant solutions to complex site criteria. Landscapes that house zoological collections are a particular passion, where the needs of the animal, keeper and visitor must all be met for a design to be successful. His work at Jersey Zoo (the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust) started when he won a design competition to create a new Orang-utan enclosure. He soon moved on to reorganise the zoo masterplan to improve visitor circulation, as well as designing a number of major exhibits over several years. A personal highlight was a new enclosure for Madagascan Teal, which enabled this endangered species to breed for the very first time in captivity. But it is Mark’s intuitive understanding of 3D space, the visual and physical links that make a landscape work including the play of light and shade that make him such a capable landscape architect. Working for all types of client, on projects sometimes spanning decades, he has designed parks and gardens for a number of important properties. To take only one example, at Castletown Cox, one of the finest 18th Century houses in Eire, the surrounding landscape, once sugar-beet fields, is now parkland that rivals the wonderful architecture. Retirement developments are another area of specialist expertise, where Mark’s skills at maximising the landscape potential of a site can be instrumental in achieving planning consents. Mark’s natural talents are reflected in his pursuit of landscape and portrait photography, but it is with the masterplanning of a landscape that he achieves the deep satisfaction of knowing that he’s somehow captured a great composition.
Filkins Office
Lechlade, Gloucestershire, GL7 3JQ
+44 (0) 1367 860225
m.darwent@colmog.co.uk