Sculpture for Parks and Landscape Schemes

Landscape work is the sector where material choice does most of the design. There is rarely a maintenance contract, the piece will be surrounded by planting that changes through the year, and the setting is horizontal and open, so silhouette matters more than surface. Corten dominates for good reasons: it needs nothing, it sits comfortably against planting, and its colour moves with the seasons in a way that stainless does not. Bronze works where the subject is figurative and the setting formal. The technical constraints are drainage, root protection and access. Foundations near mature trees need a root protection area agreed with the arboriculturist, and pads in soft landscape need designing against seasonal ground movement rather than assumed. Access for a crane across a lawn requires load-spreading mats and a reinstatement plan. We issue a loading plan and an access requirements sheet early, because the cost of getting a four-tonne piece to the middle of a park is frequently larger than anyone budgeted, and it is always cheaper to know in week two than in week twenty.