Corporate courtyard revival

Overview

Thirteen hundred square metres back in daily use

The challenge: the second phase of a Raleigh campus — 1,300 m² of windswept paving, failing shrubs and a lawn nobody crossed. The client wanted a space that would impress visitors and genuinely serve 400 employees.

Our approach: shelter-belt planting to calm the wind, a central lawn framed by hornbeam hedging for events, generous timber seating terraces, and swathes of low-maintenance shrubs and grasses with year-round structure. New path lighting extended safe use into dark winter afternoons.

The outcome: footfall counters show ten times more lunchtime use, and the grounds team reports the lowest maintenance hours of any site on the campus.