This spring, the SGD is splashing out and ‘importing’ four world class speakers from the USA to stand alongside its own British talent, making the Spring Conference on 25 March 2017 a unique one-off opportunity not to be missed or likely repeated.

Hallie Boyce, OLIN Partner and Judy Venonsky OLIN Senior Landscape Architect & Living Systems Specialist will present four OLIN projects that have taken advantage of planting strategies for resiliency on both sides of the Atlantic, projects that not only address multi-functional landscapes pragmatically, but also aesthetically. Their talk ‘Heading West: Designing for Resiliency on both sides of the Pond’ begins with the new U.S. Embassy in London (unseen material), their presentation will move westward to Mill River Park on the East Coast, the Akron Art Museum in the Midwest, and an iconic corporate campus on the West Coast.

Its second ‘import’ from America is speaker Lisa Delplace CEO and Principal Designer of Oehme, van Sweden, known as an inspiring practice that continues to revolutionise both sustainable and ecological practices without loss of human connectivity or beauty. Lisa will talk about these defining principles in ‘Pushing the Palette Forward: How OvS continues to Innovate in a Dynamic World’. 

Finally, Eric Kramer, principal designer for Reed Hilderbrand, will talk about what it is to look backwards as a way of moving forward to achieve the delicate balancing act of editing of sites that embrace their past yet look to and move into the future. From small residences along the urbanised coast to larger rural territories, the projects Eric will share show how to achieve this artful balance to create places of familiar calm and palpable delight with his talk ‘Traditions of Innovation’.

Alongside the American quartet will be Cornish garden designer Darren Hawkes (pre-Chelsea 2017), exploring the idea of his constant source of inspiration under the title ‘Where the West Begins’ and Mike Nelhams, Garden Curator of Tresco Abbey Garden who will share the secrets from ‘Tresco: A Garden Apart’.

Discounted ‘Early Bird’ tickets are available until 28 February 2017.

Click here to read more and book tickets online.