Harris Bugg Studio to create first fully accessible garden for Horatio's Garden
Horatio’s Garden, the UK-based charity dedicated to creating and nurturing beautiful, accessible and sustainable gardens in NHS spinal centres for all those affected by spinal injuries, has invited Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg of Harris Bugg Studio to design its first main avenue garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023. The garden is generously sponsored by Project Giving Back.
The show garden will embody the special qualities found in all Horatio’s Gardens while incorporating influences from the Sheffield region, connecting it to the garden’s future permanent home at the Princess Royal Spinal Cord Injuries Centre in Sheffield. This new garden in Sheffield, also designed by Harris Bugg Studio, will be the eighth Horatio’s Garden. It will serve a significant geographical area from the West Midlands to East Anglia, and it will benefit thousands of patients, relatives and NHS staff for years to come.
The garden is a beautiful, immersive, restorative haven - the antithesis of a busy, clinical hospital environment. It is designed to give visitors to Chelsea Flower Show a sense of the hope and transformative effect having access to a Horatio’s Garden can have when coming to terms with a devastating and traumatic spinal injury.
In approaching the design, Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg have collaborated closely with the whole Horatio’s Garden community. They have met and listened to patients, their loved ones, NHS staff, head gardeners and volunteers to understand the needs and aspirations of everyone benefiting from time spent in a Horatio’s Garden. Understanding that patients are often in beds for many months and that most in-patients will be learning to use a wheelchair for the very first time, their garden puts people with mobility needs at the very centre of the design.
Charlotte and Hugo’s design uses colours, scent, natural sounds and tactile experiences - bringing important sensory features into the garden to enhance the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of patients with spinal injuries. A water feature, which can be touched at wheelchair height, animates the garden and encourages wildlife - a fundamental part of the magic that patients comment on when using the Horatio’s Gardens. Stone cairns give rhythm and structure - symbolic of wayfinding, they offer gentle guidance when the path is unclear. An organic and discreet garden pod structure, designed in collaboration with the architect Andrew Mcmullan, provides a year-round cocooning place for physical and emotional shelter.
Olivia Chapple, Founder and Chair of Trustees, Horatio’s Garden said: “We are thrilled to be collaborating with Harris Bugg Studio to bring Horatio’s Garden to the world-renowned RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023. We are so grateful to Project Giving Back for this special opportunity as a charity to create a main avenue garden, where Charlotte and Hugo’s thoughtful design will enable to us to share the important message that great design benefits the lives of everyone. This garden will have such a valuable legacy in then forming the nucleus of our eighth Horatio’s Garden in Sheffield in 2024, where we know it will improve the lives of thousands of people.”
Charlotte Harris of Harris Bugg Studio said: “The mission of Horatio’s Garden really spoke to us - gardens as restorative, life-changing havens being the core purpose of the charity’s work. As designers, we believe everyone has the right to experience the benefits of nature and green space. Our design is about showing how meaningful, high-quality design can improve the lives of everyone in society and we want to show that functional and practical spaces do not need to compromise in terms of their beauty and aesthetics.”
Hugo Bugg of Harris Bugg Studio said: “Our driving force at Harris Bugg studio is connecting people with nature, and from the outset we felt strongly that we wanted this process of designing for Horatio’s Garden to be collaborative - our role was to listen to everyone in the Horatio’s Garden family. Those voices and needs are reflected in our Chelsea show garden and have helped us to create a place where people feel safe, nurtured and restored by all the benefits of being in nature.”
Horatio’s Garden at Chelsea Flower Show project team:
- Designers: Harris Bugg Studio
- Architect: Mcmullan Studio
- Landscape Contractor: Ryan Alexander Associates
- Plants: Kelways, Deepdale and Big Hedge Company
- Water feature: Andrew Ewing
- Stone Cairns: Noble Stonework
Horatio’s Garden Sheffield will be a beautiful, accessible and therapeutic space for everyone affected by spinal injury within the considerable geographical area served by the Princess Royal Spinal Cord Injuries Centre at NHS Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. When completed, it will support over 360 in-patients per year, their families and friends, thousands of outpatients, as well as 250 NHS staff looking after them. Horatio’s Garden has launched its capital appeal to raise the vital funds to create the garden. No event or donation is too big or too small and will enhance the lives of people from an extensive region of the UK that have been affected by spinal injury, for many years to come. To find out more and donate, please visit www.horatiosgarden.org.uk
For more information about Horatio’s Garden at Chelsea Flower Show visit www.horatiosgarden.org.uk/chelsea
For more information about Horatio’s Garden at Chelsea Flower Show visit the Harris Bugg Studio website.