Field notes from our designers and horticulturists — on plant palettes, building craft, climate adaptation, and the small disciplines of long-form garden care.
Penthouse terraces in Hong Kong now routinely sit ten degrees warmer than the streets below them. We've spent the last three summers stress-testing twenty-eight species against wind exposure, reflected heat, and shallow soil — here are the eleven that survived.
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Mortared walls are quicker, cheaper, and easier to permit. But for the right site, a dry-stone wall outlasts everything around it. Our senior mason walks through a recent commission in Galle, stone by stone.
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Sensor-driven controllers are excellent — until ten inches of rain in a weekend confuses the moisture probe. A field report from three Kerala installs, with the calibration logic we've settled on after two seasons.
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A garden design fails or succeeds at the survey stage. We share the pre-drawing checklist our senior designers use on every site visit — soil, light, watershed, sight lines, and the eight questions we ask the household.
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In a tropical garden, the difference between a plant that sulks and one that sings is usually a single well-timed cut. Our maintenance head shares a working pruning calendar refined over two decades across Sri Lankan estates.
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From Yuen Long granite to Kadappa limestone to Sri Lankan laterite, each region offers a stone vocabulary that ages beautifully in its own climate. A working atlas of the materials we keep returning to.
Read essay →Quarterly notes from the studio — never more than four emails a year, and we never share your address.