The Society of Garden Designers has announced the winners of  The SGD Student Awards 2020 revealing the newest talent in garden and landscape design. 

Three students were presented with awards at the eighth annual SGD award ceremony last night across two award categories - best Commercial Design and best Domestic Design. 

Luke Arend, a student at the London College of Garden Design, was presented with the award for Commercial Design for his residential care home garden for people with dementia.  Designed to be an accessible and beautiful  garden providing active and passive therapeutic benefits for residents, the imagined space features an immersive buggy route for residents taking them through parkland, an orchard, a meadow and woodland, as well as four short themed walks designed to improve physical and mental well-being. 

The judges called it 'a strong design of immersive experiences, demonstrating an excellent use of space and communicated through purposeful graphics, emotive sketches and a clean and simple Masterplan'.  In addition, they said 'the design hangs together as a cohesive piece of landscape as well as being realistic to implement'.

In the Domestic Design Category two winners were announced - Tabitha Rigden and Joana Rzepa, both also from the London College of Garden Design. 

Tabitha Rigden's 'Contemporary Woodland Edge Garden' was designed for a 1960s house in Buckinghamshire and inspired by the mid century architecture of the building and its woodland setting.  Set on two levels, naturalistic planting punctuates hard landscaping in concrete, tropical hardwood and black painted steel, with native grasses and ferns creating lush foliage and colour provided by a range of bee-friendly plants. The judges described it as 'a bold, purposeful design demonstrating a thorough understanding of the site and a particular lightness of touch.'

Joana Rzepa's 'Chilterns Family Garden', described by the judges as 'an elegant, restrained and understated design showing extremely competent design skill', was designed as a space to suit all the family. 

Including play areas, a kitchen garden, space for entertaining and areas for wildlife, the garden is described as 'formality contrasting with nature' and features a formal rectilinear layout softened by loose planting, contrasting between neat lawns & hedges and natural planting.   The judges said it was 'an excellent example of an achievable design supported with highly evocative and atmospheric visuals.'

The three winners were selected from a shortlist of 8 projects chosen by a panel of leading figures in the garden and landscape design industry including garden designer Debbie Roberts MSGD of Acres Wild, Dr Phil Askew, Director of Landscape and Placemaking at Peabody, and landscape designer and Chair of the SGD Sarah Morgan MSGD.  

SHORTLISTED PROJECTS

COMMERCIAL DESIGN 
Getting Out - Luke Arend 
Broadstone Holt - Helen Saunders 
Kew Gardens Wedding Venue - Joana Rzepa 
Prescribing Nature - Sophie Sturgeon 

DOMESTIC DESIGN 
The Chiltern's Garden - Luke Arend 
Contemporary Woodland Garden - Tabitha Rigden 
Chilterns Family Garden - Joana Rzepa 
Reconnecting with Nature - Rachel Papworth

The winners of both Student awards were presented at The SGD Awards ceremony on Friday 31st January at London’s Landmark Hotel alongside the main SGD Awards. 

Images of all the winning gardens in the SGD Awards 2020 can be seen here. 

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