Louise was born and grew up in Penshurst. She was fortunate to return to live there twenty years ago with her family after spending 15 years in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Louise studied landscape architecture in Edinburgh which included 4 years at university and 2 years of professional practice working under a qualified landscape architect.

In Hong Kong, her projects ranged from power stations to a Town Square and culminated in 2 years working on Metroplan, an ambitious land-use and transport study of HK’s urban area.

Returning to the United Kingdom, Louise started working for the newly formed Medway Unitary Authority as Senior Landscape Architect.  She helped to set up a Medway-wide Landscape and Urban Character Assessment. This covered the urban area, villages, urban fringe and countryside within Medway.  Other projects included a series of playgrounds and school grounds and the design of Riverside Country Park.  Louise continues to provide Medway with landscape advice on their major planning applications.

Louise set up Louise Hooper Landscape Architect in 2001.  Project work has grown steadily, much of it by word of mouth.  Louise has designed and built playgrounds for Special Needs Schools in South London, and locally, has designed parks, playing fields and playgrounds at Hawkenbury, Tunbridge Wells, and Rusthall.

Recent projects have included the University of Kent Masterplan working with Studio Engleback, a primary school playground at Offham, Kent, a rainwater-harvesting lake for a strawberry farmer near Canterbury, 5 houses adjacent to Ancient Woodland in Bexley, London, and farm barn conversions in Speldhurst.  Louise has had successful planning appeals on behalf of a rare breed pig farmer in the High Weald AONB, and appealing against a proposed new house within a Conservation Area in Sevenoaks.  She is currently working on several private gardens and Landscape and Visual Impact Assessments for solar arrays, housing developments and individual houses and extensions.

‘I love living and working in the beautiful Kent countryside.  Every project is different and I love the challenges of each and every individual site.  Each client has his or her own view as to what they believe is required; I like to take that view and improve upon it, so that the client ends up with something better than they thought they wanted!  This does not mean more expense: flowers and nectar for bees and butterflies, nuts and berries for dormice and birds, rain gardens and swales for sustainable drainage; materials are sourced from local suppliers wherever possible, to reduce carbon footprint and promote local business.  Finally, I aim to create a beautiful design that comes to life at different times of the year, offering scent, colour, texture and delight as well as form and function.’

Louise can be contacted via her website: www.louisehooper.co.uk, by email: lhla@btinternet.co.uk and by telephone: 01892 870 211 and 07711 820 575.  She posts regularly on Facebook and Instagram

@louisehooperlandscapearchitect.

Featured in: Issue 95 – July/August 2018