North Norfolk and Singapore: A Life Between Two Landscapes
Dividing my time between North Norfolk and Singapore means living in two entirely different worlds, yet I somehow manage to find a steady rhythm between them. They sit at opposite ends of the spectrum in almost every way, but it is the contrast that makes each place more vivid. The slow pull and the fast pace, the cool, quiet mornings and the warm evening buzz, the wide-open skies and the close embrace of tropical green. It is a balance that continues to shape how I live and how I design.
North Norfolk is all space and stillness. Big skies that seem to go on forever, hedgerows that shift with the seasons, long beaches where the tide pulls back far enough to make the world feel wider. There is a calm, steady patience to the landscape. You feel the weather before it arrives, and you watch the land respond in its own unhurried way. Life stretches out gently here. Even the colours feel softer, as if the coastline has learned to fade and renew itself in quiet cycles.
Singapore is the complete opposite. Everything is lush and immediate. Heat that wraps around you, plants that push and climb and spill over with energy. The city is alive from morning to night, and nature keeps pace. Green rises up the sides of buildings, spreads across walkways and fills every possible pocket of shade. It is a place where growth feels constant and unstoppable, and where design must work with the intensity of the tropical climate rather than against it.
Gardens by the Bay
Singapore is the complete opposite. Everything is lush and immediate.
Moving between these two places has become a kind of ongoing conversation in my mind. Norfolk teaches me to pause, to let the land speak first, to appreciate the slow making of a place. Singapore reminds me to embrace abundance, to design boldly, and to use planting as a powerful presence rather than a quiet backdrop. One landscape opens space and the other fills it, and somewhere in that contrast I have found my own balance.
In practice, this means my design work is shaped by both. From Norfolk, I take the idea of simplicity and clarity, the calmness that comes from giving a garden room to breathe. From Singapore, I bring a love of texture, movement and immersive planting that brings people fully into the moment. North Norfolk encourages patience and reflection. Singapore brings energy and joy. Together, they remind me that landscapes are never one thing. They can hold contrast, tension and harmony all at once.
Living between these two places is not always smooth, but it is always enriching. It keeps me curious. It keeps me awake to how differently people experience land, weather and nature. And it keeps me grounded in the belief that good design comes from paying attention to place, wherever that place may be.
