The Davies White Story - 2005 to 2025

Andrée Davies and Adam White are both chartered landscape architects and first met at the environmental charity Groundwork before founding Davies White Ltd in 2005.

Their breakthrough came with the Playscape show garden, showcased at RHS Hampton Court in 2007 where it won RHS Gold Medal and BBC People’s Choice Awards. Adopted by Play England, the concept went on to feature in the government-backed Design for Play and Managing Risk in Play Provision publications, inspiring permanent Playscapes in Kingston upon Thames and Ealing and then leading to £225m government investment in nature play spaces across England.

In 2017, Davies White created the Zoflora & Caudwell Children’s Wild Garden at RHS Hampton Court. Co-designed with Dr Juli Crocombe, a Consultant Psychiatrist specialising in neurodevelopmental conditions, the garden won RHS Gold, Best in Show, and BBC People’s Choice; an unprecedented triple win. After the shows, it was re-imagined as a permanent garden at the Caudwell International Children’s Centre at Keele University.

In 2019, they were invited by the RHS to collaborate with HRH The Duchess of Cambridge (now The Princess of Wales) on the celebrated RHS Back to Nature Gardens. These nature-inspired play gardens were showcased at RHS Chelsea and RHS Hampton Court, before permanent versions were created at RHS Wisley and for the NHS in Devon. The designs highlighted the importance of outdoor play for childhood development and family wellbeing.

Their work has ranges from Loch Lomond in Scotland to Southampton on the South Coast, and across Northern Ireland and North Wales, creating community gardens, nature play spaces, and biodiverse landscapes. They are specialists in engagement, running hands-on workshops with children, including those from SEN schools, and collaborating with experts to embed inclusivity into design.

In 2021, they were commissioned by the Mayor of London, the London Legacy Development Corporation and the National Trust to create the London Blossom Garden within Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; a living memorial to the pandemic featuring 33 blossom trees representing each London borough and the City of London.

Davies White continue to deliver community-focused landscapes across the UK, including school grounds, libraries, and heritage sites.  Current projects include a new accessible and inclusive garden at Faversham Library in Kent, designed to encourage people to “take a book and read it in the garden'. Beginning this month, the team will also be working on two new country park masterplans in Cambridgeshire.

Beyond their design practice, Andrée is one of the judges of the RHS Chelsea Sustainable Excellence Awards alongside Dragons’ Den investor Deborah Meaden, while both Andrée and Adam are trustees of the Sustainable Landscape Foundation, with Arit and Lisa Anderson, Nigel Dunnett, Marian Boswall and Simon Heppner to promote sustainable choices across the landscape profession. Adam served as President of the Landscape Institute between 2018 and 2020, during which he launched the ‘Choose Landscape’ careers campaign and awarded Sir David Attenborough an Honorary Fellowship and Lifetime Achievement Medal.

In 2025, Andrée and Adam are celebrating 20 years of co-designing inclusive, sustainable, and playful landscapes; while also planning the next chapter for Davies White and their mission to reconnect people, especially children, with nature