Staff:
Principal Landscape Architect
Austen Associates is directed by Tim Austen, whose extensive experience includes working both as a Landscape Architect and Landscape Contracts Manager in Ireland and the UK. Tim was previously an Associate Director with Murray and Associates Landscape Architecture in Dublin and prior to that he worked as Contracts Manager for Keller Ground Engineering in the UK. He holds an Honours Bachelor of Science degree in Geography (from the University of Birmingham) and a Master of Science degree in Landscape Ecology, Design and Management (from Wye College, University of London). He is an active Member of the Irish Landscape Institute and sits on the Council of the Garden and Landscape Designers Association. Tim recently appeared as a judge on Super Garden, a new TV programme broadcast on Ireland's national station RTE One.
Plantsperson
Camelia Austen holds both a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Horticulture. Camelia worked in the nursery stock sector in the UK prior to moving to Ireland and now specialises in the design of both interior and exterior planting schemes. Her extensive plant knowledge provides the practice with the freedom and confidence to integrate both well known and more unusual plants in to its designs.
Landscape Designer
Sophie Barwich holds a Master of Arts in Landscape Architecture from Edinburgh College of Art. Sophie brings creative design flare, supported by her horticultural and technical knowledge, and can communicate her ideas through her strong graphic presentation abilities.
Practice Profile
Austen Associates is a 100% Irish owned company formed by Landscape Architect, Tim Austen in 2007. The practice has quickly established an international reputation for delivery of high quality landscape design work in both the public and private sectors. Many clients favour our approach of placing planting design to the fore to create rich landscape tapestries. Tim Austen has also designed gold-medal-winning showgardens for the Bloom in the Park show in Dublin and provides a specialist garden design service for private clients.
Landscape Design thinking
Our philosophy with regard to landscape stems from a desire to both enrich peoples' lives and to minimise our impact on the natural world. If we can achieve both of these things through our design then we feel we will have left an endurable imprint on both peoples' imaginations and interactions and on the landscape which is the stage for their lives. Landscape architecture is expressed in urban situations where there is a strong need to create many-faceted spaces that provide for a whole range of human emotions and reactions, such as identity, security, stimulation, interaction, well-being, and calm. In urban design, this often involves combining well thought-out contemporary architecture with a soft, natural approach to planting. In rural situations, we look both to detailed natural and man-made features, as well as directly to the wider landscape setting, to provide the inspiration for our landscape design work. Here our landscape architecture seeks to intervene in a manner that conserves a rich heritage whilst forging a path to create new landscapes that achieve synchronization between the needs of human beings and nature.