My intention at Foxholes was to create a place people would want to visit and spend time in after dark: residents and their families, staff, visiting healthcare professionals and emergency service workers. The brief was to reveal the beauty of the mature trees and newly landscaped gardens through a detailed landscape lighting scheme.

The trees caught my attention before the first meeting. Sitting in my car, I photographed their enormous trunks and spreading branches. I later discovered that my mother had been born at Foxholes when it was a maternity hospital, giving the project a personal connection.

The existing lighting combined powerful orange sodium uplights, glaring bollards and lantern posts with mismatched lamps. It produced a flat appearance and considerable sky glow, visible from parts of Hitchin below.

I wanted to recognise the trees’ majesty while keeping the lighting closer to human scale and balanced with the building. Many had fine needles that were difficult to illuminate without substantial light, so I concentrated on their lower structure. All fittings within the canopies were mounted at or below the building’s roofline.

Several neighbouring canopies provided positions for downlighting much of the planting and ground below. Between the car park and main entrance, the redwood’s richly textured bark became a particular focal point.

Refinement also meant responding to everyday use. Staff leaving at 8pm found the transition from the brightly lit interior to the softer exterior too dark, with little time for their eyes to adjust. I increased light levels in selected areas while retaining the gardens’ calmer character.

Staff loved the lighting following these adjustments. The fountain became another attraction: when its water froze, the illuminated ice drew people to queue up to photograph it.