EBBA have been selected to design the latest Horatio’s Garden in North Yorkshire, a significant new chapter for an extraordinary national charity. Horatio’s Garden creates beautifully designed, fully accessible gardens within NHS spinal injury centres across the UK, offering patients and their families restorative spaces that support rehabilitation, social connection and emotional wellbeing. These gardens are not just landscapes; they are places of refuge, dignity and hope during some of life’s most challenging moments.

Our ambition has been to design a space that feels deeply rooted in North Yorkshire, one that resonates with its landscapes, light and material character while also providing an uplifting, welcoming environment for patients, visitors and staff.

The design draws inspiration from the rugged beauty of the North: its moorlands, drystone walls and the rocky landscape. We are interested in working with materials that feel authentic to this context through the use of stone, timber and metalworks, helping to celebrate their inherent qualities rather than overworking them. There is a deliberate robustness to the palette, acknowledging the toughness of the regional landscape, balanced by softer planted elements that introduce seasonal change, colour and movement.

An economy of means underpins the architectural language of the project. We are exploring simple methods of assembly and honest construction techniques that allow materials to express themselves clearly. Rather than relying on complexity, the design seeks clarity and restraint through carefully considered junctions, modular components and repeatable elements that create coherence across the site. This approach not only supports buildability and long-term maintenance but also reinforces a sense of calm and legibility within the garden.

A key theme throughout the design is the interplay between heavy and light elements. Solid stone walls and grounded structures anchor the garden, offering shelter and enclosure, while lighter canopies, screens and planted layers introduce permeability and openness. This dialogue between weight and delicacy mirrors the surrounding landscape and creates varied spatial experiences. Within the landscape are intimate corners for quiet reflection, generous communal areas for gathering, and accessible pathways that gently guide movement through the site.

Accessibility is central to every decision. The garden is carefully planned to ensure that patients with spinal injuries can move independently and comfortably throughout. Level thresholds, generous turning circles, tactile planting and thoughtfully positioned seating all contribute to a space that empowers rather than restricts. Sensory planting, seasonal interest and views to nature are woven throughout, supporting both physical rehabilitation and mental wellbeing.

Collaboration has been fundamental to the project’s development. Working closely with Studio Pollyanna and Arup, we are bringing together expertise in landscape, engineering and placemaking to ensure that the garden is not only beautiful but technically rigorous and sustainable. This integrated approach enables us to consider environmental performance, structural clarity and long-term resilience alongside the experiential qualities of the space.

As the project moves toward construction, we look forward to seeing the garden take shape on site in Spring. More than a design exercise, this is a commitment to creating a meaningful, lasting environmenta and a place that supports recovery, fosters connection and enriches daily life for those who need it most.

Pulse is a new conceptual piece developed by EBBA director Benni Allan for Houghton Festival. Pulse is about capturing and transmitting the resonance of trees and how they respond to their context, drawing on advanced environmental sensors that pick up signals and translate these into a dynamic composition of light and vibrations. The result is an immersive experience completely unique to the site at Houghton Festival, where technology allows for a bridge between human perception and nature.

Visitors find themselves enveloped in a responsive environment where light pulses and soundscapes shift in dialogue with the forest, encouraging a moment of introspection and wonder. Designed to respond to the environment in real time, the installation captures and interprets the connection between trees through an interplay of sound and light, creating a mesmerising, meditative journey that resonates with the festival’s ethos of discovery, creativity and connection.

Pulse will not disappear entirely with the end of the festival. It has been conceived as a permanent fixture at the Houghton site, offering ongoing access to this dialogue between art and nature. Over time, the installation will offer the potential to respond to the changing seasons, weather patterns and tree activity, evolving into a living monument to the forest’s vitality.

Team:
Houghton Festival – Commissioner
Benni Allan – Lead Designer
EBBA – Architects
Kevin Pollard – Sound Design
Our Department – Fabricators
Arup Engineers – Advisory Engineers
Public House – Engineers
Lighthaus Studio – Technical Production
Oliver Ellmers – Lighting Design
Kat Rothery and Katie Dufort – Fabric Seamstress
Abwb.carpentry – Carpentry