The landscape setting for Hitachi’s HQ Hakuba House (which translates directly as ‘white horse’) has been designed to reflect the Hitachi brand and the surrounding Wiltshire countryside, famous for its white horse chalk hill carvings.
The sweeping nature of the site and the rolling landscape beyond is mirrored in both the architectural forms and the landscape design, with extensive rain gardens across the site forming a practical response to the issues of storm water as well as a representation of the natural swales found in the local area.
We introduced eye-catching cherry tree groves at either side of the building entrance to reflect the Japanese heritage of Hitachi and to celebrate the custom of the Hanami – the Japanese tradition of picnicking under the blossom.
An island of Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum ‘Sumi-nagashi’) are a highlight of the design, offering an attractive feature for the arrival space. For thousands of years the maple has been a symbol of elegance, calm and beauty and are known in Japanese as ‘kaede’, meaning both ‘baby’s hands’ (due to their leaf shape) and ‘become crimson leaves’, referring to their unrivalled autumn colour.
