For our final Q&A of World Landscape Architecture Month 2026, we’re spotlighting one last voice from across FPCR’s landscape teams – exploring career journeys, project experience, and the evolving role of landscape architecture in shaping sustainable places.
In this Q&A, we speak with Sarah Smart, Director in our Sheffield landscape architecture team, whose career at FPCR spans more than two decades. From early inspiration and study at the University of Sheffield to advising on large-scale, landscape-led developments, Sarah share insights into how the profession has changed – and the growing importance of landscape architecture in delivering positive outcomes for people, place and nature.
What drew you to landscape architecture, and how has that motivation evolved over your career?
I worked in a flower shop when I was 15 and we had a staff outing to the GLEE exhibition at NEC Birmingham. A garden designer was presenting his designs there. I was inspired and chose my A-levels with this in mind for a career. I went on to a degree in landscape design and planning at Sheffield University and the course opened my eyes to the many different aspects of landscape architecture.
How did you come to join FPCR?
I joined FPCR in 2000, after returning to university to complete my postgraduate diploma in landscape architecture following a year out at Cooper Partnership in Bristol. My year out and my degree background further sparked my interest in landscape planning. When I joined FPCR it was a much smaller multi-disciplinary practice with around 30 staff, but – as it continues to do so today – offered a wide variety of project work opportunities that included landscape planning.
What has kept you at FPCR, and how has your role evolved over time?
The friendly, supportive working environment has been a big factor, along with a varied workload and client base. I’ve been able to specialise in work that interests me most, working collaboratively with ecology, arboriculture and architecture colleagues and with other environmental disciplines. The company has grown substantially to over 300 staff today operating out of six offices. My role has gradually increased in responsibility, managing increasingly large-scale projects, and I’m now a director at our Sheffield office – where I jointly head up the landscape team of 16 people.
How would you describe your approach to leading landscape architecture projects and teams?
My approach is underpinned by our company ethos and values, we have a young graduate team at the Sheffield office, and it is important to me that we provide good support and professional training and that the team feel valued. As a team we have a can-do attitude, and it is important to us that projects are delivered to the best of our abilities and on time. All our team has a voice, and their ideas are listened to and developed, strengthening wellbeing and our professional approach. Excitingly, our company recently celebrated becoming a fully-fledged Employee-Owned Trust (EOT) with a two-day outing to Alton Towers.
What major shifts do you see shaping the future of landscape architecture?
The Landscape Institute advocates a landscape-led approach to development as essential for people, place and nature in response to national goals for climate adaptation, nature recovery and housing and makes it clear that as landscape architects we are uniquely trained to integrate natural and built environments at scale.
Over the last 30 years I have experienced this shift – especially so with larger development projects, which have the capital investment to enable positive change. In more recent years, design approaches have become increasingly data-driven and evidence-based, particularly with the introduction of mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). Our project work has expanded to include landscape-design input to facilitate BNG, including the creation of habitat banks, for instance at Red House Farm Habitat Bank for Doncaster Council. With the drive to carbon-neutral we have also seen an increase in renewable energy projects, and this is expected to continue, especially given the effects of the Iran war.
A further welcome progression is that inclusion, health and wellbeing is increasingly recognised as important in the design of spaces from strategic approaches through to detailed design scale.
Is there a project that fundamentally changed your approach? What impact did it have on your work since?
In recent years my work focus has been on large-scale mixed-use settlement extensions, advising clients on landscape mitigation and enhancement opportunities for these projects, and working collaboratively with other environmental disciplines. At this scale landscape / nature-led design solutions can really make a difference.
Recently, I have been involved in two notable projects that are currently awaiting planning approval. The first is a proposed residential extension in Harlow, which features 28 hectares of Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANG). The second project is a mixed-use extension to Milton Keynes, where – working closely with the masterplanner, drainage engineer, and our ecology team – we have developed a landscape-led masterplan. Central to this scheme is the restoration of a watercourse that, through agricultural intensification, had been reduced to a channelised ditch crossing arable fields. Our new design introduces a naturally meandering waterway, integrated into a comprehensive sustainable drainage strategy for the development. This includes online basins specifically created to establish wetland habitats, achieve BNG, manage surface run-off from the new development, and reduce downstream flooding.
How do you balance design ambition with commercial and practical constraints?
The value of landscape design and intervention in delivering nature recovery, climate adaptation, public health and social benefits has become increasingly recognised. Today, mandatory environmental regulations and policy measures increasingly enforce this landscape-led approach.
Building on this shift, my work focuses on shaping environments connected to new developments for both people and wildlife. I enjoy weaving policy approaches on landscape character, health, wellbeing, inclusivity, climate and biodiversity enhancement into comprehensive green infrastructure strategies. Larger-scale developments, in particular, offer the opportunity to adopt more ambitious approaches, which are often formalised through planning policy.
If you weren’t a landscape architect, what would you be doing?
Probably landscape management or conservation work. I’m particularly interested in rewilding and how through restoring natural processes it delivers multi-faceted benefits by restoring degraded ecosystems, combating climate change through carbon storage and the resultant increases in biodiversity and flood risk reduction.
Our ecologists have been involved in rewilding projects, including at the renowned Knepp Estate in Sussex. The company has also provided advisory input to Natural England in the development of BNG, and generally on creation of habitat banks to various authorities and companies. As landscape architects we can provide low intervention landscape-design input on these projects, and I would like to become more involved in this type of work.
What advice would you give to those looking to build a long-term career in landscape architecture?
Landscape architecture offers an incredibly varied career path. Stay inquisitive, embrace new experiences, and keep your options open while pursuing your passions. My own interests were shaped by travel, leisure activities, my studies at Sheffield University – where the course structure exposes students to a broad spectrum of subjects and current environmental challenges – and by working within a multi-disciplinary environment and design company. Each of these has enabled me to refine and develop my professional focus.
As you embark on your career, and throughout its progression, actively seek out employment that can offer good mentorship to support your professional qualification. Gradually build a network of supportive, experienced colleagues and other professionals who can motivate and guide you. Be prepared for lifelong learning; every project presents new challenges and opportunities. Even after 26 years with FPCR, I still enjoy the necessity to research and adapt to ever-evolving environmental and design approaches within the profession.
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