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Designing with Feeling

Operating Board Managing Director - Andrew Smith, fabrik

In an industry often driven by spreadsheets, policy frameworks and modular constraints, Andrew brings feeling back to landscape design through emotion, memory and sensorial experiences.

A landscape architect by training, now managing director at fabrik, Andrew leads a practice dedicated to creating places with lasting social, environmental and cultural value.

His speciality lies in contextually led, high-quality residential landscape masterplanning and detailing across both public and private sectors, with national projects spanning residential, leisure, health and education realms. Committed to raising design quality, Andrew works to influence progressive change in national planning policy. He contributes as an expert witness and serves on the South Downs National Park and Coastal West Sussex Design Review Panels, using his expertise and determination to shape places that make a positive difference.

Place as a Journey, Not a Destination

Andrew’s favourite places aren’t singular. They’re not tourist landmarks or curated destinations. They are the series of spaces that make up his daily journey: from the quiet of his rural garden, through ancient woodlands, across the South Downs, into a market town, onto a train, through Waterloo Station and across the bridge into London.

A woodland. A village green. A public courtyard. What ties these moments together, he says, is not solely what they look like…but what they feel like.

Each place offers something different. I respond to its textures, noise and views – and adapt. That’s what makes the journey meaningful.

One Blackfriars copyright fabrik

Context Is Everything

Ask Andrew what most developers overlook, and his answer is immediate: context. Whether in Kent or Cornwall, forms and patterns, the materials, the traditions, the visual relationships of place and context matter. Ignore them – even through subtle cues – and you root people emotionally.

“Understand the geology, history and culture. Then you can design something that fits or challenges that context with intention.”

Landscape Is Not Just Green

Andrew is quick to remind us that landscape is not just natural green spaces, parks and vegetation – it includes plazas, seascapes, street edges, public squares and woodland thresholds. It’s big idea, not a decorative layer.

Landscape is about the sum of components – vegetation, buildings, surfaces, views, sounds – and how they come together to create character.

Lots Road 2 copyright Studio Maple

Design for People First Especially the Ones You Can’t Yet See

At the core of Andrew’s philosophy is empathy: an understanding that every place will serve a diverse range of people, with different needs, comfort levels and life stages.

This includes children and teenagers. Parents with pushchairs. Women walking alone. Elderly residents with limited mobility. People with sensory impairments. Ecology and biodiversity too. Every choice – of path width, of material underfoot, of lighting level or planting type – is a statement of who the space includes.

“We’re not designing for designers. We’re designing for people who will live here, pass through here, play here – possibly for the first time.”

Emotion, Memory and the Power of Simplicity

What creates emotional connection? For Andrew, it’s not Instagrammable moments or flashy installations. It’s memory, simplicity and sensory clarity. He talks about the smell of the earth after rain. The sound of gravel underfoot. The rustle of leaves in a hedgerow. The salt in the Brighton Breeze.

Design is like cooking – if you’ve got great ingredients and you use them well, you can create something extraordinary.

CGI of Fawley Waterside, Southampton

Joy Is the End Goal

Like Adam Tither (Expert No. 1) a core theme in Andrew’s thinking is joy. Not in a decorative sense but in the feeling of arriving somewhere that lifts your mood – a place where you want to linger, where the design disappears and the experience remains.

“We’ve designed spaces where people sit, garden, play, chat. Spaces with fruit tunnels and Cornish stone walls. They’re full. People linger. That’s when you know it’s worked.”

Nature as Healer

From public parks to Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspaces, Andrew speaks of the healing power of nature – both for people and for ecology. He stresses the importance of creating areas where wildlife can thrive without human interference alongside places where people can walk, explore and connect.

Vision at the Start, Stewardship at the End

Andrew’s closing advice for developers is deceptively simple: be clear at the beginning, and plan for the long term. That means setting the right brief, involving the right people (including users) and thinking about the full life cycle of the space – not just the launch photos.

Goodmans Fields copyright Chromaphotography

Final Thoughts

Three Key Takeaways

1. Start with context, not convenience

Every successful place responds to its surroundings. Social, material and environmental context should shape design decisions, not standardised approaches that ignore what makes a location unique.

2. Design with people, not process

Places fail when they are driven by spreadsheets instead of human behaviour. Understanding who will use a space, how they move and what they need is critical to creating somewhere people want to stay.

3. Layer experiences through the senses

Great places are built through sight, sound, smell and texture working together. When these elements are carefully balanced, they create richness, comfort and lasting emotional connection.

To receive a copy of the Making Sense of Place report click here

Making Sense of Place

Designing for Safety, Belonging & Joy

Making Sense of Place

Let’s talk

Designing with Feeling

Operating Board Managing Director - Andrew Smith, fabrik

Insights from
Operating Board Managing Director - Andrew Smith, fabrik

In an industry often driven by spreadsheets, policy frameworks and modular constraints, Andrew brings feeling back to landscape design through emotion, memory and sensorial experiences.

Place as a Journey, Not a Destination

Context Is Everything

Landscape Is Not Just Green

Design for People First Especially the Ones You Can’t Yet See

Emotion, Memory and the Power of Simplicity

Joy Is the End Goal

Nature as Healer

Vision at the Start, Stewardship at the End

Final Thoughts

Three Key Takeaways

1. Start with context, not convenience

2. Design with people, not process

3. Layer experiences through the senses

To receive a copy of the Making Sense of Place report click here

Related reports

Designing for Safety, Belonging & Joy

Just Make It Delicious

Designing with Feeling

Operating Board Managing Director - Andrew Smith, fabrik

Insights fromOperating Board Managing Director - Andrew Smith, fabrik

In an industry often driven by spreadsheets, policy frameworks and modular constraints, Andrew brings feeling back to landscape design through emotion, memory and sensorial experiences.

Place as a Journey, Not a Destination

Context Is Everything

Landscape Is Not Just Green

Design for People First Especially the Ones You Can’t Yet See

Emotion, Memory and the Power of Simplicity

Joy Is the End Goal

Nature as Healer

Vision at the Start, Stewardship at the End

Final Thoughts

Three Key Takeaways

1. Start with context, not convenience

2. Design with people, not process

3. Layer experiences through the senses

To receive a copy of the Making Sense of Place report click here

Related reports

Designing for Safety, Belonging & Joy

Just Make It Delicious

Insights from
Operating Board Managing Director - Andrew Smith, fabrik