THE CONSTANT GARDENER Legendary landscape architect Bill Bensley talks about his design journey in Asia, creating memorable and responsible luxury tourism, and giving back to the community

You can take the man out of California, but you can’t take California out of the man. Not only does Bill Bensley have a sunny disposition, he is a constant ball of energy who’s always eager to talk about plants, animals and hotels. In the design world, he is recognised as the name behind many of Asia’s most luxurious resorts and architect of the most unforgettable holiday experiences. “I’m just a gardener,” he says at the start of the interview following his presentation during Kohler’s Design Forum at the recent Singapore Design Week. Bensley grew up on a family farm in Anaheim, Orange County (“When orange trees still grew there”), a stone throw’s from Disneyland (“The happiest place on earth”). He traded sunny California for hot and humid Asia in 1984, thanks to Thai architect Mathar “Lek” Bunnag, his classmate at Harvard University. “Lek was going to teach at the National University of Singapore and invited me along so I jumped at the opportunity.”

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Bensley set foot on Changi Airport in September 1984 with just US$10 in his pocket. “It was all the money I had in the world,” he recalls. He took a job as a landscape architect at the local office of US architecture firm Belt Collins the next day. Five years later, he left his senior post at Belt Collins Hong Kong to set up his own practice in Bangkok. The studio grew quickly as Bensley’s design approach evolved and his design repertoire expanded, flourishing with the same kind of lushness that is typical of every Bensley design. Today, Bensley Design Studio employs some 180 architects, interior designers and landscape

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Bill Bensley, a landscape architect who designs with compassion and thought for the environment

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Views of the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle, Thailand, which Bensley designed