Paul Gazerwitz & Tommaso del Buono

The design partnership, whose work is characterised by calm elegance, discuss friendship, collaboration and the challenges of large-scale projects

TWORDS ANNIE GATTI

PORTRAIT CHARLIE HOPKINSON he words you might use to describe a typical del Buono Gazerwitz garden – elegant, calm, formal yet individualistic – could equally apply to this pair of landscape architects themselves. Both slim, shaven-headed, crisply dressed, and unusually courteous with each other, on first encounter they seem almost like peas in a pod. It’s no surprise to discover that they were born just eight months apart. Clearly a major element in the success of their professional partnership is the fact that they get on so well. Not only have they run their landscape architecture practice together for 15 years but since 2007 they have co-owned a bolthole in Suffolk with a one-acre, quintessentially English garden, using it on alternate weekends with their respective partners.

Although they grew up on opposite sides of the Atlantic, they share a passion for plants and for structured spaces. Paul was born in New York city and moved to Long Island as a child, where he first made tray gardens with wild flowers and graduated to landscaping the whole of his parents’ large garden; Tommaso’s landscape was the olive trees, lavenders and irises of gardens on the hills outside his native Florence. Both studied landscape architecture and when they met in London more than 25 years ago they quickly became friends. Although temperamentally they are different – Tommaso is more excitable and extrovert while Paul, who insists that his business partner is more eloquent, is content to be in the background – their skills as designers are equally matched. “Once I went for an interview in a practice where Paul was already working,” reveals Tommaso. “They said, ‘We are very interested in you but you have exactly the same skills as someone we have just hired called Paul Gazerwitz’.”

In the late 1980s Paul joined Tommaso at Arabella LennoxBoyd’s practice and it was there that the pair decided to strike out on their own. They threw themselves into the challenge of public competitions – their design for the Princess Diana Memorial in Hyde Park, based on a series of floating islands on the Serpentine, was shortlisted – and quickly established a reputation for richly textured and beautifully detailed gardens in London, from small, walled yards in Shoreditch to more expansive villas in Holland Park. Initially they worked on projects together but as the practice grew they divided up the work. “Our desks are opposite each other,” explains Tommaso, “so we are always aware of what each of us is doing.”

Do they ever clash or argue? “We obviously have differences of opinion,” says Paul, “but we never have huge rows. We know each other so well that I can tell if there’s something bothering Tom and I’ll say ‘Tell me about it.’ We can then get it on the table, discuss it, sort it and move on.”

Now they have a number of large projects, especially in Europe, and they both relish the challenge of these often topographically demanding designs, and selecting the plants that will work for them. A garden in the Caribbean has proved to be a steep learning curve. “Everything grows very quickly and it’s easy for things to get swamped,” explains Tommaso. “Your planting has to be simpler, and in bigger groupings.” They are collaborating once more on a large, steep site in the South of France, a former holiday village. “We’ve designed this enormous and fantastic water cascade, which links the whole site. We’ve never done anything on this scale before, but it’s exciting.”

Their 2014 Chelsea garden for The Telegraph gave them the opportunity to show off the key elements of a del Buono Gazerwitz garden (their 2008 Chelsea garden for Daylesford had been designed to a tight brief). The initial plans showed clipped evergreens, lawn, roof-trained trees and, says Tommaso, there was concern that it would be “a bit boring”. But, he explains without a hint of braggadocio, “I knew we would do it beautifully, I knew it was going to work.” The doubters had not considered the impact of the duo’s meticulous detailing – the water feature went through several versions and mock ups until they achieved exactly the effervescent effect they wanted from the falling water.

New York’s Paley Park, with the simplicity of its waterfall and grid of Gleditsia trees, is a shared inspiration but mostly, they say, they are influenced by everyday visual elements, by their travels, by interiors. “Just this morning, walking to the Underground,” says Paul, “I saw the intense auburn of oak leaves sunlit against a building of almost exactly the same colour. It was a luminous example of nature in harmony with the built environment.” Tommaso smiles with evident enjoyment at Paul’s observation. USEFUL INFORMATION Del Buono Gazerwitz Landscape Architecture, 59 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3QT. Tel 020 7613 1122, delbuono-gazerwitz.co.uk

NEXT MONTH Landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan.