Imogen Halliwell

Fifteen questions, off-duty.

Role on the line

Landscape and planting. Public realm, courtyards, street trees, the things that make a render look like a place rather than a model.

Where I grew up

Born in Hong Kong, Wan Chai side. Manchester from the age of nine. Two cities that argued about humidity.

Training

Landscape architecture at the Bartlett, then two years at a public-realm consultancy in King's Cross.

Years on the line

Three on CGI, but eight working with plants if you count the consultancy.

The blade I bring

A planting list the LPA tree officer will accept on the first read.

Designer I would ride out for

Piet Oudolf, and Kongjian Yu when the brief is big enough.

Plants that read true on screen

London plane in summer, hornbeam in late autumn, silver birch year-round, and an honest amount of ivy on the walls that already have it.

Software I cannot lose

Forest Pack and a notebook of dated plant photographs by month.

Earliest architectural memory

Walking through the Kowloon Walled City Park as a small child, just after the demolition. The garden remembered the building.

The brief I am proudest of

A Camden public-realm scheme where the planting survived the value-engineering round intact.

On the headphones while working

Faye Wong for nostalgia, Hania Rani for the focus hours.

London view I never tire of

The view down Park Crescent on a wet morning, with the planes dripping.

Coffee or tea

Pu'er in winter, jasmine green the rest of the year.

Off the line

A Saturday at the Chelsea Physic Garden, then dim sum in Soho with my parents.

The motto on my desk

"Plant for year three, render for year five. Nobody falls in love with a sapling."