Genius Loci

It’s time for the late winter/early spring reset in the garden. This is something that can be equally satisfying and daunting every year - satisfying as it helps bring order back to the garden, but daunting because it may require a bit of effort! However, it’s always something that’s ‘net gain’: the results are (almost) always good, and those results are tangible and come from one’s direct actions…

Good news, everyone! Not to be too morbid, but I survived my shoulder surgery! It was only minor, and something I’m, unfortunately, quite familiar with, but hopefully fixes the pain and trouble I was having before.

However, echoing a note on my Twitter profile recently, while this week has seen me finally be able to get rid of all my plasters and steri-strips from said surgery, it also marks my…

Hello everyone!

Only a short update from me this time, but just one to say thank you for your ongoing support and backing throughout 2022. Genius Loci’s funding for 2023 has already got off to a decent start with new backers appearing throughout the first few weeks of the year - hopefully, this is an indication of a great 2023 funding-wise!

I’m going in for some shoulder surgery in early February…

One part of pretty much any landscape discipline, at any scale, is the combined concept of exploration and discovery. From hidden elements designed into a garden’s layout - that you perhaps get glimpses of but then have to round a corner or two to fully discover - to semi-hidden spaces in wider landscapes that promote privacy.

And you don’t need me to tell you that there’s plenty of exploration…

Despite having a deep love for it, it had been a while since I was in a Mediterranean landscape. Until the end of last month anyway, when a family wedding took us to the Greek island of Paxos.

Blue skies, crystal clear waters, a beating sun, scrub-covered rocks, and olive trees galore. All present and accounted for and it was beautiful. It was the idyllic kind of Mediterranean landscape that I…

I recently finished watching the TV series ‘Vikings’ (finally - I had originally started it back in 2020 intending to binge it all before Assassin’s Creed Valhalla came out; I got to season 4 or so) and there’s a storyline at the very that caught my landscape eye, so to speak.

Generally, the series tells the tales of Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons and spans the years that the Vikings travelled far…

I avoided it for more than two years but Covid finally caught up with me a couple of weeks ago - just in time for those two ridiculous hot days we had here in the UK (around 40C/104F). Yep, it was pretty unpleasant but I still didn’t have it too bad compared to other folks.

Anyway, a consequence of this was that I found myself with some dead time, while still being able to function. Naturally,…

I’m not sure how I haven’t done it before now, but recently I made my home work-space (and PC gaming space) very ‘on brand’ for me, Rob Dwiar, the lover of and proponent of the quality of video game landscapes.

I’ve sat in this corner of the living room since the early days of the pandemic in 2020 and while I had been trying to keep myself and my setup as pushed into the corner, and away from our…

We’re racing toward summer and the best time of year for gardens and landscapes. There really is nothing better than enjoying the lush and vividly green world in the warmth of the summer sun, be it from a window, in your own garden, on dog walks, or on the golf course (to give you a window into my life there). 

But before that really arrives, this next Genius Loci update comes just after a glorious…

It’s been a little while since my last update - Easter time, some birthdays, and the relentless work of the day job all play the parts, as always. Anyway, since my last update, we crossed over the one-year anniversary of Genius Loci!

It was just over a year ago that we launched the book and it has sped by. The thrill and exhilaration of the launch, and the fact that the book's start was so popular…

Spring is basically here. Or, at least, it is in the landscape, even if the weather maintains a wintry chill. A surefire, tell-tale sign is that even on the most ‘regular’ of dog walks my wife and I have done in recent weeks and days, the pops of colour from spring flowers have started to rise up and present themselves. Even when it has been stormy, incredibly rainy, and just downright sodden through…

With the calendar flipping over to 2022, the one-year anniversary of Genius Loci going live seems much closer than it did a few weeks ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long already.

However, I’m still just as passionate as ever in spreading the word and making sure the book becomes a reality. I’ll plead your tolerance right from the off here, and ask if you can keep sharing it and spreading…

Winter landscapes are some of my absolute favourites - in real life and in games. Despite being relatively empty (the use of ‘relatively’ is important when looking at winter lands) there’s often a deceptive amount to actually see, identify, and appreciate.

I often refer back to the Frederick Gibberd quote “If someone tells me he is a keen gardener I ask to see his garden in February. Has it become…

I’ve mentioned before that one of my best friends, Freddy, and I play games together online regularly - sometimes as a pair, and often as a three with another close friend. However, Freddy and I have been exploring the glorious and chaotic world of Far Cry 6 at the moment, taking in the beautiful island-nation of Yara. On a recent trip through the tropical landscape, Freddy offered to write my…

I’m not religious at all but I have always been interested in religious, sacred, and spiritual landscapes - this mainly comes from my interest in meaning, narratives, and stories in landscape design. From sacred olive groves in the Mediterranean to western Christian cemeteries, and from ancient sacred landscapes (like Stonehenge in my previous update) to natural landscapes which humans have imbued…

Autumn is well and truly here now, isn’t it? It’s been a pretty grim week here in the West Country, and my reward for starting my regular days in the office last week was one of the wettest walks home in my life. Thanks, weather. However, this just marks the turning of the seasonal wheels once more, and summer feels far away already.

Just before summer did finally leave us, my wife and I, and Bella…

I’m not long back from a trip that was perfect book inspiration - or ‘bookspiration’ as I’ve come to call it. It was a jolly away for another wedding (congrats again, Dave & Karen), but one that felt more of a getaway and adventure.

Staying just outside of Cookstown in Mid Ulster, Northern Ireland, we didn't fully realise the fortune of our choice, and the beauty of the location we chose to stay…

It’s supposed to be the most gloriously sunny and warm time of year but both have proved somewhat elusive across our UK landscapes - particularly in any great measure. It’s been a pretty unreliable summer.

It’s a time of walking in fields of wheat or barley for me, my wife, and the dog - something so evocative and also a key bit of iconography from my favourite film, Gladiator - and also outdoor…

The dust has settled after Genius Loci’s blistering start to its crowdfunding journey, and I’ve been quite busy hustling in the background to try and help things along in other ways.

Sometimes this takes the form of endless note-taking and compiling just so I can record ideas, or collating real-world images from visits or dog walks here in the Somerset countryside that I can use for inspiration…

It’s been almost precisely four years since I first emailed a games website about writing about games – from this came my first video game landscape article. It set off a tremendous domino effect and journey that at times felt like a slog, at others a breeze, but which ultimately has led me to this point: launching the crowdfunding campaign for Genius Loci. It’s incredibly humbling, exciting, and…