Context is everything. Ches George recording the surroundings at Whitby Harbour.

Artecology’s scoping team headed up to the Yorkshire Coast and the North East of England this week to look for opportunities to create ‘constructed habitats’ at two different sites. The first location was in Whitby Harbour on the Yorkshire coast and the second, due north from there at the River Wear estuary near the port of Sunderland.

Artecology father and son members, Nige and Ches George, met with Groundwork North East Landscape Architect Matt Machouki to look at three possible sites within Whitby Harbour, two on the north bank and one on the south. Nige and Ches identified two excellent spots for some novel artificial habitat solutions that will lead to the design and creation of a series of constructed tide-pools. Ches notes “ It’s no longer enough for us to offer clients ‘off-the-shelf’ retro-fit solutions for increasing biodiversity in places like this. Whitby is the perfect example of a place which needs new ideas and bespoke solutions…..so that’s how our thinking is being shaped for Whitby right now.”

Nige George down on the foreshore in the River Wear, looking for living clues to help inform new ecological engineering solutions.

The next day the Artecology duo headed north to Sunderland to catch the morning low tide.

Nige says, “ This is a very different setting to Whitby, it’s going to need some very different solutions, however what both sites share is that they require bespoke solutions. Artecology has a wide skillset and knowledge-base shared across it’s wider team, and it’s this that allows us to respond to challenges like the one’s we’re being presented with here in Sunderland and the ones we saw yesterday at Whitby. Our job now is to innovate, to come up with new eco-engineering ideas that have real value to these places and the wildlife they contain. Scoping visits like this are enormously useful when the task is to shape better places for people and wildlife. Site visits help us create a plan of action that will achieve the best all round results.”

Back at Artecology HQ in the Isle of Wight Word Biosphere Reserve, Nige and Ches will work on a scoping report that will compile their recommendations for Whitby and Sunderland to the clients and stakeholders.