Peter Owens
Founder & Chief Designer
Expert Panel Member of DesigNE 2021 & The Design Review Panel 2022
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts & Manufactures 2010
Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute 1998
Member of the Urban Design Group 1996
Master of Landscape Design (MLD), Univ. Newcastle Upon Tyne 1995
BSc. (Hons) Agricultural & Environmental Sciences, Univ. Newcastle Upon Tyne 1987
Peter founded Colour in 2000, setting a direction that champions nature, social value and a fascination in the psychology of space – how people react to and feel in a place so as to make lives better. He is a thought leader in active design.
He is a Chartered Landscape Architect and urban designer with over 36 years’ experience on high profile multi-disciplinary projects across Britain and the world. This includes helping develop the masterplan for London 2012 Olympics’ Whitewater Centre and the landscape and public realm strategy for a global football tournament in Qatar 2022
Collaboratively working with clients, design teams and stakeholders, Peter helps translate aspirations for a place into a tangible design strategy with key project milestones.
As a systems thinker this approach is multi-layered and holistic leading to practical solutions focused on:
The user experience and outcomes
Local context tying in new with old
Active landscape to improve quality of life
Activated landscape for formal and informal events
Nature recovery and climate resilience
Peter is a thought leader in Active Design - a contributor to Sport England guidance and key note speaker.
This combines with 40+ years delivery of environmentally restorative landscapes including a 1995 dissertation in ‘Landscape Design for Zero Carbon’.
For Peter design is a joy, with a process that excites through igniting the creative spark between technical, artistic, clients, planning regulations and all disciplines to unlock solutions.
What could be better than working with people and nature together ?
As a child I was incredibly fortunate enough to grow up in a place with crystal clear sea teeming with fish by day, phosphorescent at night and a desert covered in wildflowers every Spring.
Through design I’d love everyone to experience that feeling of being so close to nature.