Coopers Hill has acquired European hospitality and luxury lifestyle-focused landscape architecture and master planning firm Scape Design.

Headquartered in Singapore, Coopers Hill has worked on an array of hotels and resorts that have defined luxury hospitality landscape design over the past 40 years. Under the stewardship of founder and Managing Partner Allen Kerton, the firm’s work spans a diverse array of environments and ecosystems. By combining this with Scape’s portfolio of luxury hotels, resorts and lifestyle projects across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, the brand has been elevated to a truly global proposition, unrivalled in the hospitality industry today and kick-starting a new era for the practice.

Scape Design’s Founding Director, Philip Jaffa, will now lead the growth of Coopers Hill in Europe and North Africa, whilst reinforcing the growth of the business across the Middle East and building on his reputation for the creation of thought-provoking, playful and award-winning landscapes spanning more than 50 countries over the last 24 years.

Key projects for Scape include The Ritz-Carlton Rabat, Morocco; W Costa Navarino, Greece; Fairmont & Raffles Hotels at Katara Towers, Doha; and Como Laucala Island, Fiji. The firm’s landscape design at Mandarin Oriental Bodrum was garlanded by the UK Landscape Institute while, two years ago, Scape was celebrated at AHEAD MEA and AHEAD Europe for its Fairmont Taghazout Bay and Grecotel Corfu Imperial projects respectively. Scape has also received a Landscape Institute Award for Climate Action and Mitigation for its 2021 Forest for Change installation.

The new Coopers Hill leadership structure will see Allen Kerton assume the overall leadership role of Managing Partner & Design Director, based in Singapore, while Philip Jaffa will take on the role of Partner and Design Director in London.

“This is the beginning of a new era for Coopers Hill and is an exciting proposition to be part of,” says Philip Jaffa, Partner and Design Director, Coopers Hill. “It provides us with an incredible opportunity to drive sustainable and evocative landscape architecture solutions for the hospitality industry of the future, connecting humanity back to nature as the key touch point for health and wellbeing. Meeting Allen, a like-minded environmental landscape designer who cares deeply about the future of our planet, was key to my ‘yes’ to the merger.”

Coopers Hill’s Managing Partner and Design Director, Allen Kerton, adds: “The merger with Scape is a significant milestone, allowing us to realise our ambition of providing a truly global service offering for our clients. Add to this our intimate knowledge and in-depth expertise of local environments and cultural influences, we are well-positioned to create meaningful places, experiences and memories by balancing architecture, luxury, and the wilderness of nature, regardless of where our projects are located. Drawing inspiration from the forms, colours and textures of the natural world, we are committed to setting new industry standards, reconnecting people with the natural world while protecting and preserving our ecosystems.”