At Bothy Gardens, where nature and heritage converge, we are excited to announce our newest project: a Garden Library that promises to be a beacon of learning, creativity, and well-being. This initiative not only revives the historical concept of gardeners' libraries proposed by John Claudius Loudon in the 19th century but also infuses it with modern sensibilities and Turtlewings' philosophy of designing for wonder and well-being.

Material Thinking is an approach to education and creativity that uses diverse materials to explore, understand, and express ideas. This concept is deeply rooted in the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education, which views materials as essential tools for learning and discovery.

In autumn 2007 I made my first trip to Reggio Emilia. I went for their annual Reggio Children Institute, which was a week long conference on the Reggio Approach, including a tour of one school. I was excited to see all the ideas, environments and use of materials that I had studied during my thesis in Helsinki.

Between 1998 and 2000 I was studying in Helsinki, Finland at Aalto University. (At the time it was called The University of Art and Design.) I was accepted into the product and strategic design program. The beauty of the Finnish education system was that I could take classes in any other department that I felt leant to my thesis work. I decided very early on that I wanted to do my thesis on “designing learning environments with children.”

Welcome to our new website and blog called “sketchbook stories” the idea behind the blog is simple. To share with you over 20 years of sketchbook ideas while I developed many many projects for Turtlewings Atelier Brussels, but also to share new ideas and projects for the next chapter in the Turtlewings story, Turtlewings UK.