21st February , 2025
World’s first Global Hospitality & Lifestyle-focused Landscape Architecture Practice Launches
Scape Design and Coopers Hill announce their merger
Europe’s premier Hospitality & Luxury Lifestyle-focused landscape architects and master planners, Scape Design, has recently been acquired as part of the on-going growth of Coopers Hill Landscape Architects.
Scape Design becomes Coopers Hill’s first European studio, located in London’s fashionable Bayswater, and Coopers Hill’s seventh international office, following hard on the heels of the 2023 opening of a Middle East office in Dubai.
Coopers Hill boasts a glittering array of hotels and resorts that have defined the best of luxury hospitality landscape design over the past 40 years.
Como Laucala Island
Headquartered in Singapore, and under the stewardship of Founder & Managing Partner, Allen Kerton, the firm’s work spans a diverse array of environments and ecosystems.
By combining this with Scape’s glamorous award-winning 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.
Mandarin Oriental Bodrum
W Costa Navarino. Image: courtesy of TEMES
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.
Industry-leading projects created by Scape include the Ritz-Carlton Rabat, Morocco; W Costa Navarino, Greece; Fairmont & Raffles Hotels at Katara Towers, Doha – the flagship property for the 2022 World Cup – and Como Laucala Island, Fiji.
The firm’s exceptional landscape design at Mandarin Oriental Bodrum was garlanded by the UK Landscape Institute while, two years ago, Scape was celebrated as Winner at the AHEAD MEA Awards and AHEAD Europe Awards for its Fairmont Taghazout Bay and Grecotel Corfu Imperial projects respectively. Scape has also received a Landscape Institute Award for Climate Action & Mitigation for its “Forest for Change”, an installation created for the London Design Biennale 2021.
Hilton Cam Ranh, Vietnam
The new Coopers Hill leadership structure will see Allen Kerton, with his distinguished career in global hospitality design spanning Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa, assume the overall leadership role of Managing Partner & Design Director, based in Singapore.
Ritz-Carlton Rabat. Image credit: M Kowlaski
Philip Jaffa will take on the role of Partner and Design Director, based in London.
Coopers Hill’s Partner and Design Director, Philip Jaffa, said, “This is the beginning of a new era for Coopers Hill and is an exciting proposition to be part of.
“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 well-being.
“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 & Design Director, Allen Kerton, said, “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.”