Our proposal re-imagines the iconic british hedgerow as a flexible, nationwide ecological-infrastructure regime.

Deployed as a continuous, horizontally-thickened hedge complex (green lanes) in the right-of-ways and easements of existing and future electricity grid corridors, National Hedge represents an integrated, progressive reinterpretation of a culturally significant system of territorialization capable of supporting substantial ecological expansion as well as offering a contemporary and iconic image of infrastructural integration into the landscape of the UK.

Infrastructure conceptualized and designed to perform only one operation reflects a nineteenth-century mentality towards urbanization that misses the latent opportunities for synthesis and hybridization embedded within these already established network corridors. We see the desire to redesign the electricity pylon as an occasion to fundamentally re-conceive the broader urbanistic role of the entire electricity grid within the totality of the UK landscape, bundling ecological connectivity and habitat expansion with the necessary control and management of an elemental urban infrastructure system.

Our proposal re-imagines the iconic British hedgerow as a flexible, nationwide ecological-infrastructure regime. Deployed as a continuous, horizontally-thickened hedge complex (green lanes) in the right-of-ways and easements of existing and future electricity grid corridors, National HEDGE represents an integrated, progressive reinterpretation of a culturally significant system of territorialization capable of supporting substantial ecological expansion as well as offering a contemporary and iconic image of infrastructural integration into the landscape of the UK.

The intent of this approach is two-fold. The first objective is to integrate the electricity grid into the varied landscapes of the UK, not through formal exuberance or aesthetic mitigation, but through the compositing of seemingly oppositional landscape systems to create new, hybrid forms of urbanization. The second aspect is the reestablishment of a nationwide ecological regime that stitches together and reconnects the fragmented, eroding natural habitats of the UK countryside by linking established infrastructure easements and right of ways to the country’s most significant areas of natural preserve — the UK’s 15 National Parks.

Ultimately, the benefits of a hedgerow network of this scale are both significant and numerous. They include: cultural heritage; landscape character and texture; control and maintenance of the grid corridor; employment generation through required management and maintenance; continuous source of biomass; carbon and greenhouse gas sequestration; wildlife habitat and refuge; soil and water management; support of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan; and the creation of an iconic, integrated urban landscape system that can stand the test of time much like the electricity pylon itself.