The Crit #33: Johanna Gibbons
Welcome to The Crit, Disegno’s fortnightly podcast that asks a leading designer to review their own career.
For those new to the show, each episode sees Disegno’s editor-in-chief Oli Stratford invites a guest to Kef Music Gallery to look back on their past projects. Our guest reveals what worked best; what failed; what pushed their career to new heights; what feedback most shaped their practice; and what they feel needs to be redesigned.
At the end of each episode, to complete their crit, they’ll be asked to give themselves a grade for their career to date: fail, pass, commendation or distinction.
It’s a design-school crit, delivered every fortnight! Subscribe to the show here, or sign up wherever you get your podcasts from.
Our thirty-third guest on The Crit is Johanna Gibbons, accompanied by show host Oli Stratford.
Episode #33: Johanna Gibbons
Johanna Gibbons is a landscape architect and founding partner of J&L Gibbons. As of 2025, she is also the new keeper of the Faculty of Royal Designers – the first landscape architect to hold the title.
Having launched J&L Gibbons in 1986, Gibbons built her reputation working across landscapes of all varieties – from gardens to highlands – exploring the capacity for designers to work within communities to promote biodiversity, protect ecologies and offer effective stewardship of the land. From museums to churches, community centres to canals, Gibbons’s work explores the entanglements of plant life and community empowerment.
In addition to her practice, Gibbons is also a design advocate for the Mayor of London, and a research partner at Kings College London, as well as the founding partner of of social enterprise Landscape Learn, which published her book Conversations on Urban Forestry in 2019.
During her crit, Gibbons talked about the challenges and importance of engaging local communities in landscapes, the conceptual move into the pluriverse, as well as the themes of landscape architecture from which other design disciplines might learn.
Show Notes: Johanna Gibbons
Best design: Dalston Eastern Curve Garden as part of Making Space in Dalston or Urban Nature Project, Natural History Museum
Worst design: Edward Square
Most successful design: Urban Nature Project, Natural History Museum
Most impactful feedback: A difficult community meeting as part of Making Space in Dalston
Dream design: An extentsion of her Schiehallion Seed to Tree Project
This episode of The Crit was recorded at KEF Music Gallery London.
The Crit’s graphics were created by Leonhard Rothmoser.
The Crit’s music was created by Yuri Suzuki and Team Suzuki.