Future Forest

​Future Forest is a one-day multidisciplinary event set within the 140 hectare working woodland at Hooke Park, the Architectural Association’s rural campus in Dorset. Bringing together voices from forestry, ecology, art and architecture, the day explores how creative and scientific practices can co-evolve in the age of climate emergency.

The morning grounds us in the technical and ecological — with talks from forestry and silviculture experts. This is centred around the future of forestry and the AA Wood Lab’s 100 Year Forest Project - a framework for the long-term management of the working forest at Hooke Park. In the afternoon, the conversation expands to explore how artistic and speculative practices can shape our understanding of environmental and ecological futures.

Please note that this event takes place in Hooke Park, the AA’s Forest Campus in Dorset. There are four ticket types available, please read the options carefully before booking your ticket here.

Ticket options:

Shuttle bus, with lunch – £7

• This ticket option reserves you a seat on both shuttle buses from Dorchester South train station to Hooke Park. This ticket includes a lunch at Hooke Park.
• You will need to book the train yourself arriving into Dorchester South. If travelling from London, please book the 08:05am train from London Waterloo to Dorchester South, which arrives at 10:51am, and for your return journey, book the 18:31pm train from Dorchester South, which gets into Waterloo at 21:29pm.

Shuttle bus, no lunch - Free

• This ticket option reserves you a seat on both shuttle buses from Dorchester South train station to Hooke Park. This ticket does not include lunch. Please bring a packed lunch as there is no option to buy food once you arrive at Hooke Park, unless you book the £7 ticket option in advance.
• You will need to book the train yourself arriving into Dorchester South. If travelling from London, please book the 08:05am train from London Waterloo to Dorchester South, which arrives at 10:51am, and for your return journey, book the 18:31pm train from Dorchester South, which gets into Waterloo at 21:29pm.

No shuttle bus, with lunch – £7

• This ticket includes a lunch at Hooke Park. This ticket option includes no travel. You are required to make your own way to Hooke Park.

No shuttle bus, no lunch – Free

• This ticket option includes no travel. You are required to make your own way to Hooke Park. No lunch is included in this ticket option. Please bring a packed lunch as there is no option to buy food once you arrive at Hooke Park, unless you book the £7 ticket in advance.

SCHEDULE

11.30am – Session 1: The Foresters
- Jez Ralph (Evolving Forests/AA Wood Lab Fellow) (Chair)
- Cat Byrne (AA Wood Lab Fellow)
- Paul Orsi (Sylva Foundation)
- Dr. Harry Watkins (Plant Ecologist, St Andrews Botanical Gardens)
- Alex Malkin (Head Forester, Norbury Park)
- Nick Hoare (Stourhead Western)

Lunch (pre-booked)

2.30 – Book Launch: Seeding Change: Visionary Timber Architecture at Hooke Park 1981-2001
John Makepeace and Anna Lisa Reynolds

2.45 pm – Session 2: The Artists
- Kate Davies (Head of Hooke Park/Unknown Fields) - Chair
- Hazel Stone (National Curator of Contemporary Art at Forestry England)
- Hamish Low and Mauro Dell'Orco (Fenland Black Oak Project)
- Chrystel Lebas (Photographer)
- James Bulley (Composer and sound artist)
- Barney Steel (Marshmallow Laser Feast)

The event will be chaired by Kate Davies (Head of Hooke Park) & Jeremy Ralph (AA Wood Lab Fellow)

The Wood Lab forest research is made possible thanks to the generous support of John Makepeace, who founded the Hooke Park campus as Director of the Parnham Trust.

SPEAKERS

James Bulley is an internationally acclaimed artist, composer and sound designer based in London, United Kingdom. His award-winning practice operates across areas including contemporary and electronic music, installation art, public art, immersive sound, exhibition sound design, curation, and film soundtrack.

Kate Davies is the Head of Hooke Park, the AA’s woodland campus in Dorset, where she co-directs the Design & Make Postgraduate Architecture Programme and AA Wood Lab. She has taught at the AA for more than 15 years and is co-founder of the nomadic studio Unknown Fields, known for its multidisciplinary work and expeditions exploring the landscapes of global supply chains.

Nick Hoare runs Stourhead Western estate, famed for the quality of its timber and forward looking approaches to silviculture. Nick is an engineer who started his career designing aircraft engines for Rolls Royce and brings that engineering focus to the estate's forestry. Of particular interest is their multi-generational approach to growing quality timber and pioneering use of complex, resilient forestry systems.

Chrystel Lebas is a London-based photographer. A graduate from the Royal College of Art (1997). Her interest is in looking at how landscapes carry psychological significance and reveal concealed histories. Her work has been exhibited widely and is part of several private and public collections. In 2018 she has won the renowned Kraszna-Krausz Book Award for Field Studies: Walking through Landscapes and Archives. For her most recent series, ‘Regarding Forests’ (Wellcome Collection), Chrystel Lebas journeyed to the Olympic National Park’s Hoh rain forest in Washington State, USA, in search of the elusive ‘one square inch of silence’, a place free of human-made noise and she travelled to the southern Japanese island of Yakushima known for its dense Forest of Japanese cedar trees known as ‘Yakusugi’.

Alex Malkin is Head Forester at Norbury Park. Norbury has been pioneering in the last few years under the leadership of Jo Bradwell and Alex. In particular in investigating the potential of new forest species and innovative management practices with the aim of optimising tree growth and carbon storage.

Hamish Low and Mauro Dell'Orco will be discussing the Fenland Black Oak Project. Now in residency at Lichfield Cathedral, a spectacular 13 metre long ‘Table for the Nation’ was created from a section of the nation’s most significant tree, a gigantic 5000 year old Fenland Black Oak, discovered beautifully preserved in peat on a farm in the Wissington Fens of south-west Norfolk in 2012. Hamish Low is an Expert on the preservation of Black Oak, he is the founder and project leader for the Fenland Black Oak Project. Mauro Dell’Orco is an award winning furniture maker and architect, and lead designer on the Project.

Paul Orsi is a Chartered Forester and Director of Operations at Sylva Foundation. Before Sylva, Paul managed Blenheim Palace, a rural estate of 5,500ha, which included 700ha of woodland. Paul’s professional experience encompasses forestry, farming, conservation, and rural enterprise. With Sylva Paul has developed digital mapping technologies and supply-chains that create efficiencies needed for more ecologically resilient silviculture.

Jez Ralph is an AA Wood Lab Forest research fellow. He has been working in forestry and timber for over twenty years. He founded Evolving Forests to use his specialist knowledge of timber growing & timber properties to create modern bio-based solutions for the built environment. Evolving Forests is now involved in creating direct connections between live builds and local materials as well media creation to build a deeper cultural connection with our forests and trees.

Barnaby Steel is an artist and creative director of London-based experiential art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast. Barnaby's art practice centres on the senses; enticing audiences into states of expanded perception, a space where the boundaries between bodies blur. His work is deeply rooted in scientific observation as a window that allows us to look through and beyond our own experience, to understand the complexities of things hidden from the naked eye. His work steps outside the human-centred worldview, exploring the threads that weave us into relationship with the more than human world.

Hazel Stone is an award-winning curator with over 15 years of experience in the arts sector and is the National Curator of Contemporary Art at Forestry England. Her work explores the relationship between contemporary art, science, and the natural world, engaging with pressing themes such as climate change, biodiversity, inclusion, and well-being. Hazel has led major site-specific commissions, exhibitions, and talent development initiatives across the UK and internationally. Awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2025, she continues to champion artistic practices that foster meaningful dialogue between artists, audiences, and the environment, shaping a more connected and sustainable future.

Harry Watkins is a plant ecologist whose principle interest is the behaviour of plants in novel ecosystems; to this end, his research focuses on designed ecologies, plant biosecurity, and planning trans-situ conservation. Harry is Director of St Andrews Botanic Garden, with a PhD from the University of Sheffield (School of Landscape Architecture) and has been talking to us at Hooke park about future forestry based on climate matching for species selection.

Image: Marshmallow Laser Feast

Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these by emailing publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk