Subaru UK & Ireland will take a bold step into the world of sustainable garden design this July with the debut of ‘The Subaru Cocoon’ at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2025, the world’s largest annual flower show. Running from 1st to 6th July, the six-day event is expected to draw over 140,000 visitors to the historic grounds of Hampton Court Palace — and Subaru’s latest initiative is set to be a standout.
Designed by Mike McMahon Studio, winners of the RHS Chelsea Gold Medal in 2024, the garden is a powerful tribute to one of the UK and Ireland’s most overlooked ecological treasures: temperate rainforests. Once blanketing 20% of the British Isles, these ancient habitats have been reduced to a fragile 1%, placing them among the most critically endangered ecosystems in the region.
A Sanctuary Rooted in Ecological Memory
‘The Subaru Cocoon’ reimagines the traditional walled garden as a sculptural, sensory refuge, using sustainable design to raise awareness of these disappearing woodlands. Enclosed by a striking circular Jali wall — a nod to co-designer Jewlsy Mathews’ South Indian heritage — the garden frames its native planting in dramatic light and shadow. This perforated architectural screen isn’t just decorative; crafted from 4,500 Kenoteq K-Briqs made of over 95% recycled construction waste, it doubles as an oversized insect hotel, offering vital microhabitats for native species.
By using these innovative bricks, the garden diverts 9.45 tonnes of waste from landfill and saves 1,972 kg of CO₂ emissions — roughly the amount absorbed by 80 mature trees in a year. These figures underscore the deep environmental considerations behind every design choice, echoing Subaru’s broader commitment to low-impact innovation.
A Landscape of Reflection and Regeneration
Visitors will enter the garden across a reflective water threshold, a symbolic cleansing into a world where form and function blend seamlessly. Cantilevered tree trunks, planted with native epiphytes, appear to hover mid-air above the walls — an arresting representation of the “chop-and-drop” cycle found in natural forest regeneration. These details are paired with a planting palette made up entirely of native species from the UK and Ireland, including thirteen species of fern, Silver Birch, and Scots Pine. The layered structure mimics the vertical complexity of real temperate rainforests, designed to immerse and educate in equal measure.
Shared Values: Sustainability and Stewardship
Lorraine Bishton, Managing Director at Subaru UK & Ireland, comments:
“The Subaru Cocoon garden at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival supports our commitments to safety and sustainability, whilst showcasing this beautiful, but threatened native habitat.
We know our customers have a deep connection to nature and are engaged with initiatives that raise awareness of environmental responsibility. We are delighted that following the show, the garden will provide a legacy supporting the inspirational charity Horatio’s Garden.”
Indeed, the alignment between the brand and the garden is no coincidence. The Cocoon mirrors Subaru’s ethos of responsible exploration, as embodied by the brand’s first electric vehicle — the all-wheel-drive, zero-tailpipe emission Subaru Solterra. Just as the Solterra invites drivers to tread more lightly across landscapes, the Cocoon urges visitors to pause, reflect, and protect the environments we too often overlook.
A Living Legacy
This installation also marks a first for Hampton Court Palace: never before has a garden at the festival tackled the subject of the UK and Ireland’s temperate rainforests with such poetic and structural ambition. As lead designer Mike McMahon explains:
“This landscape is ecologically rich and tragically overlooked — something we wanted to highlight through every layer of the garden. The Jali wall invites you to look through and around, like glimpsing between trees. We’ve designed it to be reusable, relocatable, and low-impact. Sustainability isn’t an add-on. It’s embedded from the ground up.”
After the festival, the garden will be repurposed by Horatio’s Garden, a charity that creates accessible sanctuaries in NHS spinal injury centres across the UK. This ensures that the Cocoon will not only live on — but continue to bring moments of calm, restoration, and nature connection to those who need it most.
In a world of fleeting spectacle, The Subaru Cocoon dares to be enduring — a living reminder of what we still have left to protect, and how beautiful sustainability can be when rooted in meaning.
