RLD acted as landscape architects for the masterplanning of the Teesside International Nature Reserve and designed the first phase new waterbodies in the Haverton Hill area of Stockton. Working for the Teesside Development Corporation, the concept was to create extensive, shallow excavations, which would then be flooded by the manipulation of the wider area’s drainage pattern. The first phase – undertaken in 1992 – now has a European designation as a bird habitat that is higher than the UK SSSI.

In 2002 another tranche of landform and landscape design was carried out by the practice: this is to enable the shaping and reclamation of Haverton Hole and its adjacent chemical waste.