Project team:
Andrew Burns, Thomas Gray, Alan Powell
Landscape Designer: Sarah Eberle
Contractor: Conways
Planting Installation: Sarah Eberle, St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots, Cityscapes
Tags: Built, Masterplanning, Urban Setting
Location: London, UK
Year: 2013
Client: The Architecture Foundation, London, Southwark Council, Team London Bridge, Cityscapes
Supporters: CPM, Farebrother, MACE, NSW Architects' Registration Board, The Peter De Haan Charitable Trust
Architecture AND have converted a network of laneways in Central London into a unique urban park. The proposal overlaid a ‘harlequin’ geometry on the site, narrowing and widening to create complex perceptions of space. A garden bed was delineated by hot melt road marking paint applied to the low cost asphalt base, creating a zone for placement of pots, placed by the local community. A series of key marker pots in concrete pipes initiated the garden, with planting selection by Chelsea gold-medalist garden designer Sarah Eberle.
More a framework for participation than a landscape design, the proposal utilized a strategic ‘incompleteness’ to enable a sense of ownership by the local community. The garden is now an established place of solace and cherished by the local community.
Plan diagram.
Central axis. Photography copyright Max Creasy
Garden beds implied by pavement paint. Photography copyright Max Creasy.