Landscape

Landscape & Gardens

Vibrant streetscape and a front garden for our residents and our neighbours

Site-wide landscape strategy: a refuge for the community, shelter for local wildlife

Landscape aims: Create a vibrant hub for residents, local charities, community users and office tenants. A social, inclusive oasis between Blackfriars Road, the Viaduct and the Rochester Estate

Challenge: Deliver on-site amenities (Southwark Charities) and wider public benefits (community and environment)

Creating a welcoming place for all: a gradual shift between private and public access, from the hub to the street, that benefits the whole community

Landscape approach integrates: physical and mental wellbeing; inside-outside connections; layering of uses in each space; ecological value (positive biodiversity impact/sustainable drainage)

Tenter hooks and gardens: A landscape rooted in history, cultivating the future

The angled form and pinning function of the tenter hook is given contemporary expression in the landscape as hedges that frame ‘fields’

The site’s historical physic, kitchen and market gardens find expression on the ground floor garden and the roof terraces.

Perennial planting and paving patterns evoke the ‘warp’ and ‘weft’ of the stretched cloth.

Planting strategy: seasonal variation for biodiversity and well-being