Urban Design

Commissions: Urban Design

Abbey Green Competition, Barking, London Borough of Barking & Dagenham
(For the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham & the Architects Journal)
 
The competition brief was to enhance the existing public open space in Barking town centre, which is currently an underused area. The site is of significant historical importance & houses Abbey ruins. Two primary schools & St Margaret’s Church are also located on Abbey Green. The main principles behind our proposal were to improve connectivity with the surrounding urban context, enhance routes through the site, introduce welcoming gateways into the space & create a distinct sense of place. This sense of place would be created through proposed additions such as an outdoor stage to host community or school events. A sculpture garden & community edible garden would encourage ownership of the site. Our entry was well received & was featured in a recent edition of the Architects Journal.
Tredegar Estate, Bow Church, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
(For Old Ford Housing Association & PRP Architects)
 
We worked as a landscape consultant on a team led by PRP Architects to finalise the urban design for this new residential estate in Tower Hamlets. Consistent design features were applied to the whole estate such as pedestrian friendly spaces & communal homezones. A new neighbourhood park with semi mature tree planting & a children’s play area is featured as the development’s centrepiece. Extensive consultation was carried out with local residents to check that the proposed designs were in line with community expectations. We produced the working drawings for the external works implementation & presentation drawings for the neighbourhood park. The scheme has now been successfully implemented.
Shirley Avenue Residential Development Windsor 
 
We were commissioned to provide landscape architecture and arboricultural services for this major residential development in the Shirley Avenue area of Windsor on behalf of Medina Investments Ltd working with local architects. The proposals will include five new blocks of apartments and six new houses and a neighbourhood park and play area. The proposal will dramatically improve the streetscape and will feature pedestrian friendly ‘homezones’ and extensive semi mature tree planting. The proposals are currently being evaluated by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. 
Reading Civic Centre Queens Walk Reading
 
We were commissioned by Reading Borough Council through WS Atkins to design a neighbourhood town park and bespoke railings for the former Reading Civic Centre site in Queens Walk. The Civic Centre is currently being demolished and new attractive railings set on a concrete plinth were required to replace former concrete buttresses. An attractive neighbourhood park will be implemented to our design once the demolition work is completed. The park will be accessible to the public and users of the adjacent Hexagon theatre and will be integrated into the full development of the site.
Moorbridge Road Development, Maidenhead, Berkshire
(For Housing Solutions Group/ Maidenhead District Housing Association)
 
We were commissioned to produce external works layouts for this development sited between Moorbridge & the A4 Bridge Road in Maidenhead. A scheme was required to satisfy strict conditions imposed by the Environment Agency to provide a scheme that is resistant to flooding threats. For example there needed to be a mixture of hard & panted surfaces on the ground floor so that potential flood waters could easily flow through openings in building’s ground floor. The design vocabulary for the external works needed to reflect the constraints such as flooding & the constrained narrow spaces between the buildings & public footpath. We proposed a green wall & semi mature trees with narrow crowns on the north & east elevations to soften the visual impact of the new building from the A4 which is the main east –west road through Maidenhead.
Woodley Shopping Centre, Woodley, Berkshire
(For Woodley Town Council)
 
We were asked to reappraise the shopping precinct in Woodley town centre near Reading on behalf of the town council & the town centre management initiative with the support of local businesses such as Waitrose.

We were invited to design an attractive & robust water feature to replace a brick planter in the centre of the shopping precinct following consultations with local residents & shop managers. We presented two options & the design shown below was preferred. This design incorporates a feature known as the ‘Ghandi Stone’ which includes an inscription attributed to Mahatma Ghandi & transverse water arches & bubble jets on a ‘pyramid’ of stone with the original brick planter faced with high quality limestone. The local Miles hawk aircraft heritage is also remembered in a plaque set in the feature.
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