Parks
THE PUBLIC REALM IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE ARCHITECTURE
being developed by Lendlease in partnership with Southwark Council. She says: “For us, the public realm is just as important as the architecture and quality of the buildings. We have a very focused team looking at the local landscaping surrounding existing communities, and a really important part of that was keeping the mature trees that were part of the old Heygate Estate. We have just over 100 mature trees, and have planted 900 off-site around the borough.” “New open spaces are integral to any type of large-scale regeneration and development,” adds McKenzie. “At Elephant and Castle, because it has undergone a lot of change, a new park has been built, but there has also been significant investment in improving existing parks around that area.” Lansdown says teams and designers were briefed on incorporating health and wellbeing – just over 50% of Lendlease’s masterplan for the scheme is public space. “We looked at how we can make them more engaging,” she says. “For instance, we have deep street frontages, which have a lot of play spaces where children can hop on logs. We have implemented mental health first-aider briefings to create a better experience for the local community that will encourage interaction.” This can be as simple as making park benches face each other rather than side-byside, says Lansdown. And within Trafalgar Place, part of Elephant Park, there is the ‘Grow Garden’, a natural orchard and vegetable garden. “It started up a gardening club between the residents that moved in. The idea was to create a place where people can chat and talk to each other,” Lansdown says. Elephant Park opened in August 2017 and has a performance area, with music and film events held in and around it. In January, it was announced that Mercato Metropolitano food market will be opening in the autumn. As for the future of Southwark’s parks and open spaces, while there will undoubtedly be changes to the uses, the equipment and the play areas, McKenzie says: “You don’t southwarkmagazine.com
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want to interfere with nature too much. There’s definitely a desire to ensure we have appropriate spaces, but we also want to create areas that are natural, ecological and habitatcreating areas that add to the biodiversity of the borough. “That means striking a balance between facilities for activities, and landscape.” For now, it appears the balance is being struck.
THIS PAGE: Bankside Open Spaces Trust look after a number of Southwark parks (left); Burgess Park (above) is 150 years old.
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