Fletcher Priest's design for a mushroom farm under Oxford Street won the High Line for London ideas competition.

The farm would occupy the disused 'mail rail' tunnels which were previously used to deliver post to the major stores in the street. The judging panel, which included Joshua David and Robert Hammond, co-founders of New York’s High Line, Dr Penelope Curtis, Director of Tate Britain, Mark Brearley, Head of Design for London, and leading landscape architects Kim Wilkie and Jo Gibbons were so impressed by the quality of shortlisted ideas that they not only selected a runner-up but nominated three highly commended designs. The winner, runner up and highly commended schemes were submitted by a mixture of architects, landscape architects and interior architects, an indication of the wide appeal of the competition. 

The runner up was The Lido Line by [Y/N] Studio, an idea to insert a clean, safe ‘basin’ in the Regent’s Canal which would allow people to swim the ‘Lido Line’ from Little Venice to Limehouse.

The highly commended projects were:

* Bridge-It by HTA - an idea to unlock inaccessible transport corridors around the existing transport network – green linear parks built over, under and beside railway lines, opening up cycling and walking networks.

* Barge Walk by Erika Richmond and Peggy Pei-Chi Chi - a design to re-connect people with water via the creation of a linear park, farm and wetland on floating barges at the edge of Canary Wharf.

* Bus Roots by Wynne James - an idea to make use of the many empty roof spaces of bus shelters to create raised gardens with sparrow colonies, insect hotels and miniature wildflower meadows. Each bus shelter garden would be looked after by its local community, school or street.

The schemes were selected from a shortlist of 20, all of which are on display at the Garden Museum in London until 20 October. You can also see the shortlist on the website.

The judges said, 'The winner and runner-up have this strong linear nature connecting neighbourhoods and the city. Whether or not they are ever realised they help people to see the city in a different light.'

The winners were announced at the LI's Green Infrastructure day, which formed part of the High Line Symposium.