London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) Senior Landscape Design Manager, Pippa Henshall CMLI, introduces innovative new framework to ensure the delivery of high quality design, inclusive growth and community wellbeing, sustainable development and inclusion and diversity.
In October, London Legacy Development Corporation launched a new Landscape and Public Realm Framework for the procurement of consultants for small-scale landscape-led research and design projects. Teams selected will have the opportunity to work on a range of projects with the mayoral development corporation, which is responsible for the planning and regeneration of the 225ha Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and surrounding areas in east London. The framework is open to the wider GLA group, including Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) and GLA Land and Property (GLAP), as well as the London boroughs that we work in partnership with.
The framework is divided into two lots: the first covering strategy, research and studies focusing on existing public spaces, parkland and streets within Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park estate; the second covering landscape and public realm design including curated engagement such as co-design and workshop activities. Selected for the first lot were 5th Studio, Erect Architecture, LDA Design, Tapestry and We Made That. Meanwhile, Arkwood, Grant Associates, HTA, Land Use Consultants, LDA Design, McGregor Coxall and Periscope have been selected for the second lot. The landscape-led multidisciplinary teams will work alongside the LLDC to create more ‘inclusive, innovative, inspiring, resilient and sustainable public open spaces and neighbourhoods’ across the former Olympic site and surrounding areas.
Gabrielle Weiss, Senior Landscape Design Manager at LLDC, said “we are excited to work with these great landscape architecture practices, many of which are based in the local boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest and are micro, small or medium size, on continuing the Olympic legacy of creating high quality public realm.”
The framework will run for four years and has a maximum spend of £2 million. Projects are expected to be worth less than £50,000 and awarded on a ‘taxi-rank system’, however occasional projects valued above £50,000 will be awarded through mini-competition. The framework is designed to complement the GLA-wide Architecture and Urbanism framework, which covers larger-scale built environment projects.
The landscape-led practices will deliver projects using the Park’s design policies and guidance documents such as the Park Design Guide, Green Infrastructure Guide, Inclusive Design Standards, and Creating Places that work for Women and Girls Handbook. An event hosted by LLDC at the beginning of October with the selected practices and other invited built environment professionals launched both the framework and the updated Park Design Guide which has been reviewed to include our net zero commitments and the new Mayoral Development Corporation area.
The Park Design Guide sets out how LLDC expects good design, climate resilience and biodiversity to be sustained across the parkland and wider Park estate. It includes guidance to inform design decisions as well establishing place making principles and sets out standards as part of the ongoing management of the Park. The document forms a compliance document for works on the Park and within the parklands and is a requirement for our development partners, as well as a reference document for development within the periphery of the estate. As the last version was published in 2018 and LLDC’s former planning powers have now been returned to the four growth boroughs, a review was required.
The guide has been updated both to reflect current national and London policy including the Environment Act 2021 and the London Plan 2021 as well as our own emerging guidance. The policy requirements for biodiversity net gain and urban greening are supported by our commitment to maximise green infrastructure within the Park and the estate as set out in the guide and our Green Infrastructure Guide. Best practice in the planning, design and management of our parklands and open space is also defined with references to our own recently published Creating Places that Work for Women and Girls Handbook, and the Design Quality Policy and Inclusive Design Standards which are both currently being reviewed and updated.
We are committed to the Mayor’s response to the Climate Emergency and our approach to achieving our sustainability vision is set out in our Climate Action Strategy. The updated Park Design Guide seeks to align with the strategy and includes requirement for the role of public realm in carbon assessment to be considered. LLDC commissioned Planit to carry out a carbon assessment of key surfacing and street furniture elements that are used extensively within the Park. This assessment, along with a checklist for design teams to consider climate resilience at each RIBA work stage, have been included within the guide. Whilst there are a number of additional considerations including below ground infrastructure and build-ups, the carbon assessment is a starting point and seeks to enable an informed choice when specifying materials, enabling a low-carbon approach to be taken to the design and maintenance of future areas. Planit prepared a separate report as part of the research carried out to inform the Park Design Guide update, Climate Emergency Design Guidance, an important thought leadership piece to help practitioners chart a course towards climate positive landscapes.
Pippa Henshall, Senior Landscape Design Manager at LLDC, said: “Planit’s work to help inform the update to the Park Design Guide in light of the climate emergency and the standalone Climate Emergency Design Guidance will allow LLDC to better understand the embodied carbon in 10 of the most specified materials and products in the Park, including surfacing and street furniture. It will also help development teams within the Estate to make informed choices in relation to carbon building on the legacy of sustainable development delivered to date within the LLDC area.”
The Park Design Guide and other guidance documents are intended to help guide the landscape-led teams on the framework to maintain and reinforce QEOP’s role as an exemplar, future ready Park through considered design process and delivery of landscape and public realm. LLDC is proud of its working relationships with professionals at the top of their field and is grateful to 5th Studio, JL Gibbons, LDA and LUC for their ‘critical friend’ review of the latest Park Design Guide prior to publishing. The framework will help facilitate new relationships with the selected practices and we look forward to working with them.
Upcoming projects expected to be procured through the framework include enhancements to overall connectivity with active transport links, sustainable drainage and green infrastructure, and interventions to better connect the Park both physically and culturally with communities to the south.
