New London Architecture (NLA) and Southwark Council have named landscape architect and circular economy specialist Local Works Studio and Southwark-based design and architecture collective Assemble as the winners of their Revive Bramcote Park design competition
New London Architecture (NLA) and Southwark Council have revealed the winning entry to the Revive Bramcote Park design competition.
With their proposal ‘A Park Made in Bermondsey’, Local Works Studio and Assemble beat five other shortlisted teams. They will now begin work with Assemble Play and Webb Yates to develop a creative masterplan that prioritises community input, turning a disjointed public park in South Bermondsey into a valuable and welcoming community green space. The team will aim to learn from and work with residents, children, manufacturers, trades, and community leaders to evolve the design further, with the final scheme being delivered in late 2022.
The winning concept features a park of two halves: a public square to the north of Verney Road, and a forest garden to the South.
The forest garden will comprise historic green space to the south of Verney Road, cultivated with open spaces to convey the feeling of a woodland edge or meadow glade. The project team will enrich existing planting with edible and characterful plants from around the world. The diversity in structure and species will enhance habitats for wildlife, and there will be space for future volunteer community gardens to add to the simple structure, cultivate, harvest and care for parts of the garden.
The project team will enhance the open character of the space to the north of Verney Road to create an elegant neighbourhood square, flexible enough to accommodate the changing needs of people in the park. The square will be a welcoming space, with a flexible play area that on special occasions can transform to accommodate community events. A green buffer of low-maintenance planting and grass, dotted with play features, will surround the hard ground. Trees and seating will line the wide pavement surrounding the square.
Comment: Loretta Bosence, Local Works Studio
‘We’re really excited to be collaborating with such diverse, knowledgeable, and creative practices. The team shares so many values around reducing wasteful construction practices, spatial equality, the power of hands-on making to stimulate good design, and the meaningful participation for young people and children in the creation of a public park. We feel that our collective experience will be greater than the sum of its parts and will lead to a richer outcome.
‘Local Works Studio’s role in the wider team is to lead on landscape and planting design, as well as develop a material reuse strategy for the project. We hope to make the most of planting and landscape features to provide low-carbon, economical solutions for the park, as well as making the most of their inherent play value.
‘Local Works Studio take a very holistic and hands-on approach to landscape design. We try to apply circular economy principles and processes to everything we do and our designs aim to make the most of all that already exists in a site. We love working with communities and local networks to realise well-designed, low-carbon public realm and landscape projects that also prioritise human relationships.’
The project team will take a circular economy approach to the design and delivery of Bramcote Park, prioritising methods and materials with the most positive environmental impact. Through inventive, playful reuse, the team will retain as much material on site as possible during and after the refurbishment, considering the whole life of materials to minimise transport and waste.
Laura Schofield, Membership Development Manager at the Landscape Institute and a chartered landscape architect, was on the judging panel.
‘What stood out for me was the winning team’s combination of a creative and community-centric approach, alongside technical and professional skills including art, play, landscape, and engineering,’ said Laura.
‘In their initial concept, they recognised the multi-functional value of green spaces such as sustainable drainage systems, providing biodiversity and play opportunities.
‘The team also demonstrated they’d thought about the project beyond the design and construction stages towards longer-term management, including community involvement.’
Other shortlisted projects
Each of the other five shortlisted teams also included landscape architects. Judges were unanimous in putting through teams with landscape expertise, demonstrating the value, knowledge, and skills our members and practices bring to multi-disciplinary projects.
The shortlisted teams were:
- Bamidele, Farouk & Livia with Spacehub
- John Puttick Associates with BBUK and Heather Burrell
- Ludwig Willis Architects with Jonathan Cook Landscape Architects
- Esther Calinawan & Poku-Davies Studio, Okra with Build Up, Hortus Collective and Op.x
- Sanchez Benton Architects with Gabriel Kuri and Nigel Dunnet
