London Day Out - Some London Landscape Architecture

Our first site visit was on the 25.09.08 to Central London. Our visit started of from 11:00am at Tower Hill Underground Station, at ended at The Thames Barrier Park. Within our journey from the Tower Hill Underground Station to Thames Barrier Park.

The aim of this sight seen day in central London was to show us different kinds of landscape designs that around, from a very simple landscape design to an artistic, creative landscape design. We visited couple of Landscape projects in all different scales and shapes within our route in Central London.

www.grossmax.com
www.townshendla.com
http://www.architectureweek.com/2002/0529/design_1-1.html

Above is links to two Landscape Architecture Companies, where within our route we saw design projects these two firms have produced, and a link to a review on Thames Barrier Park on Architecture Week.com

The walk around London I enjoyed a lot even dough after 2-3hours of walking around made me so exhausted. But the experience of seen couple of Landscape projects all set with different brief based around different locations in London made me have a better insight of Landscape Architecture itself and the different ways it's been approached by different Landscape Architects.

Thames Barrier Park

Location: East London - Newham

Project Team: Alain Provost (Groupe Signes Landscape Architecture) Patel and Andrew Taylor Architects, Arup Engineers, Tweed Quantity Surveyors and May Gurney Constructors Ltd.

Year Started and Completed: 1995 - 2000

Thames Barrier Park is located in the borough of Newham of Silver Town of East London, on the north bank overlooking the River Thames and the awe-inspiring architecture of the Thames Flood Barrier.
The designer of the Thames Barrier Park is Alain Provost (Landscape architect of Groupe Signes) a French Landscape Architect. An international competition was held in 1995 to re-design the industrial site, which had chemical works, dye works and had a weapons factory which resulted in a large amount of pollution around the environment, Selecting designers around the world to design for the landscaping, structures and the facilities Alain Provost won the competition to design the the 14 hectares landscape with the cost of £12.5million.

One of the main objectives of the expenses was to provide a catalyst to increase the growth potential of the neighboring areas around the park. The design surely had a big effect around the area of the park, as at the western boundary of the park new housing developments overlooking the park had sold more than half of it flats before even construction was even completed. And its already starting to fill the LDDC's (London Docklands Development Corporation) brief as a catalytic.

Concept of Design

1. To create a special place of cultural significance with it's own identity.
2. To create a rich and inviting public space.
3. To create physical and visual links between the development at the docklands to the north and to the south towards the Thames and the Barrier.

The design Alain Provost approached to design Thames Barrier Park is bold, creative and simple, it's well designed with the larger amount of space he had to design. The riverside reflects to its cultural and historic surrounding around the area. It has a contemporary and a rich feel to it's multifunctional space, with each area having it's own character which responds to the site heritage and man-made topography. The strong geometry of the green dock of 400m long strip pf planting creats lines in the landscape visually and phsically connecting the park to the Royal Victoria Dock.