During focus week I visited Northala Fields to see whether the Form Associates award winning design in the over 5ha category is really successful as a park in its own right for the community of Ealing, or is it just landfill in disguise?  I have to admit I was pleasantly suprised.  It was probably one of the coldest days of the year with strong winds and so the 4 large mounds were really put to the test and succeeded in providing shelter from the noise of the A40.  They are really impressive upon arrival and do manage to help ground the park in its location in such close proximity to a major dual carriageway.  It is not difficult to imagine how a park here that had to do  without such an iconic feature of land art would simply be lost in the landscape with the A40 taking centre-stage.  Instead the opportunity to use waste from projects such as Wembley Stadium, WHite City and Heathrow has created not only a new landmark, but a multi-functional park.  Beyond the 4 mounds are a lake with fishing paltforms, full of wild birds, a meandering stream, a natural playground and large meadows flanked by freshly planted woodland groves.  And even on such a cold winter's day the park was being well used by joggers ascending the spirals to the summit of the mounds, teenagers bypassing the spiral ascent and instead climbing the waist height gabions to the top, and parents playing with children both in the built for purpose playgrounds and in the fields themselves.  I can't wait to see it when it has matured in a few years time and the fields of Northala have settled in their new home.

SHARED USE ROADS: THE FUTURE?

A proposal for a £25 million shared use- pedestrian and car scheme at Exhibition Road in Kensington has been met with stiff opposition from the National Federation for the Blind, Campaign for the Guide Dogs for the Blind and West London Residents Association adding to the debate as to whether pedestrians and cars can really coexist on our roads.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8049365.stm

The proposal has been designed by DIXON JONES, responsible for renovations to Somerset House.

Other Shared Use Schemes already in place can be found at New Road in Brighton

and at Holbein Place, Sloane Square as part of the save Sloane Square Proposal by Atkins Architects.

For more information on shared use spaces go to:

http://www.shared-space.org/

BERLIN SPREE: more info

For more info on the changing River Spree waterfront see the link list to the left: 

BERLIN SPREE: more info

Berlin: SPREE 2011

When arriving at Berlin through the exits of its brand new HAUPTBAHNHOF designed by von Gerkan, Marg and Partner I was greeted by the beginnings of a wonderful riverside development along the River Spree. Gardens, beach bars, deckchairs, double beds are all features of the chill-out lifestyle that can be found on the waterfront.  

Other destinations on the river also include the Strandbar Mitte- Berlin's first 'coastal' bar with urban pseudo-beach.

and the Badeschiffe, award winning floating swimming pool on the Spree which turns into a covered sauna in winter. Designed by Gil Wilk architects, it won the IULA 2007, International Urban Landscape Award, „Lobende Erwähnung“, Winterbadeschiff (Wilk-Salinas Architekten mit Thomas Freiwald)

 

However, although the banks of the river have been transformed since the reunification of Berlin from its working heritage to a vibrant, modern and some would say gentrified waterfront for 21st Century Berliners, the river itself has remained a polluted sewage outlet for its turn of the 19th century drains.

Enter Ralf Steeg, landscape architect and engineer who has been working on project SPREE: 2011 with the aim of creating an ecologically sound river suitable  for swimming in, worthy of a major European capital city that Berlin could be proud of and that would improve the people's standard of living .  

'He plans to erect large overflow tanks in the form of floating pontoons at various points along a four-kilometer stretch of the Spree, thus preventing human waste from overflowing into the river and giving the water a chance to regain its natural balance.' 

THE PONTOON

THE BATHING PLATFORM

OPEN-AIR CINEMA

Potters Fields Park

A question of Biodiversity?

This is a great diagram by Michael Hough, taken from his book Cities and Natural Processes,  showing how design decisions made without ecological awareness affect the biodiversity of the landscape:

The book, contains very interesting insight into how our cities are dependant on natural processes and answers many questions including why biodiversity is so important:

Some of my proposal images for the Wey and Arun Canal- Tanyard Basin

Visualisation for Tanyard basin canalside wetlands:

Proposed section showing canal and adjacent existing river connected by wetland flood plains with boardwalk connecting areas and providing boundary to canal edges: