AT Awards Infrastructure and landscape Winner: Thames Barrier Park by Patel Taylor and Allain Provost

Andrew Taylor from Patel Taylor and awards judges Peter Bishop, David Partridge, Nana Biamah-Ofosu, Hanif Kara and Simon Allford discuss the key drivers behind Thames Barrier Park and the potential for visionary public realm project to act as a catalyst for regeneration. Photographer Timothy Soar captures the project as it is today.

Completed
2000
Photos
Timothy Soar

Thames Barrier Park transformed a derelict brownfield site into an inviting public space, including picnic and play areas, a basketball court, visitor pavilion, coffee shop, and 32 fountains. A 40-metre-long sunken garden or ‘Green Dock’ runs diagonally through the park, providing a wind-protected microclimate for a range of plants and wildlife. Planting has been chosen to display variety throughout the year and to create a welcoming habitat for insects and birds.

The project has been a catalyst for the regeneration of the surrounding area. Shortly after its completion, a neighbouring plot was sold to Barratt Homes who built one of the fastest-selling new housing developments in London at the time. Others followed, bringing more affordable housing, a primary school and new retail units to the area. Two decades after its opening, the park is buzzing and full of life.

A deck and canopy create a meeting point and resting place with views of the Thames Barrier and the river.

Peter Bishop This is an extraordinary project that has stood the test of time. Designed in the 1990s it is still one of London’s most exciting pieces of landscape. It is also a rare example of the power of landscape to mould the city around it. Upon completion, it largely stood on its own, but subsequently the sites around it have been developed and have formed a neighbourhood. The simplicity of the design is beguiling. Actually, it is a wonderfully complex composition with the central diagonal sunken garden providing a rich sheltered space that contrasts with the openness of the rest of the park in the way that a walled garden might sit next to open parkland. Over the 23 years since its completion the landscape has matured yet the original design concept still holds. This is an exemplar that we should still be learning from.

David Partridge The space has acted as an amazing catalyst for a whole area, which has subsequently sprung up around this bold initiative – and it is still a great place to visit in its own right.

The decision to cut a sunken ‘green dock’ through the park created an interplay of two distinct levels.

Andrew Taylor, architect We felt that the park should be about creating and setting the scene for a piece of the city. We looked at Bloomsbury and the strong geometric forms of Bloomsbury Square and Russell Square. Or if you look at Cambridge, what’s fantastic is that a lot of the colleges have been there since the 15^th century. The fabric has been built, but what holds it together are the courtyards and squares and quadrangles. Those spaces never change. That’s why the very strong form of Thames Barrier Park is really powerful. Over the last 23 years it has allowed for the fabric of the city to be built around it, but still retains that very strong sense of place. To me that’s very important. It’s not a piece of landscape, it’s an enduring piece of the city.

Simon Allford Thames Barrier Park has matured beautifully; its rich geometric plays have been softened and enhanced by the growth of the rich vegetation, while the well-detailed furniture of everyday life – surfaces, benches, paths and lighting – are enriched by the patina acquired through intense but sympathetic use. Most importantly the park, once a fledgling oasis in a sea of hardcore, has helped bring forward and define a better standard of urban design and dwelling around it. A great example of the axiom ‘build it and they will come’ and in this case one can add they will build better too!

View looking north east from the riverside canopy. The park has acted as a catalyst for residential development on its eastern, northern and western edges.

Hanif Kara The most refreshing and convincing aspect of this project is it needed an imagination that surpasses what most of us are used to in order, not only to conceive a unique design, but more importantly to spend so many years holding on to the key principles that would only become evident over time. I applaud all concerned, as often ‘design’ is value engineered out in many infrastructure-scale projects.

Nana Biamah-Ofosu In 100 years time, what will this project become? For me, the fact that it might just be a very good park for the city is its success. This project has stood the test of time because it is radical and simple – it is an act of city making, of making good public spaces and understanding the role of landscape at an infrastructural scale.