How do you bring London’s 17th century pleasure gardens into the 21st century?

 
 

POWER TO THE PARK

‘Power to the Park’ was the 2016 winning entry of 200 for the UK Landscape Institute’s Paxton Award. The concept reinvents the pleasure gardens for the modern century; merging Vauxhall Park and Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens along a newly expanded urban spine with planned nightly activation, stages, biophilic artworks and innovation labs within the railway arches.

Paxton’s work was pioneering in its approach, from the first public park with land-value based funding models; to botanically inspired engineering, innovative technologies and collections of newly-discovered plant species. Inspired by Paxton’s forward-thinking and experimental character, we reinterpreted his approach in the contemporary context. Innovative and sustainable technologies not only power the park but become part of the spectacle with botanically-inspired forms such as the umbellifer canopies. Paxton’s pinetum is celebrated in the ‘Lunaretum’ – a dazzling, conifer enclosed, night-time spectacle and events space. The botanical theme is continued with a contemporary glasshouse, botanic garden and community farm and allotment space. The park embraces public, free to access for all philosophy whilst integrating private entities to fund and maintain the park in the long term.

The concept park reinvents the purpose and impetus of the public park by incorporating new technologies, creating self-generating income and introducing cutting edge science and innovation to inspire the public. The parks redefine and reinvigorate 21st century pleasure – bringing back the raucousness of Victorian pleasure gardens into modern fashion.

 

  • Competition winner

  • Landscape architecture

  • Urban Design

  • Biophilic artworks

Site

Vauxhall London

When

2016

Team

Whilst at HLM Catherine Simpson led the team for the Landscape Institute North West design ideas competition to rethink the public park through the eyes of the Nineteenth Century landscape designer Joseph Paxton. With Emma Reed, Aimee Felstead, Yukiko Tani, Michael Whitton, Yeonsoo An and Joe Harries.