Landscaping and new café building in a public park in Bloomsbury, London.
The project seeks to provide a masterplan for ongoing landscaping improvements at St Andrew’s Gardens on Gray’s Inn Road in Bloomsbury, with the provision of a new, lightweight café and sitting-out area nestled among trees and wild planting.
The design builds upon earlier proposals by LB Camden and the existing informal character of the space by rewilding some disused planting areas and providing new, nature-reserve type street furniture. The park is quite different to the formal gardens of Bloomsbury and deserves a sensitive scheme appropriate to its natural, rather than urban, character. The provision of a cafe hopes to increase visitor numbers and a sense of passive surveillance, while also providing respite from the busy urban environment on Gray’s Inn Road.
The project is in early design stages and if approved by the Friends of St Andrew’s Gardens will form the basis of a bid for local CIL funding, advised by the practice.
Images courtesy of Friends of St Andrew’s Gardens.
