Radnor Street Gardens

Inception of the scheme
In 2004, working in partnership with Islington Council, EC1 New Deal for Communities published a ‘Public Space Strategy’ for the parks, streets and estates within its area.  Radnor Street Gardens was identified as a key space within this strategy, which was proposed to form part of a green chain of open spaces across the EC1 New Deal area.

What was the design ambition?
The project was developed through detailed consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and local community groups.  The existing space was under used, suffering from lack of surveillance and accessibility due to high existing mounding to the boundaries, overgrown planting and a dense tree structure, preventing views into the Gardens from the neighbouring adventure playground, youth club, primary school and residential estates. The design proposals, utilised the material excavated from the existing earth mounds to create an exciting natural play landscape, visible from surrounding streets, and adjacent uses.  The different spaces are visually linked by a large flowering sculptural hedge, providing structure and important feeding ground for native birds. The ballcourt space is shared with the Adventure Playground and Youth Club, providing additional outside space for these well subscribed facilities.

The inclusion of a new shared ballcourt facility, funded through a successful grant application to The London Marathon Trust, has both physically linked an adjacent Youth Club and Adventure Playground to the Gardens, but also allowed the Adventure Playground to re-develop their existing ballcourt space to provide a new free play natural play garden, completed as a second phase of works.  The Youth Club now offer an education programme during the day with use of the ballcourt between lessons.

The proposals for Radnor Street Gardens sought to retain the key tree habitat areas, whilst through simple use of earthworks, planting and robust hard landscape materials to create a series of interlinked spaces to provide a range of different uses.  Since completion, the pedestrian route through the site has become increasingly well used, providing connections with other adjacent spaces including the Promenade of Light at Old Street, St Luke’s Gardens and the outside spaces around Finsbury Leisure Centre.

Design process
The design and construction was completed through provision of a full landscape architectural service from Stage C to L, closely linked to an internal and external consultation process at each design stage.

Approach to consultation and participation
The development of concept and detailed design proposals for Radnor Street Gardens and Toffee Park Adventure Playground was influenced and guided by a series of participatory workshops and events with local residents and children and young people’s groups.  The first set of workshops included discussions around planting design and play and took place prior to the preparation of concept design proposals.  These workshops informed the final selection of trees, hedging and perennials.  The play workshops helped to develop a clear understanding of the key activities for the design of play equipment to respond to key themes relating to swinging and climbing.  As well as consultation for the design of the overall spaces, other elements of the scheme such as the construction of a table tennis table and design, fabrication and installation of bespoke bird boxes were also subject to participatory workshops with children and staff from the adjacent primary school.

Intended users
The design proposals provide facilities for a wide range of local users including: Children and young people, local residents, staff from local businesses as well as formal play and recreation facilities for Toffee Park Adventure Playground, Toffee Park Youth Club and St Luke’s Primary School.  Following completion of the scheme on site, Islington Council completed further consultation to obtain feedback from users of the Gardens.
Comments included:
‘The Gardens are proving popular with residents and its great to see families use the park instead of just one particular group.’
'I am very pleased to say that the Radnor Street area is much friendlier and very spacious and green.’

Social and environmental context
A key ambition of the brief was to open up the existing space, and unite the gardens with the adjacent open spaces of the Adventure Playground, Youth Club and surrounding streets and neighbouring school and estate open spaces.

The future
Following the completion of Radnor Street Gardens in 2008, works were also completed to the neighbouring Toffee Park Adventure Playground in 2010 to remove their existing ballcourt and create a free play garden.  The adjancent streets have been re-designed are shared surfacing with traffic calming and one way traffic flows to increase the physical connection of the Gardens to adjacent spaces, and access improvement works have also been completed at the nearby St Luke’s Gardens as well as the complete refurbishment of the Ironmonger Row Baths.