Deborah Saunt
Tuesday 17 March 2009, 1:00pm
Deborah Saunt of DSDHA presents
Paradise Park Children’s Centre, Islington
Part of the New Suburban Civic series of lunchtime talks
Won in a competition, DSDHA were asked to address the question of how to build in our cities when green space is at a premium. The result was an exercise in exchange whereby the loss of open green space is compensated by designing a new park building with the UK’s first vertical garden of over 7,000 plants.
At an urban scale the community building acts as a catalyst to the regeneration of the park and local area, and it is both iconic and welcoming. Technically, the building incorporates sustainable features such as irrigation systems using harvested rainwater and recycled brown roofs to encourage biodiversity. It was a challenge for the multi-headed client, architect and design team to try to achieve all the project goals both technically and socially, so there were lots of lessons learnt.
“Not as didactic as a billboard it communicates something fragile, delightful and rare. The building is intended to let the community be how it wants to be. It is a small and idealised bioculture, but one that appeals on different levels, to the senses of smell and sight, and to the mind.” Kieran Long, AJ
