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Shaping Liverpool’s LandscapeADPLandscape Joins Up Liverpool’s Outdoor Spaces

Our growing body of landscape design in the centre of Liverpool began with a commission for the landscape design around our architectural project, the ‘Central Teaching Laboratories’, for the University of Liverpool. The landscape project immediately around the building developed into a series of interlinking landscape spaces around the campus.

At the Central Teaching Laboratories we designed a green wall and a blue limestone bridge that highlighted the entrance to the building. The scheme was designed to meet an ambitious BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating, which the green wall contributed to. During the design stages of the green wall we arranged site visits to existing green walls with the client to gather feedback and engender enthusiasm and support for the concept.

To the side of the bridge there is a ‘wave garden’ comprising of a series of trimmed ‘wavy’ hedges, which will eventually enclose the seating, lighting and sculptures (pictured right). Our design incorporates some sculptures by Hubert Dalwood, which the University own and yet had been in storage for some time. We worked directly with the curator of the University’s Museum and Art Gallery to position the sculptures and to design a base for them to stand on. The team also worked with the landscape maintenance department at the University when selecting plant species, and also in consultation with the University’s Ness Botanic Gardens.

The University was keen to create a garden of buried geological items for students to practice using surveying equipment. This consisted of a variety of items such as pipes and discs buried at a range of depths and required the team to liaise closely with the Earth Sciences faculty.

WAVE GARDEN, CENTRAL TEACHING LABORATORIES

Grass and perennial planting, and green wall at the front of CTL

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During the Central Teaching Laboratories project, the University commissioned ADPLandscape to refurbish the length of Chatham Street between Abercromby Square and Myrtle Street. Various areas had been previously identified for redevelopment and, by working closely with the client and stakeholders, we were able to identify the most urgent areas for redevelopment, proposing future links within the campus.

Chatham Street has been transformed from a busy tarmac vehicular route to a pedestrianised street with a dedicated cycle route based upon the materials outlined within the University’s masterplan. We have used natural stone and granite setts to compliment the Georgian buildings of Abercromby Square at the northern end of the street, which falls into the Mount Pleasant Conservation Area.

The scheme utilises ‘islands’ of stone setts to denote a zone of seating and cycle parking, these being softened with an avenue of ornamental pear trees. Steel gabion baskets are used to form structures in which Box hedging will grow.

On completion of the upgrade the client asked us to turn our attention to designing railings, which would complete the fourth side of Abercromby Square. The railing design paid homage to the existing railings and gates but with a contemporary edge to echo the 1960’s Brutalist library and Barbara Hepworth sculpture that they faced. This part of the project involved an application for Conservation Area consent, which was granted.

The works continued from Abercromby Square to the Oliver Lodge Delivery Area strengthening the pedestrian route through to the new Central Teaching Laboratories and campus beyond. The scheme involved liaison with the Liverpool 20/20 infrastructure, business service group, and the local authority highways department.

The next phase involved repaving the’ Tree Lined Avenue’ next to the Central Teaching Laboratory building. This phase looked at extending a pedestrian walkway and a cycle path through an avenue of existing mature trees. The Tree Lined Avenue adjoins the new wave garden and green wall, forming a visual and sensory linkage of the public external space to the Central Teaching Laboratories building.

CHATHAM STREET PUBLIC REALM LANDSCAPING

Before and after views of Chatham Street

View of the Tree Lined Avenue from the Central Teaching Laboratories

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Following the completion of our work around the Central Teaching Laboratories and Chatham Street, the team was commissioned to landscape the iconic quad in front of the University’s listed Victoria Gallery and Museum. The University dedicated the clock tower on the Victoria Building to HM Queen Victoria in 1897 for her diamond jubilee, and the new quad has been dedicated to HM Queen Elizabeth for her 2012 diamond jubilee celebrations, and renamed the Jubilee Quad.

The central green ring of the quad has 60 LED lights in the steps commemorating the 60 years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Paving stones surround the central green and include etchings depicting significant local events occurring in the last 60 years. Local school children will be able to take rubbings of these stones and match them to key dates in Liverpool’s history providing a useful educational tool for local educators, a key use of the quad.

Two more sculptures, which will be framed by the arches of the surrounding buildings, will be included in the quad, underlining the University’s commitment to public art. These will compliment the different textures and layers in the materials used in the quad, the new bespoke benches, which are distributed around the quad, and the commemorative central stone.

The quad will be used for photography for graduation ceremonies and weddings, with views of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King hinted at through gaps over the roofs of the listed buildings surrounding the quad.

This significant public space will form a new focus in this part of Liverpool’s ‘Knowledge Quarter’, upgrading a previously underused space, and linking it to public spaces around the University of Liverpool campus.

JUBILEE QUAD

Concept sketch

Finished scheme

Sketch concept based on the idea of spun sugar, linking with local sugar magnate, Henry Tate

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BIRMINGHAM DELHI NCR LONDON MANCHESTER NEWCASTLE OXFORD SHERBORNE

ADP’s in-house landscape design team provide our clients with an integrated approach to our architectural teams, as well as standalone landscape design projects. The team has extensive experience of designing interesting, creative, and highly useable outdoor spaces across sectors. They have worked on projects from small courtyards and rooftop gardens to significant public realm regeneration projects up and down the country.

If you would like to talk to our landscape team about a possible project, you can contact them via:

E: landscape@adp-architecture.comT: 0121 234 6440W: adp-architecture.com/services/landscape-design

TOP Liverpool landscape projects mapLEFT Chatham Street pedestrianisationRIGHT Jubilee Quad paving before planting of trees

JUBILEE QUAD

CHATHAM STREET PROJECTS