Glade of Light

Design Team: BCA Landscape, Smiling Wolf, Galliford Try, Civic Engineers, Medieval Quarter Masterplan by Planet-IE

Awards: ICE NW Civil Engineering Special Recognition Award Winner, Longlisted – Dezeen Awards 2022, International Loop Design – People’s Choice Awards

It has been an honour to be chosen to help the bereaved families and the wider team imagine and realise this memorial garden. The design ideas and thoughts behind the ‘Glade of Light’ have always come from a place of heart-felt respect and deep sympathy. We believe design is about and for people and it is not a fixed thing on a plan, but consists of an ever-changing, living and shifting series of moments. Our wish for this garden is that it will allow everyone to linger in these moments and search for stillness.

In Japanese culture the language of stillness can be described by a single word – Ma. Designing for Ma is about creating moments of self-awareness and quiet. It can be difficult to find in our busy lives. Ma is the momentary pause in speech needed to convey meaningful words, the silence between the notes….

The process of remembrance and healing is always on-going and needs space, understanding and time. We hope the Glade in some small way can help with this process and it speaks of silence, as opposed to noise and of restraint, as opposed to excess. We sincerely hope it becomes a special place where we can all briefly pause time, find a place of stillness, reflect and dwell a while.

Winner Supreme of The Surface Design Awards

Commended for the 2022 Natural Stone Awards

North Bank East

Design Team: BCA Landscape, ShedKM, Urban Splash

Awards: Shortlisted for the Housing Design Awards 2021

Year of completion: 2016 – ongoing

Northbank is a mixed typology and tenure residential-led quarter, with local community uses, offering a bespoke, more tranquil living environment. A quarter offering city living with ‘space to breathe’, ‘off the beaten track’, with access to the waters-edge and a short walk away from other quarters and world destinations.

A new waterside residential quarter featuring 347 pioneering, modern, modular homes is coming to Wirral Waters. Urban Splash developers and architects Shed KM are bringing their factory-built modular home HOUSE to Merseyside for the first time.

BCAL have designed and delivered advanced landscape infrastructure works, including a new adoptable cycleway and street tree planting along the Dock Road. They have also designed and submitted for planning a design vision for a new Community Park and additional Dockside landscape works to compliment a series of new phased residential developments along the Northbank East Float.

“Working in this joint venture with House by Urban Splash we will transform East Float into a contemporary waterside community for anyone looking to make Wirral Waters their home. Together with the new public realm, that includes new pocket parks and dockside walkways, these innovative new homes from Urban Splash will help create a new exciting, diverse and healthy community.” – Richard Mawdlsey
Director of Development for Peel L&P’s Wirral Waters

Eberle Street

Design Team: BCA Landscape, AMEY

Eberle Street has long been established as the heart of the LGBT Community here in Liverpool, comprising of multiple night clubs, bars and the once world famous Garlands nightclub. As it stood, the street infrastructure was unloved with poor paving, lighting and cellar doors making for an environment that didn’t appeal to pedestrians during the day, and created obstacles for the high footfall after dark.

BCA Landscape created a unique identity to the once undesirable street, through the use of a bespoke contemporary paving and matching lights, with subtle hints to Judy Garland’s ‘Yellow Brick Road’ dotted along the route. The use of a strong geometric pattern draws people up the street and along the way can be found bespoke paving units which have key characters and elements of the ‘Wizard of Oz’, from the iconic red shoes to Toto and even the famous Emerald City.

‘’Eberle Street is a hub of Liverpool’s night time economy and LGBT community so its redesign required an imaginative approach that had the verve and style to celebrate its unique position and elevate it to a prominence it richly deserves. Once complete it will also greatly enhance the experience of the Commercial District and promote the north-south walking routes between the district and the rest of the city centre. As the nation recently saw with Granby Street’s Turner Prize winning transformation, meaningful regeneration has to be led by those who live and work in that area and the input from the business community has been a key part of the entire process.’’ – Jim Gill, Chairman of the Commercial District BID,
which represents more than 850 businesses

Tower Road

Budget: £2 Million

Client: Peel L&P, Wirral MBC

Design Team: BCAL, Vectos, Parkinson inc

An intersecting traffic corridor dominated by high-speed vehicles and traffic lights has been transformed into a positive urban space, with a focus on a strong green identity and a sustainable drainage system. It provides new cohesive benchmark in a post-industrial derelict area that is undergoing a renaissance as part of the wider Wirral Waters masterplan. A busy road space located of the Wirral Docklands, has been narrowed down from a heavy traffic four-lane road to a calm two-lane green boulevard, with a strong focus on pedestrians and cyclists. A new sustainable urban drainage system filters and slows rainwater run-off from all surfaces into an interconnected system of tree trenches – ultimately creating a new landscape infrastructure that is future-proofed climate-resilient.

“The Creative Campus has been completed by this outstanding public space which links a series of otherwise disparate buildings across a serene and playful garden. It has been realised by an imaginative designer determined to deliver on the vision. Built to an exceptional standard of finish, it is a soft and welcome delight in an otherwise harsh urban setting. A place you will want to return to again and again.” – RIBA Judge

PopUP Forest Bathing Pod

Website: https://forestbathingpod.com

The Pop-Up Forest Bathing Pod is a temporary demountable and reusable urban intervention that brings the Forest in to the heart of our hard edged cities. It demonstrates the power of nature and reminds us how important it is to catch our breath and find a moment of calm in our busy lives.

The Pod creates a momentary sensory block from the cacophony of our urban lives. Lounging in the pod with the door shut behind you, allows people to bathe in the cool and soft quiet of the trees. The mirrors on the inside of the pod reflect the trees within to create an infinite forest.

Shinrin-yoku is a Japanese term that means “forest bathing.” It was developed during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine.

Researchers have established a robust body of scientific literature on the health benefits of spending time under the canopy of a living forest. Now their research is helping to promote shinrin-yoku and forest therapy throughout the world.

We have always known this intuitively, but in the past several decades there have been many scientific studies that are demonstrating the mechanisms behind the healing effects of simply being in wild and natural areas. For example, many trees give off organic compounds that support our “NK” (natural killer) cells that are part of our immune system’s way of fighting cancer.

We developed our brief to try and highlight the issue of a lack of green space within our cities and also to remind people of how important it is to protect and nurture the bits of green we do have. At the same time we were raising awareness of self-care and the importance of being mindful of our own physical and mental health. In this way the Forest-pod is a resource for information and advocacy for forest therapy and positive nature connection.

“The Urban GreenUP project is showing the value and benefit of greening our city centre. The PopUP Forest is an opportunity to explore some of the health benefits and also start the conversations about how we green our cities to improve health and make us resilient to climate change too.” – Liverpool City Council

Liverpool Waterfront

Design Team: BCA Landscape, Amey, LCC, Graham Construction

Budget: £22 million

Awards: Winner – CIHT Healthy Transport Award | Highly commended – CIHT Creating Better places | Commended – CIHT Infrastructure Award | Longlisted – International Loop Design People’s Choice Award

We were awarded both LOOP Design and CIHT

The Strand is at the epicentre of Liverpool’s renowned waterfront, surrounded by Grade II* listed buildings and the infamous Liver Building. This revamp of The Strand is both human-centric and environmentally conscious. The regeneration scheme exemplifies the very best of green infrastructure projects, providing a new sustainable urban drainage system with on-going data analysis for storm waterflow, water filtration and air quality, keeping us connected via safer walkways, new pedestrian squares, segregated cycle lanes and and introducing large canopies of trees and celebrating the city’s heritage.

“Liverpool City Centre is changing for the better. The improvements to The Strand, reducing traffic, more space for pedestrians, and especially the new top-quality cycle lanes, are immense. It will do so much to reconnect our world-famous Waterfront with the rest of town.” – Liverpool Cycling Commissioner, Simon O’Brien

Vote for ‘The Strand’ in the Loop Design – People’s Choice Awards (vote closes: 15th September 2022)

Princes Avenue

Budget: £4m

Design Team: BCA Landscape, Amey, Friends of Princes Avenue, LCC

Awards: LCR Culture & Creativity Award – Impact WINNER, Environmental Sustainability

In recent months, the historic boulevard at Princes Avenue in Toxteth has been undergoing a dramatic and stunning transformation.

Princes Boulevard is much more than a new cycle route, it is a jewel in the crown of Liverpool 8 and an Avenue steeped in the history of both Toxteth and Liverpool as a whole.

In 19th century Liverpool the avenue was full of upper class merchants all making their trade and wealth in the thriving city port. Nearby is the area of land now known as Princes Park, which is a popular destination for walkers, families and tourists alike as part of their L8 area exploration.

As part of the redevelopment, L8’s remarkable heritage is being recognised in a series of installations along the boulevard, creating a unique journey through the area’s history.

The new look boulevard includes public art and installations designed through community work with BCAL & ‘The Friends of Princes Avenue’ and referencing key aspects of L8’s rich heritage from the many clubs which used to be in the area to its myriad religious buildings, and the legacy of Liverpool’s role as a major port city. By installing the 1km long cycle path within the central reservation, a first for Liverpool, the scheme’s aim is to improve cycle connectivity between south Liverpool and the city centre.

“The Princes Avenue/Road scheme looks absolutely amazing. The boulevard is arguably now one of the most beautiful in the country and is going to transform how the wider Toxteth community interact and use this reimagined space.” – Councillor Sharon Connor, LCC.

Forest Bathing Pod

Year of Completion: 2019

Budget: Under £10,000

Client: The Mersey Forest (Urban Greenup)

Design Team: BCA Landscape, Liverpool’s Royal Court Set Building Team

Researchers primarily in Japan and South Korea have established a robust body of scientific literature on the health benefits of spending time under the canopy of a living forest. Now their research is helping to establish shinrin-yoku and forest therapy throughout the world.

Shinrin-yoku is a term that means “forest bathing.” It was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventative health care and healing in Japanese medicine.

This project aims to bring The Mersey Forest into the heart of the city and demonstrate the power of nature, our ‘Natural Health Service’, to provide an oasis of calm, an opportunity to catch our breath and our thoughts; ready for the day ahead.

The Mark 01# version of The Pop-up Forest Bathing Pod landed to rave reviews for two days in Williamson Square, Liverpool on 26-27th June 2019. Passers-by took a 10 minute break from their busy life schedules to experience for themselves the healing power of the infinite pop-up forest bathing pod.

Designed by BCA Landscape for The Mersey Forest as part of the wider Urban GreenUP Project, in conjunction with Liverpool City Council, The University of Liverpool and The Liverpool BID Company.

Built by the Royal Court set-building team and funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Urban GreenUP project.

Stonyhurst College

Budget: £35,000

This peaceful retreat garden is a new and welcome addition to the historic grounds of the world renowned Stonyhurst College. Adjoining this is a restoration project of an early 19th century water mill which for decades had stood roofless and abandoned until it’s recent conversion to a religious education centre and retreat.

The journey is created through a series of connected spaces each having their own characteristics and purposes. It starts with a narrow lane with a glimpse of a sculpture through a slice in the hedge, signifying a path and a journey to be embarked upon. This then leads into a transition space with the use of simple shapes, symmetry and a grid of uniform trees is meant to cleanse the mind and prepare it for reflection. Through another gap in the boundary this route opens up into a large seating area with a square of pleached trees and a central focal point. Spaces are enclosed by sandstone walls and hedging to create an introspective sequence free from any external distractions. As you enter the final space of this series it opens up to a large meadow with a clear path cut through it and a bold backdrop of Wester Red Cedars.