A-Y of Manx

Year of Completion: 2013

Client: The Douglas development partnership, The department of infrastructure

Project Team: BCA Landscape

The A-Y of Manx is an artwork commissioned by Douglas Development Partnership, funded by the Town and Village Regeneration Scheme and driven forward by the Douglas Regeneration Committee. The artwork illustrates 24 subjects related to the Isle of Man, some of which are well-known and obvious such a “Manx Cats”, “TT” and “Kippers” and some which are a little more obscure such as the “Giant Elk” and “Ogham”.

The Natural Stone Awards, held once every two years, recognise excellence in the natural stone industry. The judges said:

‘The stonework brings brightness and light into the heart of the Island’s capital. The results are already lifting and enhancing the area, instilling pride and commitment across a diverse range of retailers’.

Liverpool Connectivity – Lime Street

Year of Completion: 2022

Client: Liverpool City Council

Project Team: BCA Landscape | AMEY

Liverpool Lime Street is considered the gateway to Liverpool, greeted by a confusing labyrinth of roads which are both difficult and dangerous to cross. The project aimed to resolve this issue by reorganising the way people move about the city with an emphasis on cycling, walking and trees.

Pedestrians and cyclists have been given greater priority and space whilst respecting the historical importance of the site. The scheme is surrounded by Grade I, II & II* listed buildings therefore a more conservative approach was required.

The project included over 30+ trees, 675m of segregated cycleways (linking to Liverpool’s wider cycle network), wider footpaths for safer pedestrian movements and encouragement of outdoor cafe seating. Reduced traffic signals/movement to improve the flow of traffic which in turn helps with air quality. New open public spaces for day to day activities as well as for larger public events which St Georges Hall is renowned for.

BCA Landscape and Build to Rent in brief

We have been involved in the build to rent sector since 2014, providing landscape architectural consultancy services for innovative developers and architects whose logos appear opposite.

We know landscape brings people and communities together, working with the internal amenity spaces to create that stronger sense of community and of belonging to something special with its own sense of place.

Our work delivers green and blue infrastructure, which helps to:

- Increase biodiversity net gain.
- Achieve the required Urban Greening factor.
- Improve mental health and well-being.
- Move towards net zero carbon outcomes.
- Improve air and water quality.
- Reduce flood risks.
- Assist with gaining credits under methodologies such as:
  - The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM)
  - The Leadership In Energy And Environmental Design Methodology (LEED)

We have delivered services on 3,111 Build to Rent homes, with another 700 well on the way.

Our expert team can be your one-stop-shop for all elements related to landscape architectural consultancy right the planning and design phase all the way through to the finishing touches, handover and post launch. We offer our services across the UK.

We have worked ‘client-side’ and novated to contractors, mastering the technical complexities of co-ordinating landscape and building elements with the wider design and construction team.

We can also integrate your build to rent project with the wider community ‘beyond the red line’ including development of artwork themes and interventions – either in-house or in collaboration with a wide network of artists and makers.

We ensure that the schemes we implement are robust and easy to maintain, keeping down service charges and cost-in-use for replacement when things wear out.

We can deliver you and your funders excellent metrics on all aspects of the green agenda.

We champion all aspects of the landscape design through the whole process from site feasibility to tenants moving in – and beyond!

We focus on maximising amenity provision and green infrastructure to make your development stand out from the crowd.

We are working with a number of clients to gather data that feeds into their ESG metrics with some interesting results including some projects that are carbon positive.

Build To Rent Brochure - 2022 Edition

North Bank Green, Wirral Waters

Local Authority partner: Wirral Council

Design Team: BCA Landscape, Shed KM

Funding: Peel L&P & Homes England

The Vision

To create a new, highly sustainable, useable, exemplar ‘village green’ that is ‘of Wirral’ and sits at the heart of the residentially led North bank neighbourhood regeneration area in Wirral Waters. The south facing [1/2 acre] waterside North bank Green has been designed to be the focal and congregation point for a new emerging community.

It also serves to open up the waterside to the wider public – an area that has been inaccessible since the Docks were built. North bank Green sits between the Belong Extra Care Village and the Urban Splash / Peel L&P East Float housing scheme – both of which are now on site.

We are thrilled to reveal this ground-breaking new NET Climate-Positive neighbourhood park on Wirral Waters, inspired by the fascinating history of the area and the latest thinking on sustainable ‘nature based’ design solutions.

“The new public realm and green spaces now installed along North bank gives prospective residents and investors their first glimpse of the dramatic improvements we’re making to regenerate the dockland area and the quality of the residential neighbourhood being delivered.” – Richard Mawdsley, Director of Development for Peel L&P’s Wirral Waters

1 – Utilising integrated ‘nature based’ design solutions to help society adapt to climate change, reduce flood risk whilst simultaneously enhancing the environment.

2 – A whole new ‘green’ site ecology created from a derelict contaminated site – with 90 new trees and 1000’s of new plants, including a wide range of native species.

3 – Creating a site-specific unique design narrative and aesthetic inspired by the location and its rich industrial history.

4 – Up-cycling of materials from the dockland site, creating a rich material palette and saving on raw materials and avoiding unnecessary waste.

Please see a pdf download link to further details and images below.

download here

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