Park View is a 1950’s / 60’s estate of multi-storey, deck access blocks and a point block, with access roads, car parking, landscape amenity and some play space. The blocks are set on lawn with mature existing trees, some of which date from the previous 18-19th century Villas. The existing landscape is generally open space, with the centre of the site being partly green, with a ball court, roads and car parking areas and the perimeter of the blocks have a high degree of inaccessible lawn. New public residential blocks are proposed to be introduced to the perimeter of the Estate. The accompanying landscape proposals reinforce the green structure of the estate and link to the surrounding green infrastructure of street trees and green routes.

Public consultations been undertaken to take into account the existing residents’ opinions and to input their advice into the development of the scheme.

The central open areas are overlooked from the blocks and the aim is to create an overall parkland type corridor, that will also be defined as a series of garden spaces, which relate to each area of blocks. The development of the design include the relocation of parking out of the central spaces, to create the central gardens with play spaces, interconnecting paths and new framework of planting to define spaces and to create privacy for the ground floor apartments of the blocks.

The existing trees are retained and they provide a strong structure which assists the definition of the proposed green spaces; new trees are planted, where feasible, to create a secondary, more domestic character to the new spaces.
Planting is proposed to provide more definition to the boundary of the estate, to create a identity to the proposed three garden court areas, as a buffer to more private areas, with definition of semi-private garden areas and to promote and improve bio-diversity within the estate.

Client:    London Borough of Islington
Architect:     Burrell Foley Fischer