Evergreen Square
Holly Street Estate, Hackney, London: 2003
Client:
London Borough of Hackney and Circle 33 Housing Association
Budget:
£120,000
Landscape Architect:
Levitt Bernstein Landscape Architecture

Evergreen Square is a dynamic play landscape in which children can create their own games. Mounds and valleys increase the surface area and create the impression of a much larger space than there actually is. A slide connects the top of the 2m high mound to the rest of the play area, an 8m oak tree makes a bridge between two hills, five huge boulders form an area for sitting and climbing on. Unifying the space is a colourful pattern of safety surface with a blue path running throughout that connects the different elements.

In the other half of the Square, grass mounds, meandering paths and curved stone benches echo the topography of the play landscape and provide a more peaceful environment.

A poem for Evergreen Square written by Chris Meade and local primary school pupils is inlaid into the central paving, cast into the stone benches and laser cut into steel panels at the four entranceways.

haggerston school