Commercial Landscape Architecture
Public Open Space
Location: Thameside Nature Discovery Park, Essex
Completion Date: November 2024
Contractor: JPB Landscape Ltd

This project has been developed by Writtle Design graduate, Sharon Chilvers, for her dissertation entitled 'Industrial Wilds’, has now been written into the nature park’s future vision. Sharon approached Topoforma to work alongside her to create an immersive visitor experience, that showcases sustainable and ecological design, also alluding to the nature park’s former industrial past. The project aims are to implement design for future sustainability, enhancing the significant ecological assets, and demonstrating what can be achieved for anyone at any scale. The picnic area features experimental beds with different low-nutrient substrates to offer a view of what is possible to be grown on brownfield sites. The majority of greening on site will be achieved through seeding wildflowers to kickstart the plant colonies, while allowing time and nature to take over, developing successionary planting groups over years and decades.