An urban woodland and public park; one of the primary green urban spaces within South Kilburn's 'Hundred Acre Wood'.

In 2017 we were commissioned to work with London Borough of Brent on the redevelopment of Hereford House and Exeter Court. The South Kilburn Estate is mid-way through a regeneration programme focussed on replacing tired and mostly system-built taller buildings with mixed tenure homes surrounded by high quality, safe public realm which promotes active travel, children’s independent mobility and biodiversity. Karakusevic Carson Architects and Periscope worked together to evolve the South Kilburn SPD masterplan arrangement for the Hereford House & Exeter Court site in order to enlarge and better locate the proposed public park.

Hereford & Exeter is a landscape project inspired by A.A. Milne, who lived locally to the site and who’s connection to the area is marked by a Kilburn Heritage plaque. Our proposal is for a landscape which is ‘a place apart’, referencing Milne’s world of Winnie-the-Pooh set in the Hundred Acre Wood, a fictional English ideal of the British countryside based upon a magical interpretation of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. For Milne, the forest symbolised tranquillity, enchantment and freedom, laden with it’s own mythologies.

The project includes Granville Urban Forest, an urban woodland - a patchwork of tree canopies, clearings and glades which host programme, differing spatial environments and ecological features in soft and hard landscape -, as well as a new urban park, a large civic scale space with tree planting defining the southern part of the square with bosques of trees and tilted lawns defining the north. Climate-resilient aspects include significant tree canopy coverage, and SuDs within streets including permeable-jointed reclaimed granite setts.