Advertising screen doubles up as community garden in London to eliminate anti-social behaviour
A new hybrid advertising space and community garden, designed by Wildstone for client Clear Channel’s premium Storm brand, has transformed a treacherous corner in London into a vibrant community space. The formerly derelict site in Lambeth Palace Conservation Area had remained undeveloped for over twenty years and was eventually hoarded up. Anti-social behaviour was a longstanding issue, prompting Community Safety officers to request that the landowners investigate additional security measures and productive temporary uses for the development site. Innovative structures and urban space designers, Wildstone, have created a scheme to change this crime ridden space by transforming it into a publically open, working community garden, whilst reinstating the site’s original function as an advertising space.
Instead of merely screening the unsightly development site, which is what past billboards have tried to do, Wildstone’s design solution proposed attractive landscaping using wooden crates that create terraces of planters for growing food and flowers. By opening up the site, Wildstone‘s design proactively engages local residents - and a homeless man previously living behind the hoarding - to tend the vegetable plot.
Neil Haggertay, Area Crime Reduction Officer at Lambeth Council said: “I supported the re-development of the site from the beginning as it was a key site for anti-social behaviour and crime. The new look gardens and signage has improved the area and eliminated the vast majority of the issues previously faced. It is without doubt a major success story.”
The structure is made up of a series of modular interlocking wooden crates that do not require foundations and will be simple to remove in future if the site is developed. The crates are set at sharp angles to one another to make them visually appealing whilst also providing a platform for the signage. The sign itself is in the same position as the one it replaced, but the supporting structure is now cantilevered to create a greater sense of openness. The frame and rear of the display has been clad in the same sustainably sourced oak timber as the crates below, seamlessly tying together the design and linking it to an existing tree which has been retained as a feature and backdrop to the signage. Along with the rest of the site, the tree will be accentuated with lighting that will pick up colours from the content displayed on the screens, illuminating the surroundings in a subtle and playful lightshow.
Stewardship of the site has been given to The Oasis Community Farm and Eat Work Art, two supporting local charities that will use it to educate groups about gardening, in a safe working and learning environment.
Wildstone’s urban intervention demonstrates the benefit of using a design-led approach to upgrading advertising sites. The regeneration of a redundant and crime ridden space has not only increased the value of the site, but is benefitting the local community through its sensitive and well-considered design.
