Sprunt are masterplanners, urban designers, architects and landscape architects with offices in London and Johannesburg. Our company has enjoyed 25 years experience of designing and implementing projects in the UK and internationally with an emphasis on Public Realm, Urban Regeneration, Education, Health and Residential.
In all Landscape and masterplanning work we believe in creating value through design. Our aim is to provide sustainable landscape architecture which contributes to the future of our communities and believe good design is created through collaboration, honesty, transparency, integrity and skill.
The input of the Landscape Architects has had a profound impact on the quality of design on all schemes and right from the start the team ensures they work collaboratively with other architects and consultants enhancing creativity and delivery of best practice by focusing their contribution to develop the best urban and environmental design strategy possible.
We require excellence in design and delivery and we enjoy taking on projects that can be seen right through to completion, ensuring design integrity and quality for clients and our design partners. This includes a particular expertise in green roofs and green decks.
Sprunt’s landscape team is growing from strength to strength. We are an award and competition winning team with extensive experience of working in the urban environment.
Recently we have won or been shortlisted for a number of competitions including Brampton Park, John Leigh Park, Sheffield Cooling Towers and Amelia Street and, most recently, Southend Pier.
Part of the Stonegrove regeneration , Academy Lane is a residential development with 136 flats and terrace housing with a central courtyard landscape. The landscape provides a quite retreat to the residents with their balconies facing this space. It provides variety of options of rest and play while creating an impression of the quintessential English meadow landscape.
The children’s play area sits within the heart of the scheme with informal seating opportunities. The rolling meadows become live in summer with wildflowers completely transforming the landscape. Semi mature tree planting provides interest and seasonal colour to the central courtyard.
Sprunt worked closely with the London Borough of Newham and the Heritage Lottery Fund to reinvigorate this popular Victorian park in East Ham. The vision for the park was based on the original design principles of adaptability, robustness, inclusiveness, wonder and celebration that made these places so successful. The team developed detailed designs for the park which balanced the important requirements for heritage conservation with the needs of a 21st century park in a busy urban area.
This led to a successful Stage 2 application for Heritage Lottery funding, and a continuing working relationship which saw the project taken through to completion in 2010. The historical elements in the park were carefully restored to strengthen the Victorian infrastructure of the park such as the grand metalwork gates, the system of paths, and the striking stone drinking fountain. The memorial has been given a respectful landscape setting, encouraging a sense of contemplation and calm.
Thought was put into an exciting and biodiverse planting strategy which enhanced the planted structure of Oaks and Planes defining the different spaces in the park. The restored Formal Garden peaks in summer with waves of ornamental grasses and a coordinated array of hot and cool colours from Mediterranean and native perennials. Spring in the park comes alive along the dry river bed as woodland flowers bloom among the ferns, cobbles and boulders. Landform, planting and stone recreate the sinuous patterns created by rivers as they form meanders, meadows and deltas.
Sprunt was commissioned by Peabody to improve the desirability of the Islington Estate by providing a high quality external environment to compliment the historically significant buildings.
The project aims to:
· Restore historically significant elements of the external environment and produce a scheme which is sensitive to the original design philosophy.
· Improve the environment for pedestrians by consolidating car parking, controlling vehicle access and improving paved surfaces.
· Develop capacity for community-building by involving residents in the design process and providing appropriate communal facilities.
· Ensure a net gain in biodiversity by introducing more planting on to the estate
· Provide a safe external environment for residents to meet, and for young children to play.
Maintenance managers were involved in all steering group meetings resulting in them championing SUD’s proposals, soft lighting and up-lighters as they could see the benefits, both in terms of maintenance and reducing vandalism. As part of the consultation process we worked with the client to run an open day which most residents attended. This involved a large scale interactive display:- rolling out artificial lawns over areas of tarmac and hiring natural play structures to physically demonstrate how the renovations would affect the central square. This gave residents a much clearer understanding of how the proposed shared space, natural play, parking, other hard landscape elements and arrangement of the square would look which they enthusiastically embraced.
This was the winning design in an international RIBA competition held to develop an original playground for this leafy park in the suburbs of Altrincham. Sprunt worked closely with Trafford Council, Urban Splash, TEP and Groundwork to provide a successful play space that sat naturally within the existing landscape setting and was accessible and safe for all children to use. This popular new playground is formed from a sinuous river-like loop which winds its way amongst the majestic trees and rolling landscape setting of John Leigh Park in a quiet neighbourhood of Altrincham. Play features inspired by natural forms are set along the loop encouraging children to use their imagination to create different games, journeys and stories. The river loop widens in places to form spinning eddies, and a series of boulders and logs for clambering, balancing and jumping. The team were inspired by the natural play opportunities found along the small rivers which run through the forests and hills of the Peak District.
Landform is used carefully to merge the playground with its surroundings, with new undulations creating hills to slide and roll down and bridges to cross. There are no boundaries as play becomes part of the landscape, and landscape part of the play. The play in the park revolves around the existing trees which give the playground a different character in every season. Trees inspire the timber play forest which encourages climbing, hanging and swinging from ropes and beams.
Lying at the heart of Sprunt’s £300m masterplan for 1,000 new homes around the new London Academy in Barnet, the recently completed church and Community Centre provides a vibrant focus for the new community. Extensive landscaping for both play and contemplation complementing the building and ensure it links seamlessly with the surrounding public realm. The landscape creates a cohesive scheme and helps bring the community centre to the heart of Stonegrove. The use of a variety of natural materials in the landscape compliment the internal spaces hence improving the legibility. Use of natural materials like stone gabions and timber helps to blend in with the surroundings. The strength of the landscape is the flexible external spaces catering to different functions at different times. The café spill over space and ‘the green’ encourage opportunities for informal interaction making it a successful community space.
