Perth Road Nature Garden is part of the Lea Bridge Area Framework in Waltham Forest. This area-based program aims to create a more climate-resilient environment across various sites by providing educational resources and establishing new green spaces for the entire community to enjoy. Through this project, we aim to support local biodiversity and encourage neighborhood stewardship and care

The nature garden brings new life to a previously unloved green space on Perth Road. Located adjacent to Sybourn Primary School, it sits between the rich and diverse nature corridors and waterways at Lee Valley and Dagenham Brook. The garden is co-created with young people from the Eco-council at local primary school and was carried out through a series of creative workshops. Workshop activities were themed around supporting local ecosystems, imagining new encounters with nature and wildlife, and learning about the diversity of species. Through these sessions the planting layout evolved to deliver a new diverse ecology: an open-habitat to encourage insects, a woodland verge to welcome birds and other creatures and a protected fruit and herb garden that forms an outside classroom. The natural habitats are complemented by a series of playful constructed wildlife homes including a series of gabion blocks and bird perch posts.

The choice of garden components is guided by the principles of re-use and repair. Existing brickwork boundary walls are retained and re-introduced to gabions, the old garden gate is playfully repaired, adapted and re-hung, crushed- brick aggregate forms the main paths and soil is re-used and re-graded across the site. For other components we used natural materials: timber posts and rails for the enclosure to the school garden and hardwood for the garden walkways.

What if: projects worked together with project partners Meristem in delivering this scheme and in collaboration with in-house teams at LB Waltham Forest.

The engagement of schools in the design, development, and delivery of public realm and greening schemes has significantly informed a series of projects in Waltham Forest. By prioritising the needs of multiple species, we have developed processes that expand children’s understanding of their interconnectedness with the surrounding environment.

Through playful and interactive methods, we highlight the links between the biodiversity crisis and the spaces right outside their schools. In doing so, we aim to instil a sense of agency, connectedness, and responsibility towards the environment we share with the many living species that sustain us.

The tangible connection between the design process that the children have participated in and their involvement in the on-site delivery makes this series of projects special.

The Perth Road wildlife garden is part of a nature corridor that links several sites within the urban context of Waltham Forest, supporting biodiversity. Working together with children from the local primary school we explored needs of multiple species and ways to accomodate them.

Through a series of workshops children from the school produced drawings for the Perth Road nature garden that informed the construction information and the delivery of the proejct on site. The garden will now be maintained by the school together with residents.