Notting Hill Gate
Notting Hill Gate
Location
Notting Hill Gate, London
Client
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea / London Festival of Architecture
Collaborator
Year
2022
Our vision is driven by the power of plants to reconnect people to nature and each other. Our aim is to re-green Notting Hill Gate by installing a series of small, sculpted pocket gardens that together create a new undulating landscape for the community to explore, play, relax and perform.
The design of our gardens draws on the colours, patterns and traditions of the local community. The Notting Hill Carnival and the tradition of upcycling discarded oil drums to create Steel Pans has inspired us to create our gardens entirely from upcycled industrial oil drums. We hope that the transformation of a discarded waste product containing toxic and polluting oil into a beautiful, lush community garden will be an inspiration to help us live more sustainably and sends a powerful message of our need to move beyond oil and other damaging fossil fuels.
The oil drum is the basic module of our gardens and will be transformed for a variety of uses including planters, seating, insect habitat, stages and lighting. They will be brightly painted and decorated with patterns inspired by the eclectic range of goods from around the world found in nearby Portobello Road Market. Re-greening as an educational tool is at the heart of our design so each garden will include a large number and variety of plants. Each plant will include an infographic providing information about the plant and its cultural significance to the diverse communities of Notting Hill and a QR code which can be scanned to find it in local shops and restaurants.