Barking Riverside is a 10,000 home, 150-hectare regeneration project in east London on the site of the former Barking Power Station. Frogley Park is the main green space in the ‘Stage 2 north’ area.
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Masterplan drawing
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Originally conceived as a series of isolated, fenced amenity spaces, on appointment we proposed a generous 300m-long linear park connecting the central circus to new schools at the western edge. A mix of pedestrian and cycle spaces and shared vehicle routes, using seamless surfacing in the park and streets, make the landscape spaces more than the sum of their parts.
![](https://www.periscope.uk/media/projects/frogley-park/_mediumImage/Frogley-Park_Periscope_02_Plan.jpg)
Ground level plan
Our design was informed by the challenging ecological, technical and aesthetic context; sitting where floodplain and foreshore meet in a highly engineered and contaminated site, the project offers simple concrete textures softened with lush planting.
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Axonometric drawing of the park play elements
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Photograph of 1:1 scale concrete samples
Managing surface water run off safely and sustainably is critical because of contamination from the site’s industrial past. Run-off from the park and from the roofs of adjacent buildings is collected in surface channels, which are densely planted to create a soft defensible edge to ground floor terraces which, when the channels fill, become balconies in a wetland.
![](https://www.periscope.uk/media/projects/frogley-park/_mediumImage/Frogley-Park_Periscope_04_Prototype_191107_180659.jpg)
Detail photograph of site won aggregates
We undertook a substantial amount of prototyping using site-won aggregates and virgin stone during RIBA Workstages 2 and 3 to prove the concept and potential of using a concrete seamless surface to key stakeholders. The client has subsequently commissioned us to design a test street as a full scale prototype.
The project is currently under construction and due to complete in 2022.
![](https://www.periscope.uk/media/projects/frogley-park/_mediumImage/Frogley-Park_Periscope_09_Site.jpg)
Photograph of river's edge adjacent to the site
![](https://www.periscope.uk/media/projects/frogley-park/_mediumImage/Frogley-Park_Periscope_10_Site.jpg)
Site photograph
Client | Barking Riverside |
Year | 2018 |
Project Value | £5m |
Sector | Park / Public Realm |
Service | Landscape Architecture |
Collaborators | Karakusevic Carson Architects / WSP / Elliot Wood / Max Fordham |