Pop-up gardens in London Bridge’s Stainer Street tunnel
For the next few weeks passengers at London Bridge Station will be able to enjoy four installations using plants and materials recycled from the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival.
The project – New Forms – has been commissioned by Team London Bridge with support from Network Rail.
New Forms has been delivered by Cityscapes whose previous local projects include Gibbon's Rent secret garden and the Greenwood Theatre Pocket Park.
The four garden installations have designed by Ula Maria, Tessa & Caitlin McLaughlin, Alexandra Noble and Sarah Wilson.
Each designer was allocated a set palette of materials to interpret freely, with the caveat that they must use a specific material at the end of their garden which will link to the next garden, creating a sense of continuity.
The concept is based upon the Surrealist artist's game 'Exquisite Corpse' and the children's game 'Pictorial Consequences', where an image is drawn by a number of participants on a folded piece of paper, with each player unaware of the drawing of the previous player, until it is revealed at the end.
The gardens will remain in Stainer Street for the next few weeks. At the end of the project the materials and plants will find new afterlives in local community projects.
Stainer Street was reopened to pedestrians in October last year as a north-south link between Tooley Street and St Thomas Street, parallel to the concourse of London Bridge Station.
