New London Awards 2022 - Marlborough Sports Garden

We are delighted to announce that Marlborough Sports Garden has won the 2022 New London Awards Community Prize.

Supported by the Mayor of London, New London Awards celebrate London, seeking the very best new projects across every sector; uniquely recognising built and unbuilt schemes - those that are making and will make a positive contribution to their surroundings.

The benefits of listening to local people when designing a building are long-term: buildings that are cherished by their communities are more likely to endure. Our design for Marlborough Sports Garden’s new community hub sets out a vision of a sustainable development based on Circular Economy principles: collaborating with local users, preserving existing structures, using reclaimed and sustainable materials, and designing for long-term flexibility.

The Marlborough Sports Garden is a rare outdoor space providing much-needed access to physical activity, sport and leisure pursuits. This third phase of improvements continues to focus on the local public health agenda, and the move to mitigate against childhood obesity and inactivity.

Our proposals will provide a new community hub building that will support the revamped and reinvigorated Garden with a new community cafe, which can double-up as an events space, equipment store, flexible studio spaces and spectator seating.

Our future places need to be socially sustainable. The new entrance, with its planted facade, will help to connect people to nature and provide a more porous, accessible and inviting gateway from the street to the activities going on within the Sports Garden.

Our client, the Bankside Open Spaces Trust and the design team are united in their ambition to make the hub as carbon neutral and circular economy compliant as possible, from the materials used to build the community facility, to the operation of the café and sports activities. The rational structural grid ensures simple construction and reduction of waste. This arrangement provides the best opportunity for reusing reclaimed materials.