‘Revealing the City’ – Exchange Square

City Architecture Forum's 2021 'Revealing the City’ lecture series opens the door on some of the most exciting developments happening in the City of London.
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Deborah Saunt, co-founder of the architecture, urban design and spatial research studio DSDHA, and James Fox, partner of landscape architects FFLO, discuss the emerging design of Exchange Square, Broadgate, which is now on site. They will look at how to create welcoming and biodiverse public spaces for the City, and discuss how these places can encourage a broad audience to pause and dwell, not just pass through.

A major new public park for the City of London, Exchange Square is re-imagined as a bucolic landscape and generously planted green space, suspended above the tracks of Liverpool Street Station. Unfolding across several levels to create a more natural topography for the site, it will provide opportunities for rest and relaxation at the heart of Broadgate, and a unique place in the City where nature and culture are in balance.

The 1.5-acre park will see a four-fold increase in the amount of planting and dramatically enhance biodiversity, with 25{b17b3b763ffd02ecf1c74fffce55f9fa4c2579a41b5beb0c73d95f3d2b470330} of the area featuring green space that is accessible to all. Wellbeing and inclusivity have been vital considerations throughout the design process, driven by the ambition to make a vibrant space that encourages engagement and interactivity. A comprehensive analysis of pedestrian movement helped to identify barriers to access – including steps, changes in level, lack of visual contrast and changes in tactility, and poor signage – in order to provide a space that is accessible to all. A strategy of ‘awesome’ planting is proposed that will offer seasonal variety and an ever-changing sensory experience that ensures the park will never be the same place twice.

Exchange Square is the culmination of DSDHA’s Broadgate Public Realm Framework Plan for British Land, which has demonstrated the crucial role the public realm can play in establishing a new identity for a site.