Commercial Garden and Community Garden Categories | APL Awards 2017 Shortlist
Our third project successfully hitting the APL Awards 2017 shortlist is a stunning courtyard roof garden in the heart of a Manchester skyline community.
Favoured in the Commercial and Community Garden categories, its success follows the pathway of our other two shortlisted projects in 4 other categories.
The Client Brief
Completed in April 2016, this city-based residential apartment scheme features top-notch soft and hard landscaping from Paxman Landscapes. These prestigious homes are flanked by semi-mature trees and turf around the parking spaces and forecourts but the star of the show is the elevated Sky Garden. This community roof garden landscape encompasses paving, resin-bound gravel, turfed mounds and decking for residents to maximise the open aspect and an elevated vista alongside their living space.
The resulting residential garden demonstrates clean, crisp lines, contrasting colour and form with a blend of shrubs, specimen shrubs, hedging, turf, paving and decking.
The Garden
The Hat Box development houses 144 apartments and is situated in New Islington, East Manchester, adjacent to Milliners Wharf. The client expected the landscaping scheme to reflect the high specification of the apartments and provide a private raised residents garden entitled The Sky Garden. The community area should encourage residents to catch up with neighbours, sit and relax after the day’s toils and provide precious open air views across the area.
Maximising open space at the first floor level atop the parking area, the outlying forecourts and parking should benefit from semi-mature trees, low level planting and turf. This demonstrates a practical and innovated approach to providing maximum community benefit where space is at a premium.
The blend and mix of shrubs, specimen shrubs and 30-35cm trees bordered by hedging around the parking areas provide interest, boundary, height, form and foliage throughout the year.
You can see the complete shortlist of nominated landscaping projects and companies here. Winners will be announced at the APL Awards Dinner on March 17 2017 at The Brewery in London.
