Wellbeing Garden
HALCYON SCHOOL
The initial vision was a poetic composition of nature, learning, and discovery.
The Halcyon School Wellbeing Garden in Marylebone transforms the rooftop of a listed building into a calm, biodiverse outdoor environment for learning, reflection, and connection with nature.
The project demonstrates how careful landscape design can unlock new value from existing buildings while balancing wellbeing, heritage, and operational ambition in a dense urban setting.
The project provides a distinctive amenity for the school in a dense urban setting, where outdoor space for students is rare.
The brief required flexibility, supporting informal gatherings alongside structured teaching. Safety and heritage sensitivity were key considerations, addressed through careful circulation, informal seating, and a new three-metre-high perimeter fence.
Design interventions had to protect privacy, mitigate overlooking, reduce noise, enhance biodiversity, and maintain safety at roof level.
The project also required a light-touch, non-permanent approach to preserve the historic character.
View upon entering the terrace
Perforated parapet
View facing entrance to terrace
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A sensitive heritage context
The existing rooftop is set above Marylebone within a dense urban environment, situated in a sensitive heritage context defined by historic façades and roofscape elements.
Working within the constraints of a listed building, the project adopted a light-touch and non-intrusive approach that protects the historic fabric while introducing bespoke landscape interventions.
A space for
wellbeing and learning
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A white perforated metal fence ensures safety and privacy without dominating the view. A central amphitheatre offers flexible space for teaching or quiet reflection. New roof flooring with a two-tone painted pattern defines activity zones, while raised planters provide seating, support food growing, and attract wildlife. Together, these elements form a cohesive, calm landscape.
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A Space to Come Together
Amphitheatre seating with butterfly canopy early design development
sketches and diagrams
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Attracting wildlife
Biodiverse planting invites pollinators and encourages engagement with nature. A prairie-style palette of grasses, herbaceous perennials, wildflowers, herbs, and bulbs thrives in shallow soils, creating loose drifts with seasonal interest and an easy-to-maintain, resilient garden.
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Addressing the busiest corner of Phoenix Road, the speaker’s podium acted as Somers Town’s own speaker’s corner, a platform for residents and visitors walking through with something to say.
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