Project name : Northala Fields

Location: London/UK

Collaboration with : Igor Marko and Peter Neal

Client: Ealing Borough Council

Northala Fields is widely acclaimed as an exemplar of people-led sustainability.

The most significant features of the design are:

1. Extensive community involvement in all stages of the project

2. Construction of a new monumental land form and ecology zones, utilising 165,000 lorry loads of imported construction spoil from a pool of London-wide development projects such as Heathrow Terminal 5, White City and Wembley Stadium.

3. Delivering the project at no cost to the tax payer through generating all the necessary £6 million of income through the controlled construction spoil deposition

Four large conical earth mounds along the A40 edge of the site help to reduce visual and noise pollution and provide a major piece of ‘land art’ that is a landmark gateway for West London. Water is another major feature of the park, with a network of six interconnecting fishing lakes, a model boating lake and wildlife ponds, streams and wetlands. A range of new habitats was created: Woodland both around the perimeter and within the site adds to the diversity of the existing woodland habitat; each mound has been created with varying soil conditions that supports wildflower and grass seed mix to give four distinct habitats; water and wetland in the form of new watercourses provide opportunities for water and wetland flora and fauna that were not present on the site.