March 2016
Developer’s VINCI St. Modwen have worked with The Edible Bus Stop, the London based award-winning collective, to animate the boundary of the New Covent Garden Market redevelopment site and engage with the local community.
The aim of the project, which has just been long-listed for the national RIBA MacEwen Award (the annual search for the best examples of architecture for the common good) was to improve the environment around the site for the benefit of the existing community and reflect the transformation that is happening in and around the market.
The wall that runs the length of Thessaly Road, is now a place of colour with planters and built-in seats along sections of the structure, breaking up the hard brick facade, making it a far more pleasant place to walk along and pass through.
With the enthusiastic help of the local community and especially the pupils and staff of nearby St. George’s School, the planters have initially been filled with winter vegetables but the main planting will come next spring. The fruit trees will begin to blossom and the seedlings, that will be nurtured in the community garden and the school, will be planted out to bring a riot of colour and vegetation that will be good enough to eat.