Our vision is to create a transformative 60-metre-long elevated garden at the heart of Imperial’s White City campus. Though temporary in its five-year design life, this linear park serves as a permanent landmark for the students whose entire academic journey fits within its span. Designed as a walkway, a sanctuary, and a place for enrichment, it offers a space where the community, students, and academics can pause, connect, and develop.

The flat pack structure is conceived with simplicity. Fast to build, entirely dry-jointed, and based on standard, easily transported elements, it avoids heavy earthworks and uses removable foundations to ensure minimal ground impact. Connections are bolted, not welded; modules are sized for efficiency, avoiding waste. Our goal is to use repurposed and recyclable materials throughout: salvaged steel structure, timber underfoot, modular planters above, borrowed furniture, ensuring everything can be reused at the end of the project.

Consistent with the innovative spirit of the White City Franco-British Exhibition, this project is an experiment in circularity. Students can participate in its construction (echoing the Constructionarium initiative) making the project a process as much as a place. From the timber underfoot to the modular planters above, every element is designed to be reused or recycled at the end of the project, leaving behind knowledge and inspiration rather than waste.

The structure unfolds as three distinct garden “rooms” framed by curated planting. The deck is purposefully level to encourage seating and informal gathering, while the planting is designed to screen urban noise, opening in strategic places to reveal borrowed views of the wider cityscape. Soft LED lighting is discreetly embedded to ensure safe evening use while preserving an atmosphere of calm. This creates a bright, welcoming pocket park where people can take lunch, meet friends, or simply pause away from the flow of the city.

The garden is alive with themes drawn from Imperial’s Silwood Park. Each planter becomes both a teaching tool and a moment of sensory pleasure, focusing on; climate resilience, using soft landscapes to offset the urban heat island and reduce glare, ecological science, with research-driven planting focused on pollution mitigation and ecosystem restoration, and wellbeing, through spaces curated around scent and tranquility to promote mental health.