Mayfield Park is the primary new city-centre park to be created in Manchester for over 100 years. The 6.5 acre park supplies a sequence of character areas related by a meandering river, the design strikes a cautious steadiness between energetic useable inexperienced areas for folks with pure habitat creation for wildlife.
The panorama is impressed by the location’s historical past and remaining industrial heritage. A key focus of the laborious panorama has been capturing among the Mancunian qualities of the prevailing website by means of restoration and reuse of current options and supplies and regional sourcing.
The River Medlock was beforehand culverted and nearly solely hidden from view. Uncovering the river was a defining transfer for our nature-first design method. Rivers present necessary wildlife corridors, and revealing the river unlocked the potential as an necessary biodiverse habitat. For the reason that park’s debut in 2022, the river has performed a key position in attracting wildlife again to the realm.
Mayfield Park incorporates a naturalistic planting design that may adapt to altering local weather circumstances. Our design contains sequences of various plant preparations, planting beds, and grasslands, to create journeys by means of distinct character areas. Planting is aware of each dry and moist extremes. The plant mixes create a visually putting but useful panorama that is ready to stand up to the spectrum of various environments of the location.
In drier areas, the plant choice takes under consideration their resilience primarily based on topography and solar publicity. A big south-facing embankment takes inspiration from the railway embankments adjoining to the location, as a conceptual interpretation of native drought resilient environments usually seen alongside railway tracks.
In areas designed to accommodate flood water and excessive river flows, nature-based programs intercept and gradual water discharge and encourage evapotranspiration. For instance, rain gardens function moisture-tolerant planting that absorbs extra floor runoff, as a substitute of permitting rain to empty into the river and contribute to flood dangers downstream.
Indigenous crops are primarily positioned alongside the river hall, with a give attention to making a related ecology for wildlife. These areas could be difficult for planting as a result of fluctuating water ranges, so we developed pre-planted programs to make sure instantaneous influence and elevated resilience to weed development, flooding, and drought. The floodplain wildscape is populated with a cautious choice of crops which can be in a position to tolerate periodic flooding, guaranteeing that the planting design additionally caters to excessive climate occasions.
One of many largest areas of the park incorporates a beneficiant garden house, match for leisure sports activities, play and picnicking. The Mayfield Garden can be designed as a versatile house for occasions and festivals, with high-quality built-in utilities and infrastructure. Strengthened anchor-points for stage setups, sunken electrical provisions, and under-path cabling are among the fastidiously thought of provisions for streamlined occasion internet hosting.
A brand new vacation spot play space supplies a key point of interest on the japanese finish of the park. A spotlight of the design features a fully-accessible play tower and slide, which permits youngsters in wheelchairs to additionally benefit from the play house alongside their pals. The towers have been impressed by the archaeological stays of octagonal industrial chimneys discovered on website.
Challenge Information
Panorama Structure, City Design: Studio Egret West
Challenge Web site: Mayfield Park
Different designers concerned within the design of panorama:
Shopper: Mayfield Partnership
Engineers: Buro Happold
Lighting Designer: Studio Fractal
Contractor crew: PP O’Connor, Ashlea, Civic Engineers, Gillespies with Layer Studio
Design 12 months: 2016 – ongoing
Yr Constructed: 2022
Images: Jarrell Goh of SEW and Richard Bloom
Producer of city tools: Streetlife, Vestre
Producer of playground tools: Massey & Harris
