United States Embassy
As an emblem of American values, the landscape of the New London Embassy presents an open and welcoming experience for the public, visitors, employees and dignitaries. The five acre landscape is designed to resolve the need for site security while giving form to the core beliefs of democracy - transparency, openness and equality. Incorporating a range of sustainable systems including landscape-based storm water strategies, landscape support for building mechanical systems, the use of native and reginally appropriate species, and connections to the larger urban context as it exists now and develops in the future. The proposed open space to the south of the Embassy site is a pedestrian green way that connects the site to Vauxhall Station and on to the proposed new Battersea developments to the west. Three distinct landscape typologies - wetland, prairie and woodland - reflect the diverse quality of the American landscape. Serving as a testament to the nations’ long-standing allegiance, native plant species of the United States exist side-by-side on the site with those of Great Britain. The Embassy landscape is conceived as a spiraling form that draws visitors from the River Thames walk, Nine Elms Lane, and future green way. This movement is enhanced as it spirals around the Chancery and winds into the main and consular lobbies, continuing up through the building as a series of gardens that open up to the skyline at various floors of the Chancery. In this way, the form of the spiral marries landscape to building, analogous to the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. An equitable distribution of publicly accessible spaces, open site views and internal Embassy functions respect the local context of the Nine Elms and Battersea neighborhood while contributing to the landscape of the Embassy itself. Perimeter walls and fences are suppressed in favor of alternative security forms ranging from hidden ha-ha’s to the pond embankment. The planting design of the Embassy landscape was inspired by Piet Blanckaert’s masterpiece of texture and geometry in Antwerp, Belgium. The Belgian project utilizes only eight plant species; comprised of ornamental grasses, shrubs and trees.
Completed while Landscape Designer at OLIN
Photo credit: OLIN
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Date: 2017
Project Type: International, Federal Government, Security
Client: KieranTimberlake
Owner: Department of State, Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operation
Team: KieranTimberlake, OLIN, Arup, Weidlinger, Gensler, AECOM Technical Services, Sako & Associates, C&G Partners, CMS Collaborative, Ambius, Lynch & Associates, Allan Hart, John Greenlee