Elephant Springs Eternal

Porphyry quarry Albiano, Nr Trento, Italy © Hardscape

A £4 billion redevelopment programme has seen radical change in South London. It’s hoped that a new two-acre park will prove an iconic draw for generations to come.

In South London, at the heart of one of the capital’s busiest routes, sits a ‘little oasis’, Elephant Springs. Opened last summer, the distinctive ‘pocket park’ has proved a draw for hundreds of people across the city. Elephant Springs is part of Elephant Park, a mixed-use development by Lendlease and Southwark Council, which when completed will offer 3,000 new homes, 50 new retail spaces, a library, heritage centre and nursery. There are also plans for a new office building and an NHS community health hub. The development is scheduled for completion in 2026 with a bold ambition of achieving net-zero operation by this time.

Elephant Park itself is intended as a ‘community space’, with rain gardens and walkways, and forms part of a £2.5bn plan by Southwark Council and Lendlease to boost the local economy.

Mel Chantrey among the Porphyry in Italy

© Hardscape

Nearly 15% of people who live in the borough are estimated to earn less than the living wage and Southwark has the sixth-highest rate of child poverty out of all local authorities in the UK.

Elephant Spring complete

© Hardscape

We looked at how we could create biodiversity in any residential areas, as well as the park itself.

Zena Wigram is Head of Marketing at Gillespies in Clerkenwell, London. The project has been ‘a long time coming,’ she says. Previously, the company had completed a number of major projects in Southwark, including a public park for the apartment and workspace complex Bankside Yards, a landscape courtyard for the office development The Forge, as well as ITV headquarters and the park at the apartment complex, the Biscuit Factory in Bermondsey.

For the Elephant Park development, Gillespies was retained by Lendlease back in 2014 to devise a masterplan, covering 28 acres, including a new two-acre park. ‘It’s a big footprint,’ she says. ‘We looked at how we could create biodiversity in any residential areas, as well as the park itself. There was also a story about play and what we could provide.’

Porphyry in Albiano quarry, Italy, selected for the project

© Hardscape

After the pandemic hit, this idea of including a ‘playscape’ for local children became central to the project’s development, and Gillespies describes Elephant Springs as ‘a rocky water-world of fountains, waterfalls and sandy beaches created from 300 tonnes of Italian porphyry stone. Elephant Springs is … a tactile space designed to delight, challenge and excite children and adults alike.’

During the pandemic, how we use public spaces came under sharp focus and the company undertook a lot of research, looking at how water and sand could be used in the Elephant Springs project, which sits at the heart of one of London’s busiest routes, providing a respite from the heavy traffic.

Neil Matthew is Senior Associate at Gillespies but when the project began nearly ten years ago, he was Senior Landscape Architect and has seen his career progress as the project reached completion. ‘I was leading the team, public consultations and client meetings,’ he says. ‘It was a very collaborative process.’

When the project started, a steering group was formed called the Park Action Group (PAG) made up of local residents and professionals who met regularly and acted as a ‘sounding board’ throughout the design process. They were found by posting notices up on the site. ‘It was important to have resident input as the park was next to existing properties,’ says Matthew. The company was charged with developing a focal point for Elephant Park, which was delivered in two phases, protecting the site’s existing mature trees and adding new ones to provide a canopy, as well as a wildflower meadow to act as a ‘welcome’ to the area.

Watercolour drawing

© Hardscape

Trying to complete the project during lockdown required a change in their way of working. Says Matthew, ‘Obviously, we worked remotely most of the time. But we all know each other well and that made things easier. It was easy just to pick up the phone, and a lot of site visits were conducted virtually via video calls.’

For the park’s water feature, the company worked with artist Mel Chantrey from the Fountain Workshop. Chantrey had previously worked with Gillespies on a larger water feature project in Woolwich, London, called the Royal Arsenal Riverside Waterfront in 2016. Chantrey also designed the waterscape for the Diana Princess of Wales memorial playground in Kensington Gardens. ‘He was the natural choice,’ says Matthew. ‘He’s a great collaborator.’

Trying to complete the project during lockdown required a change in their way of working. Says Matthew, ‘Obviously, we worked remotely most of the time. But we all know each other well and that made things easier.

For Chantrey, whose background is in fine art, Elephant Springs was a real labour of love. ‘I grew up in the Pennines, wandering about springs and streams, and that became the narrative that informed this project,’ he says. Chantrey learned that there had previously been a watercourse on the site and had the idea of creating a water feature. ‘The water would emerge from the ground into a tumbling watercourse, ending in a kind of delta, and the course would change colour as it ran through. I had everything hidden, even the drains, so that it looks natural.’

Having previously travelled to a quarry in northern Italy for the project in Woolwich, Chantrey was introduced by Hardscape to the colour and finish of porphyry stone, selected for its durability and beauty. ‘I don’t use computers,’ he admits and so produced hundreds of drawings, which in the end proved invaluable. He also spent 18 months making precise Plasticine models to scale in Gillespies’ offices. ‘I knew exactly how it would work,’ he says. ‘And I wanted it to be inclusive so you can get wheelchairs in there, you can play with jets. But it’s not just for children, it’s also for adults.’

Hand watercolour impression and vision. Mel Chantrey

3D model by Hardscape rendered to show colour variation.

Paving between mounds and beginning of laying on the project site. Mel Chantry

Plasticine model of mound 1 and 2. Mel Chantrey

Mound 2 laid out in Italy complete.

Water feature paving and porphyry blocks being laid with 5M ‘bridge stone’ (in one piece) in the background. Lendlease

Design view to the north. Lendlease

Mound 1 nearly complete. Test layout in Italy. Hardscape

Elephant Springs porphyry design in construction. Lendlease

Porphyry paving with jointing material test colour. Mel Chantrey

A presentation to Lendlease went well and Chantrey’s models, drawings and equipment were shipped to Italy, but just as the project was about to go ahead, the pandemic hit – with the Italian village where the family-owned quarry was located in the epicentre of the outbreak.

Weeks passed and it was eventually decided to work remotely. Cameras were mounted overlooking the quarry yard with round-theclock access so that Chantrey could see what he was doing. ‘I worked every day, from 7am to 6pm, from September to December. It had to be done by Christmas before the snow came,’ he says.

The process was long and involved. For every stone to be used, three or four had to be selected. Says Chantrey, ‘Porphyry is a volcanic rock; a slab can be half a metre thick. I was looking for colour – it was like doing a jigsaw puzzle long distance. In the end, 70% of the product was built in Italy. It sounds crazy, all the odds were stacked against us, but it worked like a dream.’

Chantrey is full of praise for the Italian family that helped bring the vision to life. ‘These guys are artisans,’ he says. ‘It was an incredible working relationship. They ended up adopting me.’

Lendlease had originally intended for the work to be recreated in a field in Kent before being transported to site but having lost several weeks due to the lockdown, the stones were shipped straight to the site itself.

Again, it was necessary to work remotely with cameras set up on site and Chantrey ended up giving the engineers and construction crew a half-day ‘creative induction’, featuring his many drawings and models.

‘People went the extra mile,’ he says. ‘It was a crazy bit of work but so much care has been lavished on this thing –the workmen really upped their game.’

Mathew Haslam, director of Hardscape, has known Mel Chantrey for more than 20 years and had a 30year relationship with Gillespies, since the company first formed. He was involved in early discussions about the project. ‘Mel built an amazing model,’ he says. ‘The digital world doesn’t bring a project to life in the same way. People may sneer at anything old-time, but I think they [Lendlease] fell in love with the Plasticine model.’

But the project was not without its issues. ‘Because of Covid, there was real uncertainty about how it was all going to turnout. It was difficult to predict,’ he says. ‘Porphyry is granitic. It comes out of the ground in sheets, not in blocks. With a digital model, you couldn’t predict the stone height or dictate water flow. It required a leap of faith – and a real team effort with construction team P.J. Careys Ltd.’

Lifesize models were created in the quarry, which required each slab to be numbered and a GPS coordinate assigned, so that each piece could then be reconstructed in London.

An independent risk-benefit analysis was carried out by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) on site when the project was 80% completed, and then another assessment was conducted just prior to the park opening in June 2021. In the interim, the company undertook ‘slight changes’, which in the end won the company an award. Mathew is very positive about this process. ‘It’s always good to be recognised,’ he says. ‘It was a feast of innovation.’

Would he undertake such a project again? ‘Oh yeah,’ he replies without hesitation. ‘In Mel, we had someone who wants to reinvent Hadrian’s Wall, the Italians were proud of their material and Lendlease didn’t waver from their vision. It was a real human endeavour. The best projects are a real challenge and produce the best result.’

People have come back together, a new community is forming.

Meanwhile, when lockdown finally lifted, and Chantrey could travel from his home in Manchester, he visited Elephant Springs and spent some time speaking to the people who had come to enjoy the space. He is delighted with the outcome.

Design view to the south

©Lendlease

‘The opening was fantastic,’ he says. ‘You’re not sure how things are going to work until the public are there. I saw people on the Tube coming with buckets and spades, and the sound was terrific. For me, it’s a real success. People have come back together, a new community is forming. During the day, I saw families with children playing, people having lunch, and I talked to people in the evening. It wasn’t originally meant to be a playground; it was a “peoplescape”, but it also accommodates the people who had been displaced from Heygate Estate [demolished ten years previously]. The park provides the glue, putting a community back together.

‘It doesn’t look like a playground, it’s a lyrical, romantic landscape – at night the lighting is beautiful. It could have been an abject failure but it worked. It was extraordinary.’