The Cerebos Gardens are three green spaces alongside the busy Victoria Road, which runs through the large industrial estate in the area. It consists of a long strip of land with many mature trees, which is largely underused, an ornamental garden, which has been neglected and a playground for kids that is out-dated.
Under the pressure of on-going construction for high speed rail and high-rise buildings, a small cluster of existing residential areas immediately adjacent to the green spaces, namely Shaftsbury Gardens and Midland Terrace, suffer noise and air pollution from the development. Improving the green spaces to be more accessible and user-friendly is necessary in order to safeguard the existing residents as well as the future community who will be introduced by the development.
Our proposed interventions are themed around the three categories: learning nature and local history, a moment of repose, and gathering through play.
Three themed areas are interconnected with a continuous footpath. The compacted gravel path winds gently around existing trees. Thepaving around two existing bus stops on Victoria Road will be widened to give more generous public realm spaces and also to create new entrance archways to the gardens. Each entry archway will be demarcated with a decorative tiled threshold ‘carpet’, a gesture to greet visitors. The path is minimum 1.2 m wide and sloped to follow the existing topography throughout without any steps.
