Image credit: Carmody Groarke
Great Central Railway Museum
Leicester, United Kingdom
Description: Landscape garden for the new Great Central Railway Heritage Museum
Location: Leicester, United Kingdom
Area: 6 ha
Stage: Concept design
Status: Competition – Runner-up
Period: 2016
Client: Great Central Railway
Architects: Carmody Groarke
Engineers: Arup
Djao-Rakitine Team: Irene Djao-Rakitine, Chun Wing Fok
Landscape masterplan showing how existing railway is integrated into museum building. Image by Carmody Groarke.
Main entrance to the Great Central Railway Museum.
The museum landscape garden aims to reveal the existing landscape and site specificities to create an inspiring landscape setting for the museum.
It also introduces itself as a local park connecting the museum activities to the local communities.
The existing pathway and cycleway which runs along the railways is merged into a promenade that highlights and defines the contours of the site, providing a smooth transition between the landscape garden, the surrounding landscape and the red hill allotments to the east. It also offers different outlooks on the higher points of the site, providing extensive views on the city and wider landscape.
Introducing the allotments into the visual realm of the museum park is a reference to the historical presence of allotments along railways. It is also a way to encourage potential synergies between the allotments activity, local communities and the museum.
The museum promenade is extended to the south, around the new museum car park, to link up with the existing footbridge and connection to the south of Red Hill Way.
Finally, a pedestrian entrance is provided to the south of the site, along the vehicule entrance road, providing an impressive perspective towards the museum and its cantilevered platform.
All images are © Djao-Rakitine, unless otherwise stated.
