Above the tracks of Liverpool Street Station, Exchange Square is a unique, tranquil new park within the urban heart of London. As natural light fades, a balance of beautifully integrated light and retained darkness reveals the multi-level topography and curved landscape features while supporting intuitive wayfinding, ease of access, and promoting social connection. The lighting design focuses on enhancing the organic and sensory aspects of the park design, playing up the natural textures and changing colours of the planting and the movement of wind and water, aiming to encourage people to slow down, breathe, and enjoy a moment of respite from the hard granite of the city surrounds.
A key project from the Broadgate Public Realm Framework for British Land, the park is a soft, bucolic environment that prioritises the wellbeing of both people and plants and is open access, marking an important milestone in their journey from an office-led campus to a truly mixed-use, creative environment.
Much of the lighting is kept at a low height, preserving a warm and intimate ambience that encourages increased dwell time and easy social interaction. At the perimeter, light for circulation is provided from columns at a human scale, while low-level bollards reveal the internal routes and softly highlight the low-level planting.
Across the site, the landscape elements softly glow with elegantly integrated light, contrasting with the areas of retained darkness to improve legibility and facilitate a sense of security while supporting the park’s ecology and biodiversity.
The dark metal vertical face of the meandering ‘ribbon’ retaining wall that runs through the park is revealed with an even wash of light, while the slatted timber benches that sit up above the wall are lit from beneath. Slots cut into the faces of the terrazzo step seating also contain hidden light sources, generating mesmerising patterns and ever-changing ripples within the water feature.
The tallest elements in the park are two rows of mature silver birch trees lit from within to create shifting patterns of rustling foliage and branches on the ground. The colour of the light adjusts tonally with each season, with warmer white light enhancing the rich autumn leaves and bare wooden branches in autumn and winter and fresher, cooler, white light celebrating the green buds and vibrant leaves of spring and summer.
