The Malings

• Landscaping for a high density urban regeneration housing scheme.
• Solution for drainage on sloping site to river.
• Sustainable drainage system using feature wet garden.
• Supreme winner in 2016 Housing Design Awards.

The Malings is a high density urban regeneration housing scheme on a former industrial site next to the Ouseburn river in Newcastle-on-Tyne. We were invited by Ash Sakula architects to landscape the site with designs for planting and a sustainable drainage system to be achieved within the development budget.

The drainage plan was important for planning approval and for the life of the development. The site slopes steeply down to the Ouseburn and as a result we routed surface drainage through terraced gardens with a feature rain garden at the bottom to control water running off into the river. Our scheme for planting the rain garden used trees and plants that could thrive in both the very wet and dry conditions they would experience.

We designed other areas around the site including gardens for the houses and communal podium gardens over the car parking area.

In July 2016 the scheme was awarded Supreme Winner in the 2016 Housing Design Awards