The Landscape Institute has recently announced the winners of the annual Landscape Institute Awards, with the winning schemes including the world’s first tidal lagoon at Swansea Bay.
Landscape architects LDA Design won the prestigious President’s Award, chosen by new President Noel Farrer, for Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, an ambitious project that harnesses tidal power to generate renewable electricity from the incoming and outgoing tide.
The project is of international significance and is the first in a series of lagoons that Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd intends to develop, own and operate in the UK. The Swansea project is intended to demonstrate the technical feasibility and financial viability of tidal lagoons, as well as the client’s approach which puts place-making at its heart and seeks to integrate a major renewable energy project into the lives of local people. It will provide long-term, secure, predictable renewable energy, making a significant contribution to reducing climate change.
The primary purpose of the project is to generate fully renewable power from the tidal range in Swansea Bay, enhancing energy security and allowing important carbon reductions. Other key objectives are to contribute to the regeneration of the Bay and to create a tourism, sports and leisure resource at a regional/national level which contributes to the local economy.
Early on in project development, design objectives and principles were identified for the masterplan, which seeks to establish a flexible concept of a new recreational coastline for Swansea between the city centre beach front to the west and Crymlyn Burrows SSSI to the east.
The project involves the construction of new seawalls to impound 11.5km2 of Swansea Bay. Turbines within the walls will generate renewable electricity from the incoming and outgoing tide, exploiting the exceptionally large tidal range within the Bay, and will have a nominal rated capacity of 240MW (based on average tides) and an installed capacity of 320MW. The project will generate in excess of 500GWh per year, enough to power 156,000 homes (c.90% of Swansea Bay’s annual domestic electricity use, or c.11% of that of Wales). The project will have an anticipated lifespan of 120 years.
The Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon team includes: DLA Piper UK LLP, Atkins Ltd, Juice Architects (Offshore Visitor Centre), Faulkner Browns (Western Landfall Building), Michael Grubb Studio, URS Corporation, ABP Marine Environmental Research Ltd, Anatec UK Ltd, Intertek, Turnpenny Horsfield Associates, Soltys Brewster, Cotswold Archaeology, Cape Farewell and Costain Group Plc.
Other schemes crowned with a win included Birmingham’s Eastside City Park, designed by Patel Taylor to fulfill a part of Birmingham City Council’s Big City Plan, which scooped an award for public space design; Maida Hill Market, by landscape architects Gillespies, which provides a valuable area of open space to north London’s Harrow Road community; South Pennines Watershed Landscape Projects by South Pennines Local Nature Partnership, a project which engages local communities with the landscape; and Urbis Limited’s A Comprehensive Street Tree Management Plan for Hong Kong, which helps the city to get the most in environmental, social and economic returns from its trees.
Noel Farrer, President of the Landscape Institute, said: “This year’s winners are outstanding examples of landscape architecture. In addition to exceptionally designed schemes, projects range from a communications strategy, waking people up to the role landscape can play in their lives, to a dissertation about ethical design.
The President’s Award winner, Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, sees the winner lead a complex project, whilst also truly bringing landscape out into the open, showing how a large infrastructure scheme can contribute positively to our environment”.
The Landscape Institute Awards are presented annually to encourage and recognise outstanding examples of work by the landscape profession.
Source: The Landscape Institute