We're pleased to announce the shortlist for our 'Hope in the Square' design competition, run in partnership with Southwark Council, to create an inspiring new green space celebrating young people as part of the redevelopment of Peckham Square.

 

From over 50 expressions of interest from architects, landscape architects, designers and artists, six professional teams were shortlisted to develop exciting and imaginative design concepts. This exhibition presents the six shortlisted design teams and their proposals, marking the final stage of the competition.

 

An expert judging panel will select the winning concept, which will be delivered as part of the wider redevelopment of Peckham Square. The winning design team will be announced publicly on the Day of Hope on 7 December 2025. Once appointed, they will continue to develop their designs with local residents.

The competition aims to deliver a distinctive meeting place where young people and the wider community can come together - to reflect, to look positively towards the future, and to honour Peckham’s past.

 

The project will build on the legacy of Damilola Taylor and the continuing work of his family and the Hope Collective. Damilola Taylor’s legacy and the work of the Damilola Taylor Trust (DTT) and the Hope Collective sit at the heart of this project. Close collaboration with these partners, as well as with Southwark Council, will be essential in ensuring the winning design reflects the local identity and community pride.

We’re delighted to introduce the six shortlisted teams and their proposed designs for the area. We encourage you to visit the exhibition on-site at Peckham Square and share your feedback.

This team consists of a group of artists, curators and designers who have an ambition to collaborate with different groups, specialists, and communities in their projects. Each of them shares a connection to Peckham and South London, having been raised, living, or actively working within the local area. 

 

Bafalw’s work ranges from pop-up cinemas and creative interventions in unexpected locations, developing a series of workshops around food with a lively community of aunties, through to ‘occupying’ a gallery to bring an offering of public activities, including collective making, block printing, a symposium and capoeira. 

 

As a Horticulturist and Designer, Errol’s approach to gardening, landscape management and design is creative, thoughtful and sensitive. With his expertise and particular interest in ecological and sustainable horticulture, together the team are hoping to develop a refreshing and playful proposal that works between the boundaries of horticulture, design and the everyday people of Peckham Square and the high street.

On being shortlisted, the team said, "For us and many others, the square is filled with memories of being dynamic, active and never static—sharing the same energy and vibrance of the high street and the vibrance of Rye Lane and the market within it. We’re excited to have the opportunity to work together to propose how we can nurture, celebrate and encourage the richness of experiences that can cater to a variety of voices and generations."

You can find more on the team here

C-ENNA is a multidisciplinary collective committed to community-centred design, restorative co-creation, and environmental justice. C-ENNA is composed of three partner organisations, each representing over two decades in the field: Raskl (art/architectural fabrication), Art Responders (socially engaged curation, arts learning, and community engagement), and Kristofer Adelaide Architecture (participatory and social architecture). Their mission is to create culturally responsive, interactive public spaces that foster conversation, contemplation, and activation through baseline community research and collaboration with local partners. 

On their shortlisting, the team said, "As respective fans, neighbours and residents of Peckham, we honestly couldn't be more excited to have been shortlisted for this meaningful and humbling opportunity. This is exactly the reason we practise what we do, and we wish to respect and deliver the very best for the project stakeholders, wider community and Peckham itself."

Godfried Donkor is a British-Ghanaian mixed-media, multidisciplinary artist, whose work straddles continents and cultures and has been exhibited widely across Europe, Africa and the USA.

millimetre is an award-winning design and fabrication company with extensive experience of delivering complex, multi-faceted, public facing projects. They have worked with many leading artists, and this application builds on their previous collaborations with Godfried Donkor. They will be working with Kelly O’Reilly, a curator with extensive experience of public and participatory arts practice, on the community engagement aspects of this project.

To mark their shortlisting for this competition, the team said “We’re excited to be shortlisted for the LFA’s Hope in the Square initiative. Given all that this space represents, it’s an opportunity to engage with Peckham’s distinctive identity, heritage and communities to explore more varied and inclusive public design ideas. By looking at the traditional West African symbolism of adinkras in new ways, we hope to use this project as a platform for collective storytelling and community conversations – amplifying underrepresented voices in the process of shaping public spaces. It’s also a chance to redress the issue of waste production within the construction industry, introducing sustainable access to nature into this busy urban environment.”

Find more on the team

Living Bankside team is a collective made up of tp bennett, Living Bankside and Greenwood-Hill landscape architects.

tp bennett is a dynamic UK headquartered architecture and design practice that’s been pushing boundaries for over 100 years. Unconfined by a single style, tp bennet create innovative solutions from unique perspectives, adapting to deliver the right results for every project. Built on the belief that they're not just designers but creative problem solvers, they deliver design ideas that transform how people experience and interact with the built environment. Working with many of the world’s most influential brands, clients, and institutions, their design process integrates multiple voices and viewpoints, shaping solutions that address today's challenges and last a lifetime.

Living Bankside Academy, an award-winning initiative of the charitable organisation Living Bankside, is dedicated to transforming the lives of young people - particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds - through tailored opportunities and holistic support. With a focus on horticulture, career development, work experience, and apprenticeships, the Academy also runs a paid eight-week summer programme for 16–19-year-olds, developing life skills and introducing participants to global, national, and local organisations. All of the students come from across the Southwark borough, many of whom are immediate residents of Peckham.
 
Greenwood-Hill is a dynamic landscape architectural studio with over 40 years of combined expertise, renowned for creating immersive and inspiring external spaces. The team combines creative vision with technical precision, managing projects from concept to completion with exceptional attention to detail. Greenwood-Hill believes in the restorative and uplifting power of nature, crafting landscapes that seamlessly integrate with their surroundings and evoke a sense of wonder and joy.
 
On being shortlisted, the collective said, “Our collective for the competition - Living Peckham - is thrilled to have the opportunity to create a revitalised public space that embodies hope for a brighter future for young people. Twenty-five years on, it is especially important to commemorate the life of Damilola Taylor through this memorial garden and living installation. We aim to create a space where people of all ages can gather, hear stories from their communities, and share their own experiences of overcoming challenges. Throughout the design process, our collective team prioritised the voices of young people in Southwark, using a series of interactive workshops to inform the concept and design development.”  - Vicki Odili, Director of Sustainability, tp bennett
 
In addition, Rita, Living Bankside Olympian & Peckham Resident said "Being shortlisted for the redesign of the Peckham square feels surreal. It feels amazing how young people like us will have the opportunity of having a say in places we walk through every day."

Find more on the collective

Rebecca Markus and Erika Wei are a designer–researcher duo who first crossed paths during their MA studies in Architecture and Historic Urban Environments at the Bartlett. There, they discovered a shared passion for a reparative, socially engaged approach to working with existing urban contexts. By bridging design and research, they strive to deliver contextually rich projects that foster meaningful and lasting change within the built environment. 

 

On their successful shortlisting, the pair said, “As emerging practitioners, it’s a real honour to be shortlisted for Hope in the Square and to contribute to a project that honours the life and legacy of Damilola Taylor. Our practice is rooted in working with what already exists — not just the physical fabric of a place, but the cultures, everyday practices and lived experiences that give it meaning. Through this approach, we hope to create a space where young people feel safe, seen, and valued. We look forward to collaborating closely with Peckham’s young residents and the wider community to bring this vision to life.” 

Studio Bristow are a national creative landscape design practice. Established in Peckham in 2008 by Dan Bristow as Propagating Dan, their wide-ranging projects are known for the innovative and bold responses to the given briefs.  Many formative garden designs can be found throughout South East London (including the Derek Jarman Garden for Peckham at Bold Tendencies), and they’ve gone on to design a gold-medal winning Chelsea Flower Show garden in 2024, gardens for four schools and the landscape around a Buddhist centre in the Austrian Alps. 

The studio is inherently earth-conscious, and all projects have a long-term multi-decade plan.  It is essential for the practice that their public projects are intrinsically embedded in the communities they serve. Studio Bristow are a 2025 ‘House & Garden top 50 garden & landscape designer’. 

 

Noting their shortlisting in the competition, the studio said, "We are honoured to have been shortlisted in this competition.  Dan moved to Peckham a few months after Damilola Taylor was tragically killed, and that harrowing event was very fresh in the community’s collective memory.  In the 15 years he spent there, Dan experienced the huge changes that took hold of Peckham, from the demolition of the North Peckham estates to the flourishing of a pluralistic community, from the 2011 summer riots to the burgeoning music and creative scene.
 
Our vision is for a plant-led, strongly architectural installation, formed predominantly of striking tree species.  A nucleus of vertical, columnar trees of differing species stands tall, referencing the diversity of Peckham and the ambition and energy of its populace.  Closely planted, they form a huddle and reach for the sky.  Their forms echo the posts of the Library nearby.
 
To accentuate the vertical energy, we’re partnering with Bold Tendencies’ Creative Learning team, working directly with local youth to design narrow vertical sculptures which complement the trees. We’d like to have 10 sculptures made, one for each year of Damilola’s life. Around this tree/sculpture installation, we want to plant gently curving ellipses of pleached Lime trees, which emit calming compounds from their sweet flowers.  These form a ‘hug’ around the vertical forms.
 
At ground level there are nebulous forms of billowing shrubs, which are the ‘clouds’ out of which the other forms grow, with further sweet-scented flowers.  Paving and construction waste removed during the build is agglomerated and re-formed into giant pebble-like boulders, polished back to reveal the history.   These form ad hoc informal seating and incidental play opportunities. Our plan will more than double the number of proposed new trees going in to the square’s redevelopment!
 
 Find out more about the team here