An inclusive and sustainable community space in Elephant & Castle, featuring expansive lawns, mature trees, colourful rain gardens, a landmark water playscape and a new community pavilion.

The Park is the centrepiece of Elephant Park, a revitalisation of Elephant & Castle by Lendlease and Southwark Council that sets new benchmarks in urban living. At two acres, it’s an inclusive and sustainable community space featuring expansive lawns, colourful rain gardens, the landmark water playscape, Elephant Springs, and walkways nestled within naturalistic planting. The development aims to be net zero carbon in operation on completion.

A central feature, Elephant Springs is a rocky, water-world of fountains, waterfalls and sandy beaches. Created from 300 tons of Italian porphyry stone, chosen for its hard-wearing and slip-resistant properties when wet, Elephant Springs is a tactile space designed to delight and challenge children and adults alike, encouraging safe but adventurous play for all abilities.

Designed by Gillespies, the Park provides a green oasis in London’s Zone One where the local community can relax, play, exercise and socialise. It includes 27 retained, mature trees and 19 new trees, chosen for their suitability for conditions, resilience to climate change, and diversity of species, which deliver more comprehensive ecological value to the park. The wider planting strategy has a mix of native and non-native species to maximise diversity and create a spatially complex planting cover proven by academic studies to have a significant impact on supporting biodiversity.

The Park’s rain gardens are a vital part of the SUDS strategy, infiltrating surface water runoff from hard paved areas into the underground aquifer rather than overburdening London’s combined sewer system.

Enveloping one of the mature London Plane trees is the Park’s pavilion building. Comprising a community space, café kiosk and publicly accessible elevated terrace, the building is constructed from predominantly cross-laminated timber, with sustainably sourced timber cladding and timber decking resulting in a building that is carbon negative in terms of its embodied energy.

Angela Brennan, Project Director, Lendlease for Elephant Park, said:

“From our earliest conversations with the community, we understood the importance of the mature trees that characterise this area of Elephant & Castle, and we did everything we could to retain as many as possible. Gillespies worked closely with us to ensure the designs for the park celebrated these majestic London Planes and the health, wellbeing and environmental benefits they bring to the neighbourhood. This was also carried through to Bell Phillips’s designs for the park’s pavilion building. The timber structure wraps around one of the trees, with external staircases leading people up onto the public viewing terrace amongst the tree canopy. By retaining 27 mature trees from the site's past usage, we have successfully created a green and leafy pocket of tranquillity for central London that's brand new and yet feels like it's always been here."