Glasgow urban retrofit scheme Queensland Courst is the Building with Nature National Award 2021 winner

We are delighted to be collaborating for a second year with the Landscape Institute (LI) to present the Building with Nature National Award, celebrating best practice in the integration of high-quality green infrastructure into the built environment. This award, judged by LI’s expert panel, showcases inspirational design vision, and also champions a commitment to delivering that vision on the ground, ensuring that high-quality green infrastructure contributes to a more sustainable future for both people and wildlife.

The need for better placemaking that enhances biodiversity and creates vibrant communities has never been more pressing, with Covid highlighting the public’s need for ‘nature on the doorstep’ to support health and wellbeing, COP26 bringing to the fore the importance of a clear and robust response to the climate crisis, and The Dasgupta Review earlier this year underlining the necessity for urgent action to address the ecological crisis.

Green infrastructure offers practical, well evidenced solutions to address the triple emergency providing; healthy green spaces to meet diverse needs within communities, climate adaptation and mitigation solutions, soft features that support good water and flood management, natural carbon capture and the creation and restoration of habitats to support nature’s recovery networks. The Building with Nature Standards Framework defines high-quality green infrastructure, providing a how-to guide for planners and developers that make it easier for industry to adopt an approach that puts nature at the heart of decision making.

We are thrilled to showcase the winner of the 2021 Building with Nature National Award, Queensland Court and Gardens, Cardonald, Glasgow. This scheme is a ground-breaking example of how green infrastructure can deliver tangible benefits for people and nature in an urban setting. The retrofit scheme, brought forward by Glasgow City Council and Southside Housing Association, with the support of multiple stakeholders, is a triumph of partnership working, demonstrating how nature-based solutions can be utilised to address the impact of climate change whilst providing multiple benefits for the community and local wildlife.

This award champions schemes that have secured high-quality green infrastructure features at every stage of development: from planning, design, and implementation, through to management, maintenance, and monitoring. With this award we want to inspire the UK built-environment industry, to raise the bar for green infrastructure and to deliver more places across the UK where people and wildlife can live and thrive together.

The LI judging panel praised Queensland Court and Gardens, Cardonald, Glasgow, as “A successful demonstration of how to respond to the climate emergency by retrofitting a large amount of SuDS into an urban landscape with a history of flooding.” The panel also appreciated the project’s efforts to involve residents in the design and the initial implementation of the scheme, (e.g. planting raingardens), and how the community feedback on priorities for investment were reflected in the final designs. The judges also noted that “The project commits to enhance the area for wildlife through creating new habitats, and diversifying plant species within the landscape strategy”

Pauline Fletcher, Community Programmes Manager at Southside Housing Association commented,

“Both Glasgow City Council and Southside Housing Association are delighted to receive the Landscape Institute Building with Nature National Award for this joint project, which puts nature at the heart of development in a way that’s good for people and the environment. The proposals for Queensland Court and Gardens involve introducing sustainable drainage measures which will reduce flood risk by mimicking the way rainwater would be managed naturally, helping to mitigate against the impacts of climate change. The surrounding open space will also be enhanced for residents through landscaping, footpath construction, the creation of natural play areas, as well as improved access and car parking. This exciting project brings together many partners and is predominantly funded by Glasgow City Region City Deal, Glasgow City Council, Southside Housing Association and the ERDF Green Infrastructure Fund - alongside many others”.

Building with Nature’s Director, Dr Gemma Jerome praised the scheme, saying

“Queensland Court and Gardens is a great example of how community-led green infrastructure can be retrofitted in cities and deliver for people in deprived areas. It is a visually inspiring and community-focused demonstration of how to respond to the climate emergency. This Glasgow project offers inspiration to both landscape professionals and engineers by bringing forward a green infrastructure project which meets the needs of the existing community whilst creating a resilient landscape for future communities for years to come.”

We hope this award provides inspiration and encouragement to those wishing to make a commitment to delivering schemes that provide genuine long-term benefits to people and wildlife, and we would like to encourage all those developers and design teams who are just starting out on their journey with Building with Nature to hold to their vision for high-quality green infrastructure and aspire to win this national award to recognise your achievement.