Arcadia Nursery garden

Arcadia Nursery is a nursery serving the staff and students at Edinburgh University. It is built on a prominent gateway site at the historic King’s Buildings campus.

The brief was to create an indoor/outdoor nursery with a free play philosophy, enabling children to choose what activities to do and which spaces to play in. The garden and building are a single facility. Both are inspiring for children and staff, creating innovative, playful and exciting spaces.

The site planning and landscape design were undertaken by erz (landscape architects). The nursery building was designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects.

The site plan's design seamlessly leads the child from the front door of the nursery right through the building and out into the garden. Sight lines cut through the building on two main axes, which are then boldly taken right through the whole site.

The timber construction of the building is carried forward into the landscape. In the formal gardens, these axes are timber decks or bridges. They continue informally as the treehouse, gateways and windows through the fencing, and as a series of focal points concluding with the willow arbor in the outlying meadow.

To take maximum advantage of the site it was necessary to build a large part of the garden within the root protection area of more than 30 mature sycamore trees.

The landscape architect, with input from the Arboricultural Clerk of Works, developed a bespoke system for building timber structures under the mature trees without compromising tree health or the rooting structure.

The timber structures featured in the gardens include:

• Scottish larch timber decking on bespoke tree-friendly footings with pillars organised to avoid major tree roots.
• a 30-metre long ‘treehouse’ with specially engineered elevated sleeper foundations allowing it to weave beneath existing mature trees. The development of this was a collaboration between the landscape architect, arboriculturists and civil/structural engineers.
• curving timber wall to new public mini square.
• living willow construction of formal circular stilted arbour
• handmade timber play equipment in green oak and beech, including benches, stepping cubes, and a staircase hand carved from one trunk.

The landscape architects have used high-quality oak and Scottish larch, living willow, handmade timber play elements, contemporary forms, and playfulness with scale and enclosure.

A series of gardens emerge, offering an elegant response to the historic setting and innovative spaces for play and learning.

Most importantly, the gardens are action packed and fun filled. It shows the use of timber to create contemporary play spaces, without resorting to standard and mass-produced metal and plastic play furniture.