V&A plants garden redesign ideas

The seeds have been sown on the next phase of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s £150m regeneration programme, with the museum this week unveiling six contenders for a revamp of its central garden area.

Work by Adrian Geuze, Christopher Bradley-Hole, Kim Wilkie, Kathryn Gustafson (concept work pictured), Martha Schwartz and Olin Partnership has been shortlisted and will be displayed at the V&A over the summer.

The winner, to be chosen by a panel of judges including V&A director Mark Jones and architect for the V&A Future Plan Eva Jiricna, will be announced in October.

The brief for the £1m-£2m garden development, says V&A director of projects and estate, Gwyn Miles, is to create an ‘elegant, serene and flexible’ area that will facilitate events and activities. Final concepts, she adds, range from the architectural to the ‘more plant-oriented’.

According to Miles, the garden will serve as a ‘hub’ for the museum. ‘We want to put it at the core of the V&A – somewhere visitors can sit and think about which part of the museum they want to immerse themselves into next.’