Fulham

Chelsea Botanica

Botanica Gardens, is a riverside development with soft landscaping at its heart, based in Fulham. The design focused on improving the quality of homes across every tenure, alongside significant improvements to health, wellbeing and fire safety. Revised layouts, increased natural daylight and improved access create safer and better-quality homes while fire escape distances were reduced across the three blocks. Nature-inspired balustrades and biodiverse landscaping reinforce the development’s botanical theme and connection to its riverside setting.

After gaining planning permission in 2017, Hunters was commissioned with the re-design of the scheme in 2020. This design was tailored to the councils key objectives of the project, adding 48 additional homes, bringing the total to 266 and significantly increasing the affordable housing provision from 36 to 133 homes, bringing 50% of the development into affordable tenures.

Sustainability was also central to the design. Gas-fired boilers were replaced with air source heat pumps, alongside adding photo-voltaic panels on the roof and other measures were intrinsic to significantly reduce the scheme’s carbon footprint from its original design.