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Leamington High Line

Sky

High above Althorpe Street, the longest and liveliest of the gardens: rooms within the landscape, a terrace for events, festoon lights after dark and the life of the Victoria Business Centre brought up to the level above, on the way down to the canal.

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Sketch plan of the Sky Garden from above. Trees and benches line the first half, then terraces open out towards the end of the viaduct, with tables and festoon lights spilling down to the business centre below.
Sky Garden sketch (Greenwood-Hill): the first ideas for the garden on paper, drawn with our landscape architects. Hover over or tap a number to see what it is.

  1. 1: Benches among the planting

  2. 2: Clusters of trees

  3. 3: A gateway to mark the entrance

  4. 4: A seating terrace

  5. 5: Festoon lights

  6. 6: A flexible terrace for events

  7. 7: Lively edges, with room to spill out below

Lively and sociable

The Sky Garden is the longest stretch of the viaduct, and the most animated. Below it sits the Victoria Business Centre, already busy with cafés, bars and people; we want to build on the life already happening at street level, draw it upwards, and make a destination that feels part of the neighbourhood around it.

The garden is arranged as a series of outdoor rooms within the landscape, linked by a clear route that weaves through the space. Seating runs along the edges, with pockets of movable furniture to settle into, relax and spend time. Lighting woven into the planting extends the garden's life into the evening, when the business centre is at its busiest. Partway along, a generous deck makes a flexible terrace for events, activities and gatherings, or for hire: a rooftop yoga class, a community event, or a party under festoon lights, which give the space its warmth after dark.

As in the gardens before it, railway sleepers frame the planting beds and groups of trees break up the length of the viaduct into a series of distinctive spaces. That shared palette of materials ties the Sky Garden to the rest of the High Line, while the lighting, the terraces and the life on them blur the boundary with the business centre below, so the two levels feel like one connected place.

Section

Cross-section through the Sky Garden. On the left, people sit on terraces among planting and birds on the viaduct deck, with tables under festoon lights at the business centre below. On the right, a train passing on the live railway viaduct alongside.
Section through the Sky Garden (Greenwood-Hill), with the Victoria Business Centre below and the live railway viaduct running alongside on the right.

The section shows the business centre busy at ground level and that activity extending upwards into the garden: pergolas up top for structure, shade and places to linger, room for outdoor dining and events, and people moving up through the space, a lively destination that brings people together above the town.