MARBLE ARCH HILL

The design for MVRDV’s Marble Arch Hill has been unveiled, revealing a hollowed-out mountain that will provide visitors with rare views over London’s Hyde Park. Based on scaffolding structure, the design aims to create renewed interest in the area as London works to emerge from the pandemic.

Designed to redefine the connection between Oxford Street and Hyde Park, Marble Arch Hill connects to one of Europe’s busiest shopping streets. According to MVRDV, the design will introduce a “park-like landscape of grass and trees, and lifts this corner of Hyde Park to create a 25-metre-tall viewpoint that gives visitors an overview of Oxford Street and the park." The project is made to be experienced via a single continuous route so visitors have multiple views on the arch.

“This project is a wonderful opportunity to give an impulse to a highly recognizable location in London”, says MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas. “It’s a location full of contradictions, and our design highlights that. By adding this landscape element, we make a comment on the urban layout of the Marble Arch, and by looking to the site’s history, we make a comment on the area’s future. We enlarge the park and lift it at the corner. Marble Arch Hill strengthens the connection between Oxford Street and the park via the Marble Arch. Can this temporary addition help inspire the city to undo the mistakes of the 1960s, and repair that connection?”

Marble Arch Hill uses a scaffold structure on its base to support the plywood and soil layers needed for the grass upper layer, and at various points it will hold large planters for trees. As a temporary structure, the team also considered how to create as little waste as possible. "The scaffolding structure can be disassembled and reused, while the elements that make up its top layer – wood, soil, grass, and trees – will all find new uses in nearby gardens and parks."

Marble Arch Hill will open in July 2021, with its closing date in the winter still to be determined.

Images via ArchDaily