Place Portfolio

We are architects, landscape architects and urban designers.

Our holistic approach to all projects, however large or small, draws all three disciplines together, with a people centred focus, to unlock development opportunities, with sustainability expertise at the centre.

All our clients recognise this as critical to making the most of every millimetre, using a depth of thinking and invention to maximise a site’s potential.

We deliver the buildings and spaces we design, and this ensures the initial sketches and concepts we draw at masterplanning stages are informed by deep knowledge in technical detail and construction. This gives our clients confidence in the deliverability of our proposals at the earliest stages of the project.

Our investment in research, thought leadership and POE also informs our design work. We see real value in knowledge sharing with our clients and collaborators.

Every one of our projects starts with the people we’re designing for and we work side-by-side with clients and communities from the very outset; engaging in consultation throughout the development process to create new, sustainable neighbourhoods.

From our studios in London and Manchester, our urban designers, architects, landscape architects and interior designers enable us to look holistically at all projects, providing the expertise to deal with both the macro scale masterplanning and micro scale detailing both inside and outside the buildings.

As well as designing new homes and neighbourhoods, we set standards and shape opinion within the sector. The Housing Design Handbook has become a seminal publication for all those working in housing and regeneration, and we have also produced a number of planning documents (SPDs, design codes and guidance) for specific boroughs and housing commissioners, including LB Islington, Liverpool City Council, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Southern Housing and the GLA.

What we do Architecture

We pride ourselves on designing transformative buildings that both enhance people’s lives and enrich their physical surroundings.

Urban Design

Our commitment to high quality placemaking, delivered through the principles of sustainable regeneration, brings about real, positive change to communities.

Landscape Architecture

We design inventive landscapes of all scales, creating valuable public and private spaces that seamlessly integrate with the built environment.

Research and writing

We don’t just design buildings, we set standards, shape opinion and contribute to books and papers, guidelines and reports. Our work has been in press and it’s helped influence government thinking.

Sustainability

Our research informs our design work to achieve built environment climate goals. Our in-house environmental and landscape expertise ensures that sustainability principles are embedded at every stage.

Engagement

We embed ourselves in the communities in which we work to ensure local people of all ages are central to shaping the creative design process.

Our process

Brief

Understand what our client wants

Immerse

Understand the site and its community

Propose

Ideas take shape

Design

Test and refine

Construct

Monitor quality on site and handover

Learn

Reflect and return

The key concept for our masterplan, which will provide 1,176 new homes, shops, a faith centre, community centre and PCT, is to create a series of new routes in and around the site – making it much more permeable and welcoming for both residents and visitors. A new linear park sits at the heart of the neighbourhood, featuring soft planting and informal play spaces, alongside significant biodiversity enhancements and a sustainable water treatment system. A secondary framework of residential courtyard also offers doorstep amenity within a sheltered setting.

“The sophistication and continuity of the stakeholder engagement process has clearly paid off with a palpable sense of ownership, care and pride.”

Landscape Institute Awards judge

Aberfeldy New Village

Tower Hamlets, London

Aberfeldy New Village LLP

Tower Hamlets Town Hall

Whitechapel, London

Bouygues Construction

The re-development of the Victorian Grade II listed former Royal London Hospital has realised a new Civic Centre for Tower Hamlets. Public realm proposals sought to achieve a high quality and inclusive sequence of arrival whilst tackling heavily constrained site conditions. Working alongside Architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, our landscape architects provided public realm design for streetscape setting of the refurbished building with new mature London Plane trees, and above ground terraces. Technical design was delivered to the client’s BIM requirements which followed the ISO1965-2 and the UK BIM Framework.

Pumpfields & Limekilns SPD

Liverpool

Liverpool City Council

Levitt Bernstein were appointed to lead a transformative masterplanning project that will reshape Liverpool’s Pumpfields district, alongside Montagu Evans, Arup, and Turner Works. The 75-acre site represents one of the most significant regeneration opportunities in Liverpool’s recent history, and we are proud to be bringing it to life.

Working closely with local stakeholders, we developed a Supplementary Planning Document and place-based masterplan that not only meets immediate community needs but creates lasting value for generations to come.

“This commission represents everything we value at Levitt Bernstein - the opportunity to create sustainable, inclusive neighbourhoods while addressing critical housing needs.”

Jo McCafferty, Director, Levitt Bernstein

Scotland Road

Leeds Street

Initial masterplan concept sketch

Sketch illutration from SPD showing new creative workspace, housing and repurposed existing historic arches

Melfield Gardens

Lewisham, London

Phoenix Community Housing

Melfield Gardens is an intergenerational development designed for older people and postgraduate students to live independently in a secure and socially inclusive environment. The scheme includes 30 affordable homes for residents aged 55 and above with buildings framing a pedestrian-prioritised central green space and a public route to Beckenham Hill Station. Public realm spaces are designed to promote interaction between residents with a communal garden terrace overlooking the main arrival along a shared-surface streetscape with resident parking and tree planting.

“It’s vitally important that we don’t just build new homes but homes that contribute to the battle against climate change and well-designed schemes that create places where people are proud to live. There’s a huge demand for affordable housing both for older people and for students. The new development at Melfield Gardens will help to meet the need for both and offer a place where different generations can mingle and support each other.”

Jim Ripley, Former Chief Executive of Phoenix Community Housing

l. An improved play offer for children through play on the way, safer streets and improved playgrounds.

m. Promotion of new housing that can cater to an ageing population following the HAPPI principles (Housing for an Ageing Population Panel for Innovation).

CrookedLane

Design for Gravesham forms part of an ambitious programme of community and place-led regeneration, as the Borough’s strategic importance and offer in the wider South East grows. The Code promotes expectations for quality and climate, allowing Gravesham to instil design quality across emerging developments and meet their target of being operationally net zero by 2030. The Code development was underpinned by meaningful engagement and co-design, whilst also delivering social value. Working closely with residents from the remote villages of the Downs, to the growing towns of Gravesend and Northfleet, the Code creates rules and parameters which respond to the existing and historical context of the place and its varying character, reflecting local need and promote community and place-led regeneration.

INDEPENDENT

CULTURE/COMMUNITY

FAITH

REGENERATION SITES

(Gravesham Borough Council)

West St

Design for Gravesham

Gravesham, Kent

Gravesham Borough Council

At Eltham College, an independent day school for children aged 7 to 18, we replaced a mixture of outdated and temporary accommodation with an exemplary energy efficient new building. The quad has been re-landscaped with paving and bonded gravel defining the colonnade and entry points. The central lawn has been raised to create seating areas around the perimeter; add to the classical aesthetic and emphasise the heart of the school. A new landscaped setting to the west improves access to the playing fields and wider estate and knits the new buildings into their setting.

Eltham College

Mottingham, London

Eltham College

High Barnet Station

High Barnet, London

Barratt London & Places for London

This residential-led masterplan creates a thriving new community to enliven the setting of an existing underground station. New tree-lined routes and public realm spaces augment an established woodland backdrop, significantly improving walking and cycling links to the station. New retail and non-residential uses activate Barnet Hill, where pedestrian crossings and bus stop infrastructure are renewed. Civic, pedestrian-focussed arrival spaces around the station with seating and cycle parking give way to generously planted public realm spaces. Overlooking from homes and business will ensure a safer public realm into evening hours. Rain-gardens, trees and planting transform the existing street condition, peeling back an existing retaining wall to create active frontages, homes and generous amenity spaces.

Down Lane Park

Tottenham Hale, London

London Borough of Haringey

Down Lane Park is a well-loved greenspace at the heart of a rapidly changing community. Our Masterplan was evolved through a process of codesign delivered with Coherent Cities over an eighteen-mouth period. Plans were created in partnership with a Community Design Group, representive of the local community and providing lived experience. The Down Lane Park Masterplan will create a high quality ‘green destination’ for local people acting as a green way-marker for active travel to wider Haringey destinations, including The Paddock, Tottenham Marshes, Walthamstow Wetlands and Tottenham High Road.

“I just wanted to extend my thanks to you and the team for the mammoth effort ... this is such a major milestone for the project and we’re blown away by how far we’ve come and the quality of the scheme you have produced. I am delighted that we chose Levitt Bernstein for this project – we’ve been in expert hands throughout!”

- Emily Read, (Former) Tottenham Hale Lead, Regeneration and Economic Development, LBH

Wingspan Walk is currently Haringey Council’s largest development site, replacing a refuse depot with 272 new homes. Placemaking is at the heart of the proposals with a network of well-designed streets and communal courtyards demonstrating a new planted character and identity. Green and blue infrastructure creates a holistic, sustainable environment which supports a substantial increase of biodiversity and wildlife. The proposals have been specifically designed to ensure large mature trees located around the perimeter as well as exploiting linkages with our Down Lane Park masterplan which many of the new homes look directly over.

Wingspan Walk

Tottenham Hale, London

London Borough of Haringey

“I

am very proud that the Council is not only building homes but is also setting a high bar to achieve great quality in design and landscaping.”

Cllr Ruth Gordon, Cabinet Member for House Building, Placemaking and Development at Haringey Council

Gravesend is excellently connected and is fast becoming an estuary visitor destination with a thriving cultural scene. Masterplan proposals for the town centre regeneration will deliver holistic change, improving the town centre draw, relocating civic centre uses towards the riverside and better utilising large areas of carparking where levels of uptake reflect lower demand. Taking a placemaking approach to the masterplan, proposals improve connections for walking and cycling whilst celebrating existing heritage assets. The study puts forward a resilient approach to creating an enlivened town centre which meets the needs of a changing community.

Gravesend Town Centre Regeneration & Feasibility Framework

Gravesend, Gravesham

Gravesham Borough Council

Cork Street is a series of new apartment buildings and family houses on a site in central Dublin, south of the River Liffey. New homes are designed to reflect the site’s history of housing and the city’s weaving industry providing 55 apartments set around communal courtyards and facing onto an adjacent park. All homes are for social rent, managed directly by Dublin City Council as part of a programme to build over 800 new social rent homes using off-site construction to increase build quality and reduce site time - reducing impact on local residents.

Cork Street

The Liberties, Dublin

Dublin City Council

The Abbey Estate is a suburban residential estate adjacent to Thetford Forest and the Little Ouse River, in walking distance of Thetford Town Centre. We engaged with residents to understand concerns and aspirations, producing a series of masterplan options which then distilled a preferred option for planning. This communityled approach helped highlight issues for designs to tackle whilst proposing improvements to the neighbourhood’s character. The masterplan is landscapeled, delivering new homes, new green spaces and improvements to the existing public realm. A new neighbourhood park will sit at the heart of the estate whilst the riverside area will unlock significant underutilised green space, supporting healthy lifestyles and improving connections with central Thetford.

Abbey Estate

Thetford, Norfolk

Bromford Flagship

Ocean Estate

Tower Hamlets London

East Thames Housing Group, First Base, Bellway Homes, Wates Living Space and Spitalfields Housing Association

The comprehensive regeneration of this estate involved refurbishing 1,200 existing homes, building over 1,000 new homes and enhancing the landscape. Existing monolith blocks made way for smaller buildings to recreate a more traditional street pattern, designed around central courtyards with variation in scale and materials to respond to the context. New routes into the site, where pedestrians and cyclists have priority, further improve its permeability. A shared surface approach to street design with seating and tree planting has also created incidental spaces for residents to inhabit and feel proud of.

“Our work on the Ocean Estate has transformed a post code. It’s seamlessly integrated the new and old communities and carefully fused together architecture and landscape to create a genuinely mixed, thriving neighbourhood.”

Gary Tidmarsh, Director

Dating from 1873, Devonshire Park has long been an attraction for the south coast. However, the facilities are in need of significant revitalisation and so we were appointed to carefully restore the listed theatres; enhance the tennis facilities and provide a new conference building. The landscape masterplan will see the creation of a new public plaza with an outdoor café and increased planting – reinforcing the parkland setting and strengthening connections with the seafront and town centre.

“This is an extremely exciting project that will bring more people to Eastbourne, provide even better facilities for residents and support the sustainability of the park for future generations.”

Councillor David Tutt, Leader of Eastbourne Borough Council

Devonshire Park

Eastbourne

Eastbourne Borough Council

Fairlop Waters

Fairlop, London

London Borough of Redbridge

A co-design process led this masterplan to deliver a regenerative landscape vision for the Country Park, merging ecology with culture and leisure with nature. During COVID restrictions we gathred lived experience through a range of codesign workshops including online forums and outdoor activities with a local Scout Group. The 220ha park is centred around a large lake and offers a destination with unique ecological value as well as well-used facilities such as a boulder park and sailing club. The masterplan improves the connectedness of the park whilst developing a local character that provides contact with the cycles of nature, as well as amenities. The masterplan will be delivered sequentially, forming a structure for investment and community involvement to provide a well-structured, biophilic plan for the future of the park.

Barlett Park

Tower Hamlets, London

London Borough of Tower Hamlets

Our design reinvents Poplar’s Bartlett Park by introducing a new masterplan, which greatly improves the green spaces available to the local community and so encourages people to spend more time outdoors and enjoy an active lifestyle. Facilities for footballers and dog walkers have been reprovided, with other new uses introduced such as inclusive play, an outdoor gym, planted garden space, picnic areas, community event spaces and a new fantastic canal side amenity, which improves access to the towpath and water.

A new designated community garden with ‘quiet’ spaces provides further opportunity for tranquil enjoyment and a feeling of being close to nature. A focus on biodiversity and new planting across the masterplan ensures long term sustainability and vibrancy within the park.

“Bartlett Park has been turned from a flat slab of grass into a really wonderful place for people to spend time. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have mentioned the wildflowers to me! The wandering paths and changes of level make it feel much larger, and it gives a sense of wildness which is so necessary for urban-dwellers.”

Councillor Bex White

"When

I moved in seven years ago the park wasn't very welcoming or a place we wanted to go. The changes have made it a lovely place to enjoy, I particularly like the wild flower sections.”

Local resident

This project encloses an existing service yard as an undercroft to create a new public space at the heart of UCL’s Bloomsbury campus. Conceived as a contemporary, high quality, stone landscaped terrace within the historic courtyard, it features a striking ‘fourth façade’, which completes the classical courtyard composition and conceals the plethora of services required for the existing buildings and the new lower refectory. Constructed using Portland Stone and designed to classical Georgian proportions, it is a contemporary interpretation of the surrounding historic architecture and helps to tie all the courtyard elements together.

“It is a fabulous space developed for our staff, students and visitors and will benefit and inspire our entire academic community for generations to come.”

Andrew Grainger, Director, UCL Estates

Wilkins Terrace, UCL

Camden, London

University College London

Following the completion of our public realm strategy for South Thamesmead, we have led the design and delivery of the first phase of enhancements for the existing Parkview community. Constraints identified were largely inherent in the 1960’s masterplan which sought to separate people from cars at street-level and promoted entry to homes from first-floor circulation routes. This was paired with an overly ‘built’ character of external space.

Our landscape-led works have transformed existing open spaces, offering radically improved function, appearance and accessibility for residents. By working with Peabody, we have ensured improved management and maintenance whilst achieving larger targets of climate change resilience, improved connectivity, biodiversity and integration of sustainable design.

“Levitt Bernstein have bought a rich palette of planting, sustainable urban drainage, play and other new features to these areas with a dramatic transformation from grey to green.”

Phil Askew, Director of Landscape & Placemaking, Peabody

Parkview, South Thamesmead

Bexley, London

Peabody

Oxford West End Masterplan

Framework SPD & Design Code

Oxford

Oxford City Council

The West End of Oxford, an existing industrial area, has potential for regeneration. As a globally recognised centre of learning and innovation, Oxford has strong demand for new businesses, enhanced educational assets, and high-quality housing.

Our approach to the SPD framework for the area was shaped by extensive stakeholder engagement. Existing West End Oxford infrastructure creates citywide connectivity challenges, making connectivity and placemaking key to land value uplift. Our connectivity strategy, established early, allowed us to present exciting visions to local stakeholders.

Sectional illustration from the SPD

Strategic drawings from the SPD showing spatial framework layers and green and blue infrastructure

This scheme has transformed a former industrial site into a new residential community, with 59 affordable homes, a health centre and shared garden. The landscape plays a crucial unifying role, with the colour of the mews houses spreading through the central courtyard through the use of recycled glass paving and red planting species, such as scarlet tulips, red sedums and berrying shrubs.

A three storey opening in the corner of one of the apartment buildings also forms a communal terrace with views over the courtyard and reservoirs beyond.

“We are delighted with this scheme – not only does it provide much-needed, 100% affordable homes for local people, but it is a striking addition to the streetscape that has been a catalyst for the wider regeneration of the area.”

Trevor Burns, Director of Development, Sales and Asset Management,

East Thames Housing Group

Sutherland Road

Waltham Forest, London

East Thames Housing Group