The Italian Gardens Café
- Status
- Completed 2016
- Client
- The Royal Parks Agency
- Value
- £3.3m
- Procurement Method
- Traditional
- Services
- Architect and Lead Consultant
- Scale
- 93m²
Awards
- Structural Awards 2006
- Winner
- Civic Trust Award 2006
- Commendation
With a reputation for designing in sensitive and historic contexts, David Morley Architects were appointed by The Royal Parks to build a new café in Kensington Gardens between the Grade II* Queen Anne’s alcove and Marlborough Gate, overlooking the Italian Fountain Gardens.
- Status
- Completed 2016
- Client
- The Royal Parks Agency
- Value
- £3.3m
- Procurement Method
- Traditional
- Services
- Architect and Lead Consultant
- Scale
- 93m²
Awards
- Structural Awards 2006
- Winner
- Civic Trust Award 2006
- Commendation
The new café replaced an existing unsightly kiosk and planting with a scheme where landscape and building are closely integrated to provide a fitting backdrop to the formal Italian Fountain Gardens and to help visually anchor Queen Anne’s alcove into its landscape setting. The new building has brought a new use to a long-closed former children’s public toilet.
The final design exploited the existing site levels, to provide sheltered outdoor seating in an elevated position with a view across the Italian Gardens and towards the Long Water and to improve the entry to the park and the setting of the Alcove. This revealed more of the heritage assets and enhances the enjoyment and appreciation of the sense of place.
Interior view
“With stunning views across the 150-year-old Italian Gardens – we like to think it’s the best view from any Royal Parks café. The Italian Gardens Café was once a disused toilet block, but in 2016 it was transformed into a bustling café, with its own living roof to support biodiversity and wildlife in the garden. Its design was carefully considered to ensure the building and its immediate garden sit comfortably in this very formal setting.”
The new extension to the building is built from a darker brick than the original building so that it recedes into the landscape around it. The frontage of the new building visible between the beech hedges comprises a floor to ceiling sliding folding window with timber brise soleil above, and stone detailing to the sides. The floor of the new kiosk is from timber and this surface is continued outside in the materials of the terrace.
Exterior view
