Associated with a major new development of some 3600 homes on the edge of Chelmsford in Essex, the challenge at Beaulieu has been to integrate the new railway station with its associated infrastructure sympathetically into a historic landscape.
Within a constrained site, the landscape strategy manipulates ground levels and planting to nestle the station into its setting and preserve views from the Grade I listed New Hall School and its Registered Park and Garden to the north across the wider rural landscape.
In a close collaboration between FP architects and landscape architects, with engineers Arcadis, the site layout aims to create a sense of arrival at the station forecourt through the sensitive location of parking and bus interchange. Sustainable travel is promoted through the generous provision of cycle parking and links to wider pedestrian and cycle routes, and the site will be sustainably drained by swales and retention basins.