World Landscape Architecture is proud to welcome Gillespies as a new partner member. An international design firm that grew from what began as a small, passionate garden design practice in Glasgow has blossomed into a globally recognised leader.
With the support of our sponsors and partners, we can continue our mission to share knowledge and champion the value of landscape architecture. Find out more about Gillespies and their work below.
Elephant Park – London, UK
Gillespies is a diverse and forward-thinking team of landscape architects, masterplanners, and landscape planners, dedicated to creating exceptional places that restore nature, enrich lives, and provide meaningful settings for everyday experience.
For over 60 years, Gillespies has worked to make the benefits of nature accessible to all, addressing health, climate, and biodiversity challenges through innovative, nature-based solutions. Guided by four core pillars, Living Legacy, Human Element, Nature’s Networks, and Places Are Personal, the practice tailors its approach to the unique needs of each client, site, and community. The ambition is simple but powerful: to create and sustain places that strengthen connections between people and their environment, while helping to restore ecological balance.
Gillespies’ portfolio spans the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, North America, and Australia, encompassing projects at every scale, from rooftop gardens and urban parks to strategic regional masterplans.
In the UK, Gillespies is behind the transformative public realm masterplan and detailed design for Elephant Park in Elephant and Castle, one of the country’s most sustainable urban regeneration projects. At its centre is a new two-acre park, creating a welcoming green space for the local community. The practice is also reimagining several historic gasworks sites, including King’s Road Park, Bromley-by-Bow Gasworks and Regent’s View in Bethnal Green, helping to shape healthy, sustainable new neighbourhoods.
Other landmark projects include the award-winning revitalisation of BBC Television Centre into a vibrant mixed-use destination, the restoration of Rochdale Town Hall’s public realm, the creation of several new riverfront public spaces as part of the Thames Tideway Super Sewer Project, a new green campus setting for the Schwarzman Centre for Humanities at the University of Oxford, and the creation of a 300-metre rooftop garden at Google’s King’s Cross headquarters, a benchmark project for green infrastructure in the workplace.
Internationally, Gillespies is contributing to the transformation of Riga’s historic waterfront into a world-class cultural and leisure destination, delivering a major new public realm at Taikoo Place in Beijing, and reimagining Jabal Thabeer in Saudi Arabia as a sanctuary for reflection, prayer and rest, honouring the rituals of Hajj and Umrah.
Gillespies operates from four design hubs in the UK, with additional studios in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.
Learn more about Gillespies at their website – https://www.gillespies.co.uk/