Hardman Square
A green oasis in the heart of Manchester’s business district
Hardman Square, known as ‘The Field,’ is a transformative permanent urban intervention located in the heart of Spinningfields, Manchester’s premier business district. The project replaced a previously grey, all-hard surfaced square with a rich, verdant series of green spaces. It serves as a high-quality public realm designed to offer respite for the city’s growing residential and worker population.
The Field became a place of nature, urban life, and connection.
The primary challenge was to retrofit a bustling, “always-on” city center environment that was characterised by existing mature trees and a sterile square within the city centre business district. Layer.studio had to delicately insert a new, complex landscape into a high-traffic area without disrupting the existing infrastructure. The task was to create a “new wild” in a constrained urban footprint, balancing the need for intense pedestrian movement with the desire for quiet, intimate “pockets” of nature.
We’re making public space go green
The project is a masterclass in urban “forest” creation. By using loose, organic shapes, it breaks the rigid grid of the surrounding office blocks, drawing people in to sit and socialise. It works because it addresses the human scale; it transforms the environment from a transit route into a destination. It provides tangible environmental benefits too: enhancing biodiversity, reducing air pollution, mitigating rainwater runoff, and cooling the local microclimate—proving that high-density urban areas can still provide a “home” for nature.
Creating a Forest amongst Trees
Layer.studio reimagined the square by introducing a lush “understory” beneath the existing mature tree canopy. This was achieved through creating a natural forest-like succession of plant species and ages to establish multi-layered ecosystems and implementing a network of meandering pathways. For the sunseekers, seating is located in little sunny ‘glades’ in the forest.
At Layer.studio, we believe that Landscape + Urbanism are inseparable. Our ethos is built on creating life-centric designs that act as catalysts for positive change. The Field at Hardman Square takes a “grey” narrative of the past and layers it with a green, climate-resilient future. We embedded the use of nature-based solutions, aiming to bridge the gap between hard infrastructure and “soft” natural systems, ensuring that our cities are not just built, but grown.
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