A blueprint for creating a sustainable retail destination
Client:
Marks and Spencer
Collaborators:
Aukett Swanke, Gleeds, Simons Group, AECOM
Status:
Completed
The Marks & Spencer store at Cheshire Oaks is their largest and greenest store ever built.
The award-winning store, which took several years to complete, is designed to be the most carbon efficient store to date and addresses several areas of sustainability at once: water, carbon, waste, biodiversity and community, materials, travel, and access.
Whilst at Whitelaw Turkington, founder director Phil Deacon developed the scheme from planning consent through to construction using innovative landscape solutions under the M&S PlanA scheme – a 100-point, five-year eco plan which included:
- A permanent pond feature as attenuation to the car park surfaces;
- Bio-Engineering solutions to form new watercourses habitat opportunities;
- Pedestrian bridges and viewing decks;
- Cost effective green walls to screen the single story car parking;
- Form a palette of plants that would maximise the sites green credentials in order to achieve the BREEAM credits;
- Implement wayfinding and signage to use the landscape as an educational tool for the local school curriculum as well as customers; and
- Ensuring all materials were sustainably sourced.
