The former telephone exchange in Manor Gardens, off Holloway Road in North London, was converted into luxury apartments in 1998, and is now known as the Beaux Arts Building. The design of the associated landscape includes the street frontage, with tree planting in gravel behind the street railings, car parking to the rear, as well as deck level courtyard gardens.

The original building formed a series of wings, which enabled a reinforced concrete deck to be constructed between each wing to give communal gardens at ground floor level with parking beneath. The deck courtyards are designed to fulfil a number of functions, being visible from the main ground floor entrance halls as well as from the apartment windows above, and providing communal gardens for the residents’ use.

Each courtyard is designed to slope upwards from the entrance towards the outer wall. This gives sufficient soil depth for large trees and shrubs to be planted as a screen alongside the boundary wall above the lower level car park. The slope allows a rill of water, punctuated by simple bubble fountains, to flow down the centre of the garden towards the entrance terrace. Each courtyard has a distinct identity, with a different range of plants and overall shape, while the concept of gravel paths and lawns, and a sloping rill with fountains is common to all the gardens.