Bird Street

While working at Atkins, Tapestry Director Paul Reynolds developed the concept for a number of ‘Oasis Spaces’ on side roads of Oxford Street, one of the busiest streets in the UK. For one oasis, he submitted a successful application to TfL for funding from their Future Streets Incubator programme, and went on to deliver the Bird Street project - billed as the UKs most ‘Smart Street’.

The concept was for a space which could be used to trial a number of innovations that were aimed at helping to deliver healthier streets. These included Pavegen Paving which generates electricity as you walk on it, an Airlabs bench which uses an electrostatic process to purify the air, and a green wall by ANS. As well as being a test bed for this technology, the scheme included a number of trading kiosks which would activate the dead frontage of the adjacent building and provide an opportunity for small retailers to take space and have access to the thousands of people each hour who pass along Oxford Street at the end of this site - which is just 1 block away from Selfridges.