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I hope the end of the year brought you a few quiet days. I promised one last bonus episode—and I’m glad to be back again with SUGi’s UK Forest Lead, Adrian Wong!
By the time Adrian and I start recording, the soundscape tells you everything you need to know.
Drilling in the distance. Footsteps on concrete. Voices bouncing off hard surfaces. The low hum of a city that never really softens.
We’re standing inside the Southbank Centre — one of London’s most iconic cultural hubs, home to the Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Royal Festival Hall—brutalist architecture in its purest form. Concrete slabs stacked on concrete slabs. Grey stretches in every direction.
And right in the middle of it all: a forest.
Not a metaphor. Not a green wall. Not a few ornamental planters.
A real, dense, six-metre-tall pocket forest planted by SUGi, growing on top of what was once nothing but bare concrete and a parking structure.
A brutalist jungle — interrupted
Adrian describes the Southbank as a “brutalist jungle,” and he’s not exaggerating. No windows in places. Just cement. Hard edges. Heat. Reflection. Noise.
This is not a place that invites life. Which is exactly why this forest matters.
Two years ago, this 130-square-metre patch was solid concrete. Today, it holds between 300 and 400 native trees and shrubs, planted at extreme density using the Miyawaki method. When they went into the ground, they were about 40 centimetres tall.
Now some reach six metres.
You can’t walk through it anymore — it’s too dense. And that density is the point.
Microclimate, not decoration
As we stand at the edge of the forest, you can feel it immediately. The temperature drops. The air shifts. There’s a damp coolness that doesn’t exist ten steps away.
On a 35°C summer day in London, SUGi measured 26°C inside the forest. On the nearby bridge above — fully exposed concrete — surface temperatures hit 54°C.
This forest has never been watered. Not once.
The soil, craned in by the ton, is lightweight green-roof substrate — airy, fast-draining, and ideal for root growth. Encased by concrete on all sides, it absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night, creating a stable, warm microclimate below ground.
The result? A longer growing season. Leaves held weeks longer than elsewhere in the city. Some plants even flower out of season — a beautiful signal, and a worrying one, of climate confusion.
“Where was the owl before this?”
The biodiversity return is immediate and visceral.
Dragonflies skim past us as we talk. Spiders spin webs between branches. Centipedes curl through the soil. Moths lay eggs. Blackbirds nest in the undergrowth.
Eco-acoustic monitoring recently picked up bats. Blue tits. Wagtails.
And — unexpectedly — tawny owls.
Adrian says it plainly, and it lands hard: Where was that owl before this forest existed?
In a landscape that was effectively a biodiversity desert, 130 square metres became a refuge. Not because it’s big — but because it’s connected. Urban acupuncture in action.
People notice — even if they don’t know why
We walk to the terraced edge of the forest. This is where people gather.
Restaurant workers on their breaks. Parents with toddlers. Tourists lingering longer than they meant to. People leaning against the steps, choosing this spot without consciously choosing why.
Adrian calls it a place of refuge. It’s cooler. Quieter. Softer — even though the concrete hasn’t gone anywhere.
There is, of course, a downside. Litter accumulates. Beer cans. Plastic cups. Wild spaces are often mistaken for neglected ones. Much of Adrian’s monthly maintenance across London’s SUGi forests involves rubbish removal.
But even that tells a story: people are using this space. Claiming it. Gathering here.
And that matters.
Seeing is believing
There are conversations underway about planting more forests around the Southbank. The challenge isn’t desire — it’s logistics. Weight limits. Cranes. Soil volumes. Elevated structures.
But once you stand here, the question changes.
Not can we do this again?
But how could we not?
Adrian tells me this is probably his favourite forest in London. Because it’s unexpected. Because it shouldn’t work — and yet it does. Because it proves that if you give nature space above and below ground, even in the most hostile environments, it responds with abundance.
A note to listeners
If you’re visiting London, this forest is fully open to the public. A short walk from Waterloo Station. Not far from the London Eye. Easy to miss if you’re rushing. Impossible to forget once you step inside.
Stand still. Feel the temperature change. Listen.
And then ask yourself the question that keeps coming back to me:
If this is possible here —
where else have we decided, too quickly, that nature doesn’t belong?
Happy trails,
Nadina
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