Covent Garden is an internationally renowned cultural, retail, tourist and nightlife destination in the centre of London. In its patterns of use it is almost a microcosm of the West End, with theatres and a wide range of shopping, offices and residential uses concentrated in a small area. The area’s main streets and spaces are intensively used and frequently congested, but Covent Garden is also characterised by a charming network of quieter back streets, passages and courts, often used as alternative routes.

The Floral Court development creates a new retail, restaurant and residential location in Covent Garden. It includes a new public space and route through a currently impermeable block, connecting King Street to Floral Street and Long Acre beyond, improving pedestrian movement in this part of the district.

Publica developed a public realm strategy to provide guidance for the courtyard’s integration with the area’s wider network of public spaces, informed by an in-depth area survey of Covent Garden. Research and fieldwork included detailed studies into the scale, character and use of the area’s network of pedestrian routes, historic passages and courtyards.

Passages are a defining feature of Covent Garden’s identity. To better understand their impact on the community, Publica conducted an audit of the area’s passages, examining their scale, proportions and character. These dramatic, often narrow spaces create moments of interaction, requiring pedestrians to duck, negotiate past each other and occasionally wait. Despite this, these encounters remain light-hearted, even at rush hour, highlighting a shared appreciation for the area’s historical charm. 

Working closely with Kohn Pedersen Fox, Publica developed strategic public realm principles to inform the development of design proposals for the site’s public realm, ground floor uses and frontages. The strategy sought to celebrate the area’s distinctive built and cultural heritage and propose a series of welcoming public routes and spaces to enhance Covent Garden’s identity, while integrating new spaces with the area’s unique urban grain and scale. The scheme received planning permission in December 2013, and Floral Court opened to the public in April 2018.