The central sunken garden is the focal point to the park. The garden is sculpted to reflect upon the historic culture of the site the park is built upon, which was once one of London's many working dock yards. The old dock yard now acts as an axis on which the parks many features are planned around.
The planting of the sunken dock garden suggests a relationship to water, because of the wave formlike sculpted into the planting throughout. The maintainance of the wave sculpture is high with a small team of gardeners constantly pruning and maintaning it, however there are some neglected areas which suggests the vastness of such constant maintainace.
The park uses high quality materials for construction throughout. Examples of these materials include: polished granite edgings along the parks retaining walls, engraved glass panel's encompassing the visitors centre, extensive decking throughout the park and well maintained sculptured planting throughout the park.
Thames Barrier Park is at times confusing in design with the focal point the sunken garden blocked off from use at some points. The intricate shapes of the planting are very effecting but let down by large patches throughout that are bare because of dead plants or loss of shape from not being maintained. The park itself is a very safe feeling park with no obvious signs of vandalism and is by no mean over capacity giving the individual visitor a good sense of space.
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