A landscape‑led response at the edge of the Chilterns
Wendover Green Tunnel
The tunnel is conceived as a landform intervention rather than a visible piece of infrastructure. By burying the railway beneath a sculpted landscape, the design maintains the continuity of the valley floor and protects long‑distance views across the AONB.
The reinstated topography is shaped to blend seamlessly with the surrounding chalk landscape, while new planting reinforces existing woodland patterns and strengthens ecological connections across the gap.
Wendover Green Tunnel also forms a carefully considered relationship with the nearby Small Dean Viaduct, another key structure on this stretch of the route. Together, the two projects establish a coherent architectural and landscape strategy: the tunnel quietly recessive, the viaduct slender and elevated, each responding to its immediate context while contributing to a unified experience of the wider landscape.
Developed in close collaboration with EKFB and design partners ASC, the project balances engineering requirements with the sensitivities of a nationally protected landscape. The result is an infrastructure intervention that is restrained, contextually attuned, and designed to minimise its presence within one of the most valued rural settings along the HS2 line.
