Location: Greenwich Peninsula, London, UK
Client: Knight Dragon Developments Ltd
Consulting to: Allies and Morrison LLP

[ URBAN DESIGN / INFRASTRUCTURE / HOUSING / EDUCATION / COMMERCE ]
[ 1602 ]

Masterplan for the planned redevelopment of the Greenwich Peninsula in London. Greenwich Peninsula is one of the largest regeneration projects in Europe. Located in south-east London, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, the 56 ha site is one of the largest housing opportunities within London, delivering up to 15,000 homes through high density development.

In 2015 we worked with architects Allies and Morrisons on the planned redevelopment of the Greenwich Peninsula in London, home of the Dome, the temporary structure that was once the centre-piece of London’s Millennium offer and now one of Europe’s largest and most successful entertainment venues.

The peninsula has historically been a home to industry and is laced with significant transport infrastructure. As a large cleared site surrounded by water, the Peninsula contains few of the usual contextual drivers for urban design.

There is a predilection by many to assume that its a blank canvas and indeed the earlier Farrell’s plan took its cues and orientation from the temporary O2 dome. However, strong relationships with the existing city do exist, and provide clear drivers for design.

Firstly is the way communities adjacent to the Thames have historically oriented streets perpendicular to the river edge, for permeability. As the river curves, these perpendicular streets shift orientation, creating clusters of localised urban grain. The large city-scale element of the river resolving itself in the small scale of a neighbourhood street is an important relationship taken up in the proposed masterplan.

Rising immediately across the river is the physical and economic landmark of Canary Wharf. As the tall buildings line the edges of Canary Wharf's large water docks they collectively form large massing corridors stretching east-west. From Greenwich Peninsula, these large spatial corridors point directly at the City of London, framing views and establishing a city-scale urban axis. The proposed masterplan responds strongly to this axis by aligning its most important new street to it.

Contextual references also raised a challenge at the architectural scale. Here too cross water referencing is not new to the Thames as we see further down the river with the relationship between St Paul’s and the Tate.