Tall & Urban News

Lambeth Council has unanimously approved plans by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) to redevelop Elizabeth House, a 1960s office block next to Waterloo Station, replacing designs by David Chipperfield Architects.

Chipperfield’s scheme was given the green light in 2014 but never taken forward. An even earlier scheme by Allies and Morrison was thrown out by the government in 2009.

AHMM’s 111,484-square meter office project, for developer HB Reavis, includes new public space connecting Waterloo Station with the South Bank, and a garden promenade accessed from the station concourse.

It also features Waterloo Curve, a new pedestrian street lined with shops and cafés, which will link Elizabeth House with the transport hub.

The plans aim to provide more space for Waterloo Station, the UK’s busiest rail station, which will soon be used for 130 million passenger journeys a year. The existing buildings on the site, including John Poulson’s 1960 Elizabeth House, will be flattened.

The buildings are expected to be a similar height to that stipulated in the existing planning permission for the site, ranging between 13 and 31 stories.

Chipperfield’s controversial scheme, approved by Lambeth Council in 2014, included two new buildings, one part 29-story, part 14-story, and another of 11 stories. Five years prior, Communities Secretary John Denham had thrown out £1 billion (US$1.3 billion) proposals for the site by Allies and Morrison, known as the Three Sisters scheme.

When HB Reavis bought the site in 2017, it decided to replace proposed residential with offices, and held a new design competition for the site.

AHMM took over the project in December 2017, a move that ended Chipperfield’s seven-year involvement with the site. The practice is working with structural engineer Robert Bird Group on the scheme.

Speaking after the decision, HB Reavis’s development director Kiran Pawar said the scheme would bring with it a “£100 million (US$130 million) package of public benefits … including the provision of affordable workspace and major public realm improvements around Waterloo Station.” Construction is expected to start on site in 2020.

Meanwhile, London mayor Sadiq Khan has raised concerns over the height of a new Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) Associates skyscraper scheme in Ealing, which he says is likely to become the tallest residential building in London.

The major development, named 4 Portal Way, involves demolishing the existing Holiday Inn and building two linked towers of 45 and 55 stories.

The two towers will be connected by a skybridge between the 26th to the 34th floors, and would also be joined by a podium at the base.

The podium would contain a new 159-bedroom hotel and office conference space, while the 702 residential units would be contained within the towers.

However, the Greater London Authority (GLA) has raised some concerns about the Aldau Developments scheme, arguing that at 237.3 meters, it raises “a range of visual, functional and environmental issues.”

It argues that the proposal would be visible from Richmond Park, eight kilometers to the south, and Harrow on the Hill, eight kilometers due northwest, and would be a “prominent feature of London’s skyline.”

Its planning report on the proposal said, “[The] officer’s view is that a lower height would be more appropriate in this location, as it would provide a stronger transition between development to the south of the A40 and the emerging cumulative skyline towards North Acton station.”

It added that officers were also concerned that the distance between the two towers meant that they might be read as “one bulky building mass.”

The report said it questioned whether the design provided the “exemplary standard of architectural form required for a building of this scale.”

A spokesperson for Aldau said, “We are pleased to see the GLA supporting many elements of the current proposals for 4 Portal Way, including the delivery of much-needed new homes in Ealing and the positive contribution to local employment.”

“We will continue to work closely with the Greater London Authority, Ealing Council and the wider community to ensure the best possible scheme is brought forward on this site.”

The scheme is located within the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) area.

For more on these stories, go to the Architects’ Journal.