Tall & Urban News

The Greenwich Peninsula master plan has undergone another rethink, with housing schemes by Morris + Co and Hall McKnight dropped in the latest version of the southeast London regeneration scheme. Allies and Morrison’s revised master plan for the huge Thames-side site, best known as the home of the O2 arena, has been submitted to Greenwich Council by developer Knight Dragon.

Key changes from the 2015 version include an uplift in the overall number of homes across the peninsula, from 15,700 to 17,500, and the axing of a planned 39,000-square-meter film studio. The new master plan is missing the scheme’s original eye-catching Peninsula Place centerpiece, a chandelier-like structure designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.

However, planning drawings show that controversial plans to demolish Foster + Partners’ 1998 North Greenwich Interchange are still going ahead.

As well as a new outline proposal, the application also seeks detailed planning approval for 476 homes in two projects on the southern edge of the master plan, designed by Sheppard Robson. These have replaced earlier designs for high-rises on the same sites by Morris + Co (then Duggan Morris) and Hall McKnight, which were approved in 2017 but were never built.

The schemes were later “thoroughly reviewed” by developer L&Q, which took over the plots to increase the amount of affordable housing from the approved 25 percent.

L&Q then decided that modifying the existing schemes would require “significant changes” and instead appointed Sheppard Robson to design a taller scheme with over 50 percent affordable. 

In addition, Alison Brooks Architects has confirmed its East Parkside plot, a cluster of residential towers on the peninsula approved in 2017, has been put on hold.

Explaining the changes, Knight Dragon said the decision to revisit the 2015 outline was sparked by “external factors” such as the approval of the Silvertown Tunnel and progress on plans for a major film studio in Dagenham East.

As for Calatrava’s scheme, the developer said that while no changes had been confirmed, it was “reviewing” the composition and delivery of the Peninsula Central neighborhood, including Peninsula Place.

The master plan also scraps film studios earmarked for a large triangular plot next to Millennium Way. The developer said this was because plans were coming forward for a similar facility proposed by Barking Council’s regeneration firm Be First.

The 2019 master plan is a partial reworking of Allies and Morrison’s 2015 version, which itself was a revision of Farrells’ 2004 master plan. It focuses on the central part of the peninsula and excludes many sites already under construction.

Knight Dragon chief executive Richard Margree said, “Greenwich Peninsula is a 20-year regeneration project. As with any project of such scale, circumstances will change, bringing new opportunities and challenges, and we will need to evolve to ensure what we create is suitable for what the city needs and the way we live now.”

In addition to dropping the film studios and upping the housing numbers, Margree said Knight Dragon was also exploring the possibility of a new theatre space to “strengthen the cultural offer on the Peninsula.”

He added, “Alongside these proposed revisions to future chapters of Greenwich Peninsula, we continue to make excellent progress. In four short years, we’ve created over 2,000 new homes, housing a population of some 3,700 residents, and we will complete a further 540 homes for occupation by spring/summer 2020.”

Alan Shingler, partner at Sheppard Robson, said, “We wanted our striking and rigorously composed design proposals – the first element of the Brickfields Neighborhood — to set a benchmark for design quality and to be a marker for the wider plans for Greenwich Peninsula.”

“Whilst the scale of the design speaks of the project’s urban ambition, our designers work hard to have a human scale from street level. A terrace of townhouses on the south face St Mary Magdalene C of E School, helping root the project within the community and the wider transformation of the area.”

Other recent developments mentioned by Margree include the completion of Penoyre & Prasad’s St Mary Magdalene School, which opens fully in 2019, and the completion of US firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s walkway, The Tide, which was designed with London-based designer Neiheiser Argyros.

The Assemblage-master planned design district, London’s first “purpose-built district for the creative community,” featuring 16 buildings by nine different architects, is on track to open in 2020, said Margree.

For more on this story, go to Architects' Journal.