Client: St George
Location: London, UK
Size: 13 acre site. 1,084 residential units
Skills: Architecture, Landscape Architecture
In 2000, Broadway Malyan's original masterplan and design for the 13-acre Guinness site in Wandsworth was awarded Best New Housing Project of the Year in the National Home Builder Design Awards. The project was subsequently awarded planning consent and the joint partnership of LCR Developments, Frogmore Estates and Rialto sold the site to St George South London. St George retained Broadway Malyan as their architects and masterplanners to submit detail planning applications for a revised masterplan and to implement the scheme. The new masterplan retained much of the original aspirations of permeability and excellent public riverside access initiating the regeneration of the immediate area. It was also designed to take into account national and local policy issues, and local community concerns.
Public benefits include 1,084 residential units including affordable housing, commercial units including a mix of shops, cafes and bars plus community facilities including a health care centre. The scheme will provide employment, social, transport and environmental benefits for the London Borough of Wandsworth. It will also provide a riverside walkway which will facilitate public access to the site for the first time since the Eighteenth Century.
The scheme features an innovative tidal planting scheme. New river banks and a base for planting have been formed using a combination of gabion mattresses and timber groynes. This rich inter-tidal zone has created a habitat for a diverse range of flora and fauna, from mud-dwelling invertebrates through to the rare Redstart bird. Also provided is a civic boulevard, featuring a modern palette of granite, timber decking, bespoke signage, raised beds of lavender and lines of silver birch trees.
Phases 1, 2 and 3 of the development are now complete.