New London Architecture

‘As architects we need to embrace the water as a new public realm setting’

Friday 16 April 2021

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David Henderson

Director
Glenn Howells Architects

With people living closer to London’s waterways, and sea levels rising, we need to embrace the water as a new public realm setting, in turn calling for a new type of architecture with sustainability at its core. Our latest placemaking venture, a new and completely buoyant public realm, connecting floating restaurant pavilions, will activate and bring a whole new kind of experience to the emerging Wood Wharf district at Canary Wharf. This project has propelled us, as architects, into brand-new territory: somewhere between product design, marine technology and coastal engineering.

Designed to interconnect this new quarter and actively draw people into it, our floating pavilions take you off dry land, right onto the waterscape of the historic dock revealing the surrounding environment and skyline from a whole new perspective.  
 
Although the historic dock, now known as Water Square, is a closed body of water, it is a highly live environment, subject to tidal change, storm water retention and the potential swell from river traffic. Crucially, the dock lies directly above the Jubilee Line Underground tunnels, precluding any type of piled restraint. The project needed to float above the tunnels and accommodate fluctuating weight distribution and water levels. In addition, it had to be designed for all services and infrastructure to run through the access bridges that anchor the pavilions to the dock.
 
We explored a number of ideas to bring the public into a closer relationship with the water, ranging from multiple floating pods, to a singular industrial-style pontoon finally settling on two floating pavilions, accessed via the quayside by bridges, interconnected by boardwalks, featuring outward-facing public seating areas, open-ended balconies and aquatic planting. The pavilions, which read together as a composition, are arranged across two levels, and will be connected via external stairs and internal lifts, with restaurant space, and intensive green roofs for those looking down on them from above.
 
Constructed using a steel frame structure with aluminium and glass cladding, sustainably sourced timber floors and decking, atop a floating concrete hull, neither boat, nor conventional building, the pavilions are a large-scale piece of product design borne from a long process of prototyping whereby every feature has been explored, analysed and refined, and each element is integral to the overall experience on offer.
 
The pavilions were constructed in the Royal Docks at Beckton, with the cast hulls anchored to the quay, to create a meanwhile building site. On completion, they were towed by tugboat, upriver to the site. Being highly transportable, they can easily be decoupled and towed to different parts of the Canary Wharf estate, or a completely different part of London’s waterways, and repurposed altogether.
 
The pavilions form part of a sequence of urban routes and spaces into Wood Wharf, which, upon completion will have a resident population of over three and a half thousand people,  transforming this district into a round-the-clock destination. With public realm at two levels, and bridges to promenade along, the pavilions will go beyond activating the dock, to endowing it with a sense of theatre, and spectacle - something we need from our public spaces, now more than ever. 

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David Henderson

Director
Glenn Howells Architects


Placemaking

#NLAPlacemaking


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