Constitutional London

Monday 28 September 2020

Part of NLA Collaborate

In 2017, NLA was commissioned by Cabinet Office to bring together leading industry voices to deliver a vision for the public realm in the area known as ‘Constitutional London’.

This ceremonial heart of London stretches from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square, and acts as both the seat of government and the headquarters of the monarchy, while also accommodating mass tourism and local people living and working in the neighbourhood, placing significant pressures on the public realm.

The client’s brief was to deliver an aspirational plan for this this area which could be used as a vision to help guide and connect future public realm investment plans. The project came at a time when a number of temporary security measures had been installed, and the ambition was to review how these could be more successfully integrated into the public realm as part of a longer-term strategy.

We invited just over 20 of London’s leading urban designers to work together and deliver a united vision for this area, in a two-day design charrette, facilitated by our partners at Design South East. Over the course of the two days, the teams conducted site tours and worked in smaller teams to develop ideas for key focus areas.

At the end of each day these ideas were presented to a large number of key stakeholders, including Met Police, UK Parliament, Westminster City Council, TfL, Royal Parks and the GLA, with advice given and revisions made along the way.

This all came together into an overall vision, which the teams finally presented at Clarence House.

The result was incredible feat in a period of just two days – engaging over 70 urban designers, industry voices and stakeholders to deliver a single vision for this unique area of London, which would help to guide future investment and strategies across the site.