ZHA director Patrik Schumacher has told New London Weeklythat London should continue to invest in urban intensification and hailed the practice’s Vauxhall Island Towers permission last week as a signal that they should.

Schumacher was speaking after Housing secretary Robert Jenrick gave permission for the Nine Elms scheme, which includes a 54- and 42-storey tower connected by a podium, a new public square, 260 new homes, 220,000 sq ft of offices, 7000 sq ft of shops and dining and a 500+ room hotel. The design is ‘a new gateway’ to a new cluster of tall buildings in the area and responds to the council’s aspirations for a district centre for Vauxhall by creating a new public square adjacent to the rail, underground and bus interchange. It also accommodates TfL’s plans to upgrade the traffic gyratory and replace the bus station.

Asked what the permission means for ZHA, Schumacher said it was a ‘fantastic and hard-won success’. ‘For ZHA, this project implies a break-through demonstrating that we can design and deliver planning for big complex projects for developers in London’, he said. It is the practice’s largest project by area in the UK to date.

In terms of London and its relationship with tall buildings, Schumacher said that he continues to believe that central London, as a ‘vibrant knowledge economy hub’, must invest in ‘urban intensification and allow for the build-up of urban density, including via high-rise structures’. ‘The permission signals that this process of urban concentration should continue’, he said. ‘I also feel that towers and tower clusters add to the perception and navigation of big cities. They bring districts visually together.’

 

VCI Property Holding Limited (Site Owner and Developer)

Great Marlborough Estates (Development Manager)

Dais (Development Consultant)

Zaha Hadid Architects (Architects)

Buro Happold (Engineering)

Townshend Landscape Architects (Landscape Architects)