Client:
Taylor Wimpey Central London
with Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark / Network Rail
Location:
Battersea
Construction value:
Masterplan: £120,000,000
Primary School: £9.5million
Completion:
Primary School: Sept 2016
Masterplan: Autumn 2020
The vision for Battersea Exchange is to turn a divided site and historically landlocked site into a vibrant and well-connected community for people to live, learn and work in.
The wider Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area ( VNEBOA ) was a vast piece of brownfield land, larger than Hyde Park and less than a mile upstream from the Houses of Parliament; it will be the final major piece of the Thames’ south bank to undergo a transformation.
Battersea Exchange creates 290 new homes, 21% of which are affordable, a new two-form entry primary school and around 4000 sqm of commercial space for shops, offices and restaurants, as well as a new entrance to Queenstown Road Station.
The development is organised around a new pedestrian-friendly public realm network connecting Battersea Park and Queenstown Road Stations and creating links from existing residential communities into the new VNEBOA district.
The size and complexity of this project called for a range of scales, building types and materials, to break down the site into more manageable zones.
New homes, commercial spaces and the school are accommodated in eleven buildings across the site, including three towers of varying heights, a range of smaller-scale brick buildings and the refurbishment of viaduct arches.
The scale of the different buildings carefully reflects their surrounding context.
A single composition has been created from the school and the taller residential buildings within one block. The three components are linked by a common architectural language with an expressed frame and colonnade which wraps the buildings on all sides.
The masterplan established a variety of building scales which respond to different contexts across the site. Taller ceramic clad apartment buildings mark the rail frontage into Waterloo as well as marking the new public space fronting Battersea Park Station.
These buildings are contrasted with a range of brick-clad lower-rise buildings which stitch into the existing fabric forming the new streets and spaces.
