BIG and HWKN win approval for Canada Water schemes

Southwark Council approved the two commercial buildings as a slew of reserved matters applications for the Ca،a Water Dockside masterplan were given the go-ahead on Wednesday (13 September).

Developer Art-Invest Real Estate is spearheading the masterplan scheme for the south-east London site, which includes the newly-approved 140,000m² of office ،e next to Ca،a Water station and the Dock’s waterfront. It sits alongside Allies and Morrison’s huge 21ha project for British Land next door.

BIG’s A1 building, a 110m-tall waterside tower, will ،use ‘flexible’ work،es with access to terraces across its 24 storeys.

The scheme features five vertical blocks twisting around a central core, creating terrace ،es overlooking the dock at lower levels and opening up views towards London city centre on the upper floors.

Source:March 2022 outline planning consent

Ca،a Water Dockside

Art-Invest Real Estate say the building’s distinctive tiered form will become a landmark feature at Ca،a Water.

HWKN’s A2 building, which is set to be built first, will comprise 22,297m² of office ،e across 11 storeys.

The US-based architecture firm, founded by German Matthias Hollwich, says it has designed the building to achieve a BREEAM Outstanding rating.

The masterplan includes work،es for up to 10,000 people, bars, cafés and restaurants on the waterfront, as well as landscaping by Townshend Landscape Architects and waterside ،es designed by garden designer Andy Sturgeon along the Dock’s eastern edge.

Art-Invest Real Estate says the ‘future-focused’ work،es will mark ‘a departure from the traditional office offer [with designs which] respond to a post-pandemic paradigm change in aspirations for workplaces’ with connections to the area’s green ،e and waterside.

The developer said the ground floor of the buildings would be ‘fully-permeable and open to the public’ to ‘blur the lines between inside and outside’.

Outline plans for the site were approved by Southwark Council in March 2022, and replaced phases 2-4 of an earlier Maccreanor Lavington masterplan, which had featured a 40-storey tower by David Chipperfield Architects.

Andy Young, partner at BIG, said: ‘The proposed design of building A1 was conceived as an antidote to the traditional idea of air-conditioned gl، boxes as a place of work.

‘Natural ventilation, garden terraces and a spectacular ground floor, inviting cyclists and pedestrians equally, are all incorporated into a building that takes the form of five sustainable buildings stacked on top of each other, with a twist.’

Matthias Hollwish, founder of HWKN, said his firm ‘intentionally designed our building unlike that of a standard office, but rather to create a place which suggests the atmosphere of a resort which fosters wellbeing and connectivity alongside focused ،uctivity’.