Tower Hamlets, London, UK
Wharf Architect for sustainable hybrid logistics and residential scheme to create an innovative, future proofed and operationally agile safeguarded wharf for current and future generations
Project Details
Collective Team
River to land
The reactivated wharf is both traditional in provision and innovative in achieving it.
It will become home to Thames Clipper’s Logistics for their new high speed light freight river operation, taking cargo along the river in electric vessels, onto the Wharf and out to the neighbourhood via cargo bikes and e-vans, a leap forward for London as it enables a significant reduction in road vehicle movements.
It will incorporate an all-tide pontoon and pivoting canting brow link to the river side and is enabled for alternative waterborne loading systems.
Our hybrid wharf design has been shortlisted for the NLA (New London Architecture) Awards in the Mixed Use category
Agile river docking
Its people and environmental design attributes include passive cooling and ventilation across the wharf volume; natural light for wellbeing and to limit energy needs; a 100 year plus agile use chassis with column spans up to 19m and an 11.5m clear height; thermal mass for temperature moderation; a biodiverse and water managed roof landscape; wellbeing and amenity places; active frontages with engaging views in and out on the land side, and two way riverside visibility of the new operation through a distinctive 80m wide access zone with its solar and acoustic canopy facing the Greenwich Dome on the south side of the river.
Overview and sustainability
Internal view
The wharf is blended with new affordable homes and student accommodation through a people focused and biodiverse public realm as well as a specialist driven technical design process
River view of the development (courtesy of Howells)
Through its site intensification, the Orchard Wharf scheme is inherently beneficial to the wider community for both new employment and for its provision of new homes, whilst primarily safeguarding its river wharf use
