AYA winners picked to develop designs for key Canada Water site

Four BD Architect of the Year winners have been invited by BD and British Land to develop design proposals for the retail and commercial centre of the £4bn Canada Water regeneration project in south east London.

Coffey Architects, Reiach and Hall, Soda Studio and Mikhail Riches were selected from a longlist of previous AYA shortlisted and winning practices to work up designs for the Cuts area of the new town centre which has been masterplanned by Allies & Morrison.

The site borders the new high street and town square and includes retail at ground level with commercial above. The architects have been asked to respond to several challenges including how to reconcile small-scale and varied retail frontages in the Cuts with the larger-scale retail expected on the high street and town square, how to create a sense of intimacy and richness within a large-scale commercial scheme and how to meet the challenges of 2020 retail.

The masterplan, which was submitted for planning to Southwark council in May includes 3,000 new homes, offices, leisure, public spaces and a new retail centre the size of Leicester Square.

Each practice will present their ideas to a panel including Roger Madelin and Philip Tait from British Land, Paul Eaton from Allies & Morrison, Nicola Rutt from Hawkins Brown and Michael Tsoukaris from Southwark council at a session at BD Live, a conference for construction industry professionals BD is hosting in central London on November 28.

Each practice will receive a £7,500 honorarium and British Land will evaluate ideas with a view to asking architects to develop them further.