Woolwich Town Centre Redevelopment

This is an ambitious project to rejuvenate the heart of Woolwich town centre. The masterplan proposes a new council office, nearly 1,000 apartments and new retail at ground floor, the anchor store being a new Tesco – this is the first supermarket in the town centre for over 30 years.A key challenge of the project was incorporating the store and the residential space over the top as a single building. The scheme is unified by a series of sinuous metallic elements which act as walls and roofs, avoiding the compositional problem of putting residential blocks over a retail podium. The retail footprint is maximised to the site extents by careful planning of residential accommodation and circulation. The end aesthetic is like a series of folding ribbons which enclose both the store and residential above.