Gillespies designs exotic roof garden for landmark scheme
The first retail and public realm space to be created as part of the Crossrail network is now open, at Canary Wharf.
Featuring a roof garden designed by Gillespies, Crossrail Place is a major new leisure destination that sits within the Foster & Partners structure housing the Canary Wharf Crossrail station.
The distinctive seven-storey structure, which is meant to mimic the clippers that once docked at Canary Wharf, is over 300m long and accommodates 10,000 square metres of retail and leisure space as well as a 4,160-square-metre public roof garden, designed to celebrate Canary Wharf’s maritime heritage.
The station concourse and platforms occupy the bottom two levels and won’t open until 2018, while the four upper levels above contain the shops and leisure elements and the roof garden.
‘The opportunity to create such a large garden in what will become a new destination for London was both a privilege and a challenge,’ says Gillespies’ Stephen Richards.
‘The design of the garden responds to the architectural language of the roof in the creation of a unique and sheltered planting environment,’ he adds. ‘It offers visitors a new vantage point from which to look out across the water and the surrounding area.’
Gillespies was lead landscape architect for the roof garden. Other members of the design team included Foster & Partners, Tony Meadows Associates, Adamson Associates, Arup Engineering and Growth Industry.
