Client London Borough of Newham
Location Canning Town, London
Status Planning Submitted
Following an open competition, a Jestico + Whiles-led consortium were appointed by the London Borough of Newham to co-design an estate regeneration masterplan for up to 1,750 new homes in Canning Town over the next decade.
Created in partnership with the community, the 10-hectare masterplan has been developed through a programme of engagement by AR Urbanism and Deft.Space in collaboration with Jestico + Whiles, and co-authored with the Canning Town Residents’ Steering Group. Alongside focused activities and workshops, the design team maintain a daily on-site presence, running a drop-in centre which allows residents to engage at their own convenience.
These sessions and wider demographic research undertaken by the design team, highlighted a number of intergenerational households across the estate. In response, proposals for the masterplan’s first site at Vincent Street feature a variety of housing typologies including 5-bedroom townhouses, maisonettes, and apartment blocks which allows 45% of homes to be delivered for larger families. The designs at Vincent Street will serve as a model to be employed across the masterplan as it develops and comes to fruition.
Newham Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz said: “This an exciting project that will create much-needed, genuinely affordable homes for Newham. This team truly impressed us with their commitment to the co-design process and won out against some strong competition.”
Borrowing from Victorian mansion block precedents, the buildings are arranged around a shared courtyard garden, featuring duplex homes on lower levels, with individual private front and rear gardens; and a terrace of 5-bedroom townhouses designed by Deft.Space for intergenerational families featuring a dedicated independent living space with separate step-free access and amenity. Across the site, a community-focused hub space looks out onto a new public square planned around the centrepiece of a locally significant mature tree.
The scheme’s urban form is conceived as a family of buildings, with each element taking on a unique character expressed through its height, composition, and materiality. Mottled red brickwork and a lighter buff brick reference the local historic context of Victorian traditional terraces. Each building’s facade responds to the UK’s warming climate by employing external solar shading such as integrated pocket sliding screens or bi-fold shutters.
Landscaping in and around the plot designed by Alexandra Steed Urban integrates private, communal and public green spaces. Trees, shrubs and a mix of flowering plants add colour and depth, building on existing biodiversity.
Catering to a broad range of age groups and needs, seating and play equipment are distributed throughout the site with an informal play route which will loop around the site and link into the community space; internally, the proposed apartment layouts are flexible, allowing for homeworking, lifestyle changes and cultural preferences highlighted through engagement with residents.
The full consortium team includes:
Jestico + Whiles, Lead consultant
Architecture Doing Place, Architecture and urban design practice led by David Ogunmuyiwa
Deft.Space, Architecture practice and community engagement specialist led by Shade Abdul
AR Urbanism, Masterplanning and urban design specialist led by Amanda Reynolds
AS URBAN, Landscape architect led by Alexandra Steed
Urban Delivery, Regeneration specialist led by Simon Davis
Buro Happold, Multi-disciplinary engineering and consultancy firm
