Limmo, Canning Town

The Limmo site faces onto Bow Creek at the confluence of the Rivers Lea and Thames. The highly constrained 3.7 Ha triangular site is isolated from the surrounding city by the River to the west, the Lower Lea Crossing to the south and the DLR line to the east. The adjacent City Island development is the new home to the National Ballet School and will be a major residential development in its own right.

Despite close proximity to Canning Town station and to the Thames Cable Car river crossing, accessing the site is challenging and depends on new connections forged as part of the ongoing design process. At present the site is a Crossrail staging point, which includes a major vent shaft that will be retained in the long term. However the TFL team are keen to bring forward a major residential development of over 1000 homes to regenerate the site.

Our team won the project in open competition by developing a highly innovative design which took advantage of the form of the site to drive both the massing and views in order to maximise values for TFL and linking the whole back to a simple concept of a river estuary created by silt flow.

The urban design and master planning approach is one of generous streets, spaces and public realm, with low level interconnecting buildings and elegant tower forms. The river front is treated as a board walk and connects to a new foot bridge and Canning Town station to the north. To the south vehicle access is minimal and the parking concealed in lower ground floor spaces, with active frontages at ground floor.

A street hierarchy is established and clusters of buildings are gathered around the towers and intimate public squares.