Allies and Morrison Waterloo Trio Revealed

The proposal for a trio of towers near Waterloo Station in London has been officially unveiled.

Designed by Allies and Morrison for joint partners in the venture, P&O Estates and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Security, the £1.4 billion proposal will contain a total of 135,000 square metres of space replacing the current Elizabeth House and Tower Building which sites on the wide site.

The scheme is made up of a 28 floor building with 61,169 square metre of office space and ground floor retail of 839 square metres of ground floor retail. There will also be a 22 floor office block with 47,952 square metres of office space and 1,587 square metres of ground floor and first floor retail.

The other building is a new 33 floor residential tower offering 280 new apartments. Together, they will straddle the site from west to east forming a similar wall effect to that seen at Heron Quays in Canary Wharf.

The towers will stand at 117m and 90m with the residential block at 107m, all roughly the same height as the nearby Upstream Building, more popularly known as the Shell Centre.

Tall buildings have long been mooted for this site, and indeed the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has talked of a cluster emerging here thanks to the proximity of the area to one of the main transport interchanges in London.

Originally RHWL Architects proposed a 140 metre tall sail shaped tower to stand on the site but this was dropped after the authorities baulked at the sheer amount of work needed at ground level to fit it in which included the likes of rebuilding much of the road system going past it.

What has now been proposed is an evolution from the Allies and Morrison winning entry of the design competition held by P&O Estates in 2005 / 2006 that attracted some of the top names in architecture including MAKE.

Although similarities between the two designs remain including the "Three Sisters" concept, the official proposal is much scaled down from a peak of 140 metres that the last plans took on, perhaps reflecting concern of a resurgent English Heritage buoyed up by support of UNESCO.