Bow Church

Location: Tower Hamlets, London
Client: Leaside Regeneration Ltd
Date: Completed 2003

This masterplan, for the area around St Mary’s Church, Bow, aims to lessen the impact of heavy traffic and create a new, high quality public realm. The work also seeks to reveal hidden qualities of the existing place and reinforce a strong sense of historic continuity.

Proposals for relatively minor highway adjustments create significant opportunities: new routes including a cycleway over the Bow flyover, new footbridges over the A12 and the River Lea, improved pavements and road crossings, and a new public space at the churchyard and Gladstone Monument. The scheme consciously proposes a framework, including projects that were both visionary and readily deliverable.

Winners: Best Community / Partnership Initiative, London Planning Awards, 2004 (with Leaside Regeneration Ltd.)

'This scheme tackles a difficult environment where the dominance of major roads has long degraded the area. The proposals . . will create a vibrant new area of London with the community at its heart.'

Citation, London Planning Awards, 2004