Regeneration specialist U+I submitted plans for Morden Wharf in June 2020, comprising 1,500 new homes, employment spaces, and a landscaped park along 275m of the River Thames. Located on Greenwich Peninsula in London, the mixed-use scheme designed by OMA includes more than six acres of the high-quality public realm, 12 high quality, and tenure-blind residential buildings, as well as commercial, retail, and community spaces.
New images of Modern Wharf "detail the four-acre park that sits at the heart of the scheme, which will be open for all Londoners and offer views of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site and Canary Wharf across the River Thames". Submitted to the Royal Borough of Greenwich for approval, back in June 2020, the U+I plans have been developed in collaboration with the local community and key stakeholders. Including a three acres Riverfront Park, the proposal opens up visually to the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site and Canary Wharf and leads visitors, workers, and residents directly off the Thames Path.
Inspired by the site’s history, the landscape will also upgrade and increase the width of the Thames Path, accommodating cyclists and pedestrians. The open space at Morden Wharf will include play and recreation space, helping to address the existing deficit of open space in the area. The park will lead directly off the Thames Path and will be open to workers, visitors, and residents alike.
Morden Wharf will bring together new homes, retail, leisure, employment and an extensive riverfront park, to create a diverse community rooted in the site’s heritage. Centered on a beautiful park and world-class public realm this scheme is set to transform the area into a distinctive, green, mixed-use development, while driving growth and employment and delivering 1,500 much-needed new homes. -- Richard Upton, Chief Development Officer, U+I.
With a particular focus on families, the plans propose “approximately 1,500 homes, of which 35% will be affordable, including a mix of a private sale, shared ownership, and London Affordable Rent”. Some buildings will feature vertical green façades that will help to provide natural screening and improve air quality. In addition, the intervention delivers a mix of commercial and employment uses that will create around 1,100 new permanent jobs.
On another hand, an existing warehouse will be “retained to accommodate a new pub together with a mix of refurbished workspace for creative businesses”. The project will also generate a potential children’s nursery, as well as a new permanent boathouse on an existing jetty, designed by architects Carmody Groarke.
Morden Wharf is designed to foster community and has the right mix of uses to create a successful and vibrant neighborhood, all stitched together with beautiful public realm. We have drawn design inspiration from Greenwich Peninsula’s industrial heritage – from the warehouses and silos that once sat on the site, to the iron lattice structure of the gasholders. We have also looked back further, to the original marshland landscape of the peninsula, and in creating the park and public realms we are seeking to return the post-industrial landscape to a more natural and ecologically diverse condition. -- Reinier de Graaf, Partner in charge of the project, OMA.
