Fri 18 Jul 2008
Chelsea Barracks design does fit the bill, rules CABE
Candy and Candy’s plans to regenerate military site Chelsea Barracks in west London have received approval from CABE’s design review panel.The £1 billion development, the most expensive property deal ever struck in the capital, has been designed by Lord Rogers’ firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) found the designs a “successful response” to the challenges of the site, but criticised the layout of its open, public spaces, which it ruled were “not convincing”.
“The variations in the colour of the blocks appear successful and elegant for the blocks on Chelsea Bridge Road,” the panel concluded. “The skeleton structure and the patinated copper alloy panels could respond well to the Chelsea environment.”
This follows deputy London mayor Kit Malthouse’s attack on the design, which he labelled “anodyne, commonplace and potentially a plutocratic slum”. The designs have also come under criticism from and Bryan Ferry, Rupert Everett and the Duke of Westminster, who called them “monotonous, repetitive and totally out of scale and context”.
Nick and Christian Candy purchased the site with the Qatari government last year. Located between Sloane Square and the Thames, the 12.8-acre site is worth an estimated £75 million per acre. The brothers have plans to transform the site into a “world class housing estate”, creating a 21st-century equivalent of Mayfair and Belgravia.
Posted by Marc Da-Silva
in Bryan Ferry, CABE, Candy and Candy, Christian Candy, Kit Malthouse, Lord Rogers, News, Nick Candy, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Rupert Everett on Fri 18 Jul 2008
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