JTP and Civic Voice Announced as Joint Winners of Paddington Place Competition
< View all news

JTP and Civic Voice Announced as Joint Winners of Paddington Place Competition

Published on 24 May 2016

JTP and Civic Voice are delighted to have been awarded joint first prize for our entry to the Create Streets Paddington Place Competition.

Artist impression of vibrant civic space at the heart of St Mary’s Yard, a haven from the hustle and bustle

The Streets Prize was given to the entry by JTP/Civic Voice for the high quality of the urban design. JTP/Civic Voice were also strongly commended for the community planning process through which the proposals for the site were developed. 

In the judgement Create Streets said that, “The JTP/Civic Voice entry was clearly the most developed and had had the most work put into it. Judges were impressed by the level of community engagement they had shown in such a short time frame. Judges were impressed by the urban fabric, and the quality of the public spaces and blocks. Praed Street was treated well, with increased pavement sizes improving its feel as a place. There was felt to be a good consideration of traffic flows and pedestrian flows, including access to the hospital. There was good connectivity around the site. The site had the largest amount of housing and total GIA, thanks in part to expanding the site slightly towards the canal in the north.”  JTP/Civic Voice shared first prize with AR Urbanism / Greysmith Associates entry which was felt to be a “strong piece of urban design”.

Aerial view of the proposals from the south

Local residents worked with the JTP / Civic Voice team to develop a new Vision for 2 hectares of prime London real estate next to Paddington station at the Paddington Place Community Planning Weekend.  The proposals include:

  • The sensitive integration of the historic character of the area - in particular retaining the Sorting Office façade - to provide the “front door” for a cultural, retail and leisure destination as a new vibrant heart for Paddington; 
  • The creation of a new gateway ‘piazza’ to Paddington station, named Brunel Square, and other high quality places and spaces of different characters and scales within the development connected by a network of pedestrian routes; 
  • The provision of a range of housing, including key worker and affordable homes for local people, workspace and new accommodation for St Mary’s hospital;
  • The continued participation of the local residential and business communities in drawing up the proposals for Paddington Place.
“
It’s a really refreshing change to have the people who know the area really well - how it works, how it could work so much better - being able to share their knowledge and passion with the placemaking professionals who can bring it all together in a far more friendly and practical scheme where people will not only want to be, but will also want come to. It’s great how much of what we said has been captured in the Vision.
Sue Nichols, from the South East Bayswater Residents Association
Redevelopment provides opportunities for the regeneration of Praed Street by diverting pedestrian movement away from pinch points, widening the footpath to provide more space for a bus stop and taxi set down and creating better street frontages for local businesses
Mint Square: a quieter, more internal public square with hard and soft landscaping, animated by cafes, restaurants and shops
“
Communities should be at the centre of planning and placemaking in their neighbourhoods. We thank the local Paddington community for working with us to create a viable new Vision for Paddington Place. The community has demonstrated that they are supportive of the comprehensive, mixed-use regeneration of this important area - but they want to see the site planned in an historically sensitive manner and at an appropriate scale to create an attractive, vibrant new heart for Paddington.
Charles Campion, Partner at JTP

In January, a proposal for a 72-storey skyscraper on the site, nicknamed the ‘Paddington Pole’, was withdrawn. Create Streets, an independent research institute focusing on towns and cities, launched a public competition to suggest high-quality alternative schemes for ‘Paddington Place’. 

Architects JTP and Civic Voice, the national charity for the civic movement, teamed up to organise the Community Planning Weekend for the site as part of the competition.  People movement experts Movement Strategies and crowd movement analysts Disperse also joined the team.

Over the course of the May Day bank holiday weekend, local people and others with an interest in the future of Paddington were invited to participate over two days in workshops and walkabouts to plan ideas and create a new Vision for this important site and its relationship with the surrounding area.  The culmination of the weekend’s activities was developed into the illustrated Vision for Paddington Place by the JTP team and this was presented back to the local community on Tuesday 3 May 2016 at St John’s Hyde Park. The new Vision was then submitted as the entry to the Create Streets design competition.

“
What we need in England is positive planning and I call on all involved in placemaking to learn the lessons from the 'Paddington Pole' project. We need a step change in the amount of development over the next fifteen years, particularly housing, but we will only achieve that if we get communities to support it by putting people at the heart of the planning process.
Sarah James, Civic Voice's Head of Policy

Following the announcement of the competition results it is expected that an exhibition of the winning and commended entries will be held at a local Paddington venue - date and venue to be confirmed.

See more of our submission through the following downloads:

Brunel Square: A new, traffic-free, public square to Paddington Station that will transform the experience of using the station entrance by unifying the existing ramp with London Street, introducing mixed uses at street level and facilitating pedestrian movement within the station and into the surrounding neighbourhood.