Hackney councillors back recommendation to approve shortened mixed-use scheme
Hackney council has approved AHMM’s plans for a mixed-use scheme in Shoreditch after the practice cut its proposed tower by three storeys.
The firm’s designs for the Shoreditch Island site on Great Eastern Street had been recommended for approval by planning officers ahead of Hackney council’s planning committee yesterday evening.
The revised scheme, designed for General Projects and Bioconsulta Ltd, consists of a 19-storey tower containing an aparthotel, a series of refurbished heritage buildings serving as an extension to the aparthotel and a separate office block.
Four existing buildings on the site would be demolished, including a 1960s office building on the site called Titchfield House, a five-storey building called Picture House and the locally listed 109 Great Eastern Street.
AHMM submitted the scheme’s planning application in spring 2024 but filed a series of amendments in April this year following talks with Hackney’s planning officers and Historic England.
The original scheme would have included a 22-storey tower featuring columns of decorative red marble fins on its facade, a product of early talks with the council’s design review panel (DRP).
The marble fins had been proposed in response to the DRP’s suggestion to link the tower to the scheme’s proposed red-coloured office building, but were removed after planning officers deemed them incongruous and unnecessary.
Other changes to the tower included lowering its height by three storeys, reducing floor-to-floor heights by 15cm per floor, introducing end-of-corridor windows on all floors and replacing all red-coloured elements with precast concrete.
The changes have reduced the proposed number of hotel rooms on the site from 232 to 202, but slightly increased the amount of retail floorspace and affordable workspace.
Historic England had raised concerns about the height of the tower and the scheme’s impact on historic terraces but said the revised scheme could “potentially greatly enhance the site”.
While the heritage body said the demolition of 109 Great Eastern Street, a four-storey locally listed terrace containing retail space, would be harmful, it said the scheme’s repair and restoration of surrounding buildings would be “positive overall”.
Planning consultant on the scheme is DP9, with Studio GB acting as landscape architect, Atelier 10 on sustainability, Velocity on transport and Elliot Wood on civils and structures.
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