Security around Parliament and Westminster Abbey central to designs

Architect HawkinsBrown has been commissioned to take forward Foster’s Parliament Square redevelopment, it has been revealed.

The practice is working with Olympic masterplanner EDAW and architect DSDHA, which did the original feasibility study with Foster + Partners, to design and then build the high profile scheme.

The Foster-led team lost out to HawkinsBrown in a competitive interview process.

Carol Lees, project manager for the scheme at HawkinsBrown said particular attention had to paid to security. She said: “There will be stringent security measures in the designs – our stakeholders are the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey and they obviously have distinct security concerns.”

HawkinsBrown won the commission last month after entering an invited competition against other practices on the TfL framework.

Lees said it was too early to know what shape the plans would take but the inclusion of DSDHA in the design team indicates that the ideas that it came up with for the feasibility study with Foster’s will inform the new designs.

EDAW will be landscape architects for the project, Montagu Evans is the conservation consultant, Jason Bruges Studio is responsible for the lighting design and Centre for Accessible Environments and David Bonnett Associates will cover heritage and visitor interpretation. The client is TfL Street Management.