The projects that shaped 2015

Walkie Talkie

Some buildings are so controversial that they appear to have been around for years. But believe it or not Rafael Viñoly’s Walkie Talkie only finally completed this January with the opening of its Sky Gardens. And true to form, like the planning debacle and pyrotechnic sunrays before it, this too courted a predictable storm of controversy. While several visitors appreciated the views, many questioned the legitimacy of its “garden” status and made unfavourable comparisons to the anodyne sterility of an airport terminal. The City of London accused its designers of deviating from the approved proposals and threatened (as yet unrealised) enforcement action. And even the president of the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust claimed that the gardens exhibited less interest than “your average domestic conservatory”. Furthermore, hot on the heels of garden-gate came a damning environmental report in the summer laying the blame for multiple “wind disturbance incidents” around the building squarely at the Walkie Talkie’s door. For most buildings such opprobrium would have been sufficient but once again the Walkie Talkie proved its unprecedented capacity for controversy when in September it won the Carbuncle Cup, our sister’s title BD’s annual prize for the worst building in Britain. Not only was the Walkie Talkie the outright and unanimous winner but it broke Carbuncle records by being one of the most popular nominees in the previous year’s competition.
Architect: Rafael Viñoly
Contractor: Canary Wharf Contractors

Birmingham New Street station

Up until this year, Birmingham New Street was one of the most reviled buildings in the country. Voted the worst station in Britain just last year, it was squalid, uninviting, dingy and oppressive, the very epitome of the term “concrete eyesore” and a spiteful example of 1960s architecture and planning at its very worst. But thankfully such horrors are now a thing of the past as the new Birmingham New Street emerged from the wreckage of its predecessor in September. For the past five years a massive £750m reconstruction had been taking place while the station remained in use and its completion revealed a terminus utterly transformed. A shopping centre has been incorporated into the station and for the first time since its Victorian forbear, New Street has a legible external architectural identity in the form of the shimmering metal skin applied to its envelope. But arguably the biggest impact was made by its new central concourse, a soaring, whitewashed volume surmounted by a series of curved, strutting piers and trusses threaded through bulbous skylights. Of course, a scheme of this scale and complexity came with its share of controversy, some of which resurfaced at its opening. Concept architect AZPML (working with architects Atkins, Haskoll and contractor Mace) was particularly aggrieved by the replacement of the plaster panels initially envisioned to encase the concourse trusses with tensioned fabric. It also seemed a pity that the platforms were largely unchanged and remained banished underground. But there can be no doubt that the new Birmingham New Street is a monumental improvement on its predecessor and represented one of the
biggest infrastructure milestones
of the year.
Architect: AZPML / Atkins / Haskoll
Contractor: Mace

Crossrail Place

Crossrail is one of the few 2015 projects that appears to have been around longer than the Walkie Talkie. But longevity aside, this year marked a huge milestone in the glacial gestation of Europe’s biggest underground construction project. Foster and Partners’ Crossrail Place opened back in April, the four-level, 300m retail block located above the planned Crossrail station at Canary Wharf and itself surmounted by an extraordinary linear garden. As such, Crossrail Place is hugely significant as it offers the public a first glimpse of the physical appearance of the generation-defining infrastructure project that is set to utterly transform London’s transport network and urban fabric. It therefore set the scene for the further openings that are to follow in the years to come. Certainly in terms of scale and impact, Crossrail Place promises that Crossrail’s physical impact on the city is going to be dramatic. The structure bestrides West India Quay like a vast floating container and yet deftly softens its industrial aspect with its barrel-vaulted ETFE and timber roof garden. Back in 1999 the Jubilee line extension revolutionised London tube stations by introducing natural daylight for the first time, as Foster’s nearby Canary Wharf underground station so dramatically displays. If Crossrail is about to give us shops and gardens too, then its impact on London’s public realm could be equally transformative.
Architect: Foster + Partners
Contractor: Canary Wharf Contractors