back door
ZHA/Laurian Ghinitoiu
How The Mercian will dominate the Birminsky xxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx
tall order
As the Zaha Hadid ‘hotel with a hole’ opens in Dubai, ZHA’s controversial London high rises get the go-ahead
H
ousing secretary Robert Jenrick has granted permission for a giant pair of towers in Vauxhall, south London, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). The £600m Vauxhall Cross Island project was approved by Lambeth Council in late 2018 but was called-in by thenhousing secretary James Brokenshire last May after campaigners and the neighbouring borough of Wandsworth objected to its scale. The two towers will stand at 53 and 42 storeys (185m and 151m) while a connecting podium will stand at 10 storeys The scheme is ZHA’s first major
mixed-use residential and commercial development and has been described as a ‘breakthrough project’ for the practice. A hotel with a ‘hole in the middle’ designed by the firm opened in Dubai in May. A cuboid structure containing two towers with an ‘eroded’ hole at the centre, now stands in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa district. The 84,300 sq m structure was designed as two separate towers that combine into a singular structure. The missing centre contains a 6,000 sq m façade, made from 4,300 individual units of flat, single-curved or double-curved glass.
The scheme is ZHA’s first major mixeduse residential and commercial development and has been described as a ‘breakthrough project’ for the practice” Main picture: the Dubai ‘hotel with a hole’; above: the controversial Vauxhall scheme will see two high rise builds loom over the Thames
Presented by Zaha Hadid in 2007, the project is the only hotel where the architect designed both the architecture and interiors, including fixtures, furniture and fittings such as sofas, beds and bathrooms. n
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