The opportunity

Capital & Counties is developing the Earls Court Regeneration Area (ECRA) masterplan in partnership with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (LBHF) and Transport for London (TfL). Farrells were appointed to lead a multidisciplinary team to deliver an urban design proposal and secure planning permission for the site.

Although the site is strategically located and close to important transport nodes, it is constrained by traffic-dominated infrastructure and poor public quality realm. Space Syntax was appointed to carry out an Urban Baseline Study and a Spatial Layout Design Review in order to provide the team with an in-depth understanding of key opportunities and constraints relating to pedestrian use, strategic layout and land use distribution.

Our contribution

Using spatial modelling techniques and on-site surveys, the existing site conditions and the proposed scheme have been assessed according to the following five themes:

Location
Relationships with a wider context, social and economic infrastructure in the area

Linkage
Key gateways, public transport links

Layout
accessibility, walkability, permeability within/around the site

Land use: key attractors, area characters

Landscape
quality of public realm, activity potential.

The outcome

Working in a collaborative environment, the outcomes were communicated with the design team through a series of design workshops and presented at stakeholder meetings. The findings were instrumental in providing an objective evaluation of the proposal and explaining the design rationale.