SOM reveals designs for 55-storey Canary Wharf skyscraper

Canary Wharf’s largest landowner has unveiled designs for a slender new tower by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), replacing an earlier proposal for the plot by Squire and PartnersCanary Wharf Group (CWG)’s plans for 90,000m2 of office space at 1 Park Place, designed by Squire and Partners, were approved in 2015 but never built out.Now plans have been revealed for a mixed-use 55-storey tower on the vacant site with 624 flats for rent and a separate glass pavilion building at its base with shops, co-working and leisure space.The new scheme will sit next to the Morgan Stanley building and faces onto Middle Dock to the south and West India Avenue to the north.Canary Wharf Group said the height of the building would reflect the context of Horden Cheery Lee’s neighbouring 58-storey Newfoundland Tower, which recently opened.Explaining the design rethink at 1 Park Place, the developer previously said that it was a constrained site which could not accommodate the large floor plates required by most office tenants.In recent years, CWG has begun to introduce more housing and mixed-use schemes into the area, shifting the wharf away from its identity as a purely financial district.A 3.3ha site at North Quay previously had consent for an office tower by Pelli Clarke Pelli and Will Alsop, but has been redesigned as a mixed-use scheme by Allies and Morrison. That scheme is currently in planning.Last year, CWG’s residential arm completed major luxury housing in its new Wood Wharf neighbourhood: Herzog & de Meuron’s cylindrical skyscraper One Park Drive and Stanton Williams’ 345-home scheme Ten Park Drive.In July this year Maccreanor Lavington revealed its designs for a 56-storey tower on Canary Wharf’s South Quay.