KPF Recognised for Contribution to the Transformation of Southwark

KPF’s Southbank Tower, completed in 2016, is a pioneering adaptive reuse project that transformed an outdated office building into a mixed-use development. Office space was converted into homes, 11 floors were added to the existing tower, and the public realm was enhancing to increase the building’s lifespan for another generation.

Chapter London Bridge, is a 39-storey student accommodation tower carefully embedded into a constrained historic site at the doorstep of one of London’s busiest transport hubs.  The tower is deliberately contextual, engaging with the street and activating its edges to create a welcoming public realm for students and visitors.

KPF has worked extensively in Southwark and were the detailed urban plan architects for The Bermondsey Project, the regeneration of a former industrial site into one of London’s largest build-to-rent developments. Focused largely on Bermondsey’s dynamic community and rich past, the project includes 1,343 rental homes, a 600-place secondary school, over 10,000 square meters of new office space and 10,000 square meters of retail, culture, leisure, community facilities and food and beverage outlets alongside new and improved civic yards and squares.

Building Southwark: Architecture and Regeneration in a London Borough, by renowned architecture critic Kenneth Powell, explores the architectural renaissance of Southwark that began in the 1980s. This wave of development has resulted in the creation of new venues for culture and leisure, the imaginative reuse of industrial spaces for housing, commerce and shared working, carefully designed facilities for health, care and education, and a wealth of green spaces to improve the daily lives of those working and living in the borough.

Building Southwark: Architecture and Regeneration in a London Borough is available here.