Elephant & Castle

Designing a new public space at the Elephant and Castle has been a work of negotiation – with landowners, residents, highway authorities and public transport operators, but also with awkward structures inherited from the post-war reconstruction. New highway works will connect the island at the centre of the roundabout to the shopping centre to the southeast, replacing the subways with street level crossings. Commissioned by Transport for London, our design for the public space dares to speculate that despite the volume of traffic, users might linger, stop and even talk; that here in the contested and conflicted public realm a form of civility might be possible.

In a place that has been demolished and remade several times, we have drawn the remnants together. Our design reinforces the large outdoor room formed by the modernist blocks, binding the existing buildings and new developments into a new London square. This enlarged public space will be populated by three existing small buildings, with a fourth, new pavilion on the old street line, forming a canopy for market stalls. The areas in between the road, the pavilions and the square will be paved in York stone and planted with new trees, and will provide outside space for the institutions around the edges. The new canopy roof and the blind gable will be planted as hanging gardens, allowing the square to be both paved and verdant. At the centre of the new square, atop a column like Nelson or the lion of St Mark, will be the bronze elephant salvaged from the Victorian pub that once occupied this crossroads – asserting the importance of continuity in London’s whirlwind of change.