Northumberland Development Project

Haringey

Design of a new stadium for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club within the context of a wider development, including a new supermarket, apartments, a hotel, and new public open space. Designed by Make Architects, KSS Design Group and Martha Schwartz Partners.

Summary

We welcome the proposal to develop the new stadium on the site of the existing football ground. We support the aspiration of the club to develop an iconic, exemplar stadium, and we think that, in terms of the design of the stadium itself, the proposal has the potential to deliver this. However, we are disappointed that important, previously raised, concerns about the nature of the buildings to the north and south of the stadium remain unresolved. The secondary buildings do not relate well to the stadium or respond successfully to their context and the various elements of the design do not appear to be working together coherently. We also have reservations about the scale and massing of the supermarket and residential block, the quantum and potential residential quality of the housing, and the design of the new square in the south-west corner of the site. For these reasons, although we support the design of the stadium, regrettably we cannot support the planning application as a whole.

Masterplan

We welcome the retention of the existing terrace of buildings on the north-west edge of the site, the location of the stadium in relation to the High Road and the proposal that the stadium takes the form of an object within the site. We are satisfied that the inclusion of some active uses along the west elevation has created a positive relationship between the main west entrance to the stadium and the High Road.

However, we are concerned that an overall masterplan for the site is not evident: the three components – the stadium, supermarket, and housing – feel like very separate projects without convincing spatial relationships between them. Clear prioritisation of the stadium and its setting is required; it would be disappointing if a poor quality setting were to compromise the potential of the stadium design. The developments to the north and south need to work harder together to support the stadium and resolve connections with the existing streets and buildings. The reconciliation of the stadium’s curved form with the existing, orthogonal streets has not yet been convincingly demonstrated. We find the geometries, particularly of the supermarket block to the north, unsatisfactory. The layout of the whole site should acknowledge, although not necessarily follow, both the rectilinear street context and the oval form of the stadium.

Stadium

We support the brief and recognise the quality of the stadium design. It is well-resolved as an object and the overall form, and the structure of the roof in particular, are elegant.

The residential development

To the south of the stadium, the residential use seems an entirely appropriate way to stitch the development into the existing neighbourhood. We also welcome the addition of the hotel which provides activity and scale at the south-west corner of the development. However, we do not support the quantity of housing proposed, which we believe is overdevelopment of this site. Building some of the housing over the supermarket could relieve pressure on the south of the site and we are not convinced that overshadowing by the stadium makes this impossible. We worry that the proposed mix of mostly small 1 and 2-bed flats would seem designed for the buy-to-let market, 75% of the flats are single aspect and the quality of the amenity space and community provision for such a sizable population is questionable.

We support the principle of “fingers” of residential development with a north-south orientation but we find the massing, which is generally higher on the Park Lane frontage than next to the stadium, eccentric and counterintuitive. The form does not integrate successfully with the rest of the development by creating memorable, well proportioned public space to its north. We suggest that overshadowing between the blocks might compromise the new flats and that the scale of the proposal would also have an impact on the quality of the public open space. We have reservations about whether the series of projecting gable ends will generate a pleasant streetscape or relate well to the existing houses on Park Lane.

The supermarket

Development of a supermarket of this size in this area and its potential effect on the existing businesses on the High Road should be questioned by the local authority.

We consider that the basic box form of the supermarket is not sufficiently ambitious for this site. It does nothing to reconcile the oval and rectilinear geometries or respond to its street context. Parking at ground level on the street frontage will not generate an active, attractive streetscape. The roof will be highly visible and its design should be more carefully considered.

The public realm

While the level of permeability, maintaining and enhancing the existing pedestrian routes, is welcomed, the public open space around the stadium has the feeling of leftover space between the unresolved geometries of the inner faces of the north and south blocks and the curve of the stadium’s outer wall, rather than positively moulded public realm. The area to the north of the stadium reads as supermarket back-of-house and we question what it will feel like to be in this space, which needs to be carefully considered to create a safe and attractive public realm on a match day. The backs of the buildings in the retained section of the existing High Road adjacent to the supermarket also appear very exposed.

The south-west “civic space” is an important point of arrival at the site. The massing and increased level of activity provided by the hotel at the western end of the residential block provides reasonable containment. However, the champhered footprint of the hotel with its sharp angled south-west corner has generated an awkwardly-shaped space. Because of the relationship of the patterns of pedestrian movement through the space to the south-west stadium entrance the space does not read successfully as part of the stadium entrance sequence, but neither has it become an integrated part of the public realm of the High Road. We have sympathy for the arguments for demolition of the listed and locally listed buildings that currently sit within the footprint of the arrival space and welcome the proposed programme of activities for the square. However, we cannot support demolition until the team has demonstrated that the design of the public open space that will replace the existing buildings works on every level and that the PPG 15 case has been made. We recommend that the whole south-west corner of the site is reviewed and considered holistically to generate a design with more interaction between the various built and landscape components.

We find the concept of the stadium sitting on a continuous ground plane, expressed as a checked “table cloth”, appealing in principle. However, the patterning and interactive light poles cannot hide the fundamental nature of these areas as left-over spaces carved out by the built forms, rather than clearly defined places in their own right. There is a danger that the measures needed to maintain a secure site will result in clusters of closely spaced of bollards along the edges, which appear particularly intrusive along the western boundary with the High Road. It is important to develop the detail of the landscape strategy to be sure that it is capable of rising to this challenge in a positive way.

Architectural treatment

We have serious reservations about the appropriateness of the architectural treatment and materials of the blocks to the north and south of the stadium. It is important that the stadium is the primary element in this proposal. The role of the supermarket and residential buildings is to create a new context as the setting for the stadium and to re-engage with the existing buildings. For this reason we suggest that the treatment of the new buildings to the north and south should draw more from their existing context. The brightly coloured and reflective palette of materials and elaborate articulation suggests that the residential buildings will compete visually with the stadium rather than provide a background setting to it; we believe that this is the wrong approach.

Sustainability

A project of this size and significance should demonstrate a commitment to an exemplary sustainability strategy. We support the aspiration to retain the club on the current site, where it is well served by public transport, and to create a model of sustainable stadium development. Although we are disappointed that the environmental strategy has not been integrated more explicitly in the design of the buildings and landscape, the plan to develop tri-generation for the entire site, including a local school, is applauded.

Conclusion

We welcome the proposal to build a new stadium close to the existing ground adjacent to the High Road, and applaud the club’s commitment to remaining in the local area. We support the principle of a mixed-use development with an ambitious environmental strategy and think the design of the stadium shows great potential.

However, the masterplan does not integrate the three elements of the design into a coherent whole. As a result, the stadium is not yet reading comfortably or as the primary element within the overall composition, and the residential and supermarket components of the site do not provide a fitting setting, either in built form or public realm, for the stadium. We do not support the planning application in its current form and recommend that the design of the blocks to the north and south of the stadium are reconsidered before this application is determined.