Crossrail Roof Terrace
Client: Canary Wharf Contractors
Landscape Architect: Gillespies
Duration: 32 weeks
Location: West India Quay
The Crossrail Roof Terrace in Canary Wharf is the first new building to open for Crossrail — London's new east-west rail link. It sits atop the new station designed by Foster + Partners and covers over 5,300 m2. The garden celebrates the docklands maritime heritage, showcasing unusual plants from across the globe encased beneath an intricate lattice roof.
Designed to evoke a ship laden with unusual and exotic specimens from around the globe, the roof garden is encased within a complex ETFE lattice timber roof structure, which wraps around the building with openings that encourage light penetration and natural irrigation.
The semi‑permeable canopy structure helps create a localised microclimate, allowing the planting of more sensitive and rare plants, which play a key role in the journey across the garden.
WORKS
Blakedown Landscapes took control of the space from concrete formation, providing:
Drainage
Insulation
Void formers
Topsoiling
Bespoke feature walls
Ducting
Bespoke seating
Specially constructed pre-cast concrete plank walkway
Resin bound surfacing
Over 2000m2 of granite paving
Mature trees and extensive shrub planting
A fully automatic irrigation system specially adapted to cope with the specialist tree ferns imported from Australia
Further information:
The intense scheme involved craning all material through the gap in the timber beam roof carefully timed around other trades requiring access to the space and the limited crane usage.
Project demands saw Blakedown work out of hours and over weekends to ensure the works were completed in the limited timeframe, allowing shop and restaurant fit-out contractors to start to schedule.
The scheme involved importing more than 600m3 of topsoil, 100 tree ferns, 15,000 shrubs, 70 mature trees and 2000m2 of unique black granite.
The successful project has been well received by the client and visitors with many enjoying the tranquil roof space in the busy business district.
