The vision for Canary Wharf station which probably makes it unique to
the other stations on the line is the fact that it's a freestanding structure
located within a body of water, so it's like taking One Canada Square tower in the center of
Canary Wharf turning it on its side and dropping it into the dock that sits in Canary Wharf. The
arrangement of this station is quite simple when you compare it to underground stations that we're
all used to kind of meandering through, it's a very linear arrangement you have main entrances at
the east and the west ends and you simply flow down the escalators into a main concourse which
runs the full length of the station and then immediately down the escalators onto the platform
so it's quite a simple diagram really, and it and it provides great connectivity
not only to the Canary Wharf estate and to Poplar beyond but also interconnectivity into
the Jubilee line which is effectively parallel to this station on the other side of the Canary
Wharf estate and there's quite a nice flow of people that you can get, almost a circular flow
in and out of the station. So the shape of the building is driven by functionality really it's
long thin rectangular building to satisfy the need for the long platforms coming in either side
but the functional element of it is very important and that expresses itself at ground level,
so at each end of the station you have huge requirements for ventilation to ventilate the
tunnels and the station itself and the design and how that's been integrated into the design
is such that it almost looks like a cruise liner or Sunseeker yacht perhaps in appearance and very
nicely composed and put together by Fosters + Partners.
So we're trying to create connectivity between the main concourse level here and the platform level
below we've created some large openings in the floors to get those views down and up, again it's
about guiding people where they need to go but also just making interesting visual connections
between the spaces, you see similar things with the lift shafts coming up through those voids and
creating that connectivity. One of the main themes that we have running through this station is
about the journey from dark to light so if you are arriving at the Canary Wharf station you disembark
onto the platform level and it is quite a dark environment highlighted by the the color yellow,
canary yellow that we refer to which is about accenting the journey up to the light so from
the platform level you ascend up into this main ticket hall concourse level which is lighter,
the materiality palette changes to a lighter tone and then you're brought again using that thread
of the yellow up to the main ticket hall and to daylight at the end of the journey. Well the main
engineering challenge associated with this station is the fact that you're putting it into a dock
and so forming the bathtub effectively within the dock environment it's a combination of a couple of
different structural and engineering processes that that formed at the kind of a Giken piling
system that we make reference to which was a higly specialized way of forming the piling
around the perimeter of the station, and then the top-down construction where you're building
almost from ground floor upwards and then you're simultaneously excavating down. So
it's almost like mining that you you create down to the platform level and below to create the
substructure for the building. The selection of materials that we have on this station we have
natural stone on the floor so a granite with a dark and a light granite and we wanted that
as a kind of quality of material that we have that the links into the kind of materiality that we
have on the elsewhere in the Canary Wharf estate. We have the use of terracotta which is one of the
materials that was being discussed as consistent across the line. We have vitreous enamel which is
a very kind of quintessentially used on the underground is a very robust material for
cabinet doors etc and then one of the prominent features we have here is is the glass which is
the colored glass we have for the escalators which is something that we that we worked hard to bring
in because it's quite different than what you might associate with the underground, typical
underground escalators were very heavy stainless steel we wanted something that was lighter had
that kind of more retail feel to it that was quite important to our selection of materials.
So the oversight development is a major feature of this station as part of planning we had to provide
amenity that was being lost by putting the station within the dock so replacing the visual immunity
of the dock was actually resolved by putting a park on the top of the building which has this
lattice timber lattice and ETFE roof designed by Fosters + Partners and below the park level
we have three levels of retail one of which links directly from this concourse level
straight in where you can have more kind of grab-and-go type retail but the oversight
development is really about also making the station a destination rather than simply
something to transit in and out of so the park at the top of the building is hugely popular already
with workers at Canary Wharf and local residents alike and then we have the retail which brings
life to the building at all hours of the day. So one of the main features of the public realm
on this canary wharf station is the the sunken garden that's located between the station and the
Canary Wharf estate its there to replace some of the flood reservoir that was lost by locating the
station within the dock so if there is a flood event it cascades water into that sunken garden
and makes up for any of the water that was displaced by locating the station here.
Another feature in the public room is the link bridge taking you to the to the upper level
of the the entrance into the station and connects you into the main level at Canary Wharf. A lot of
what we were trying to achieve with the design of this station is something that's quite simple and
clean and elegant but that allows the flexibility for the future but integrates a lot of the things
that the station needs because we all know that things change and modify over time and it can
often be to the detriment of the architecture if it's not thought about well enough at the outset
and one of the things that we did in looking at the materiality of the walls on this concourse is
come up with a design for the terracotta panels that is a material that is used across the line,
it has a kind of a soft appearance, it can break down into smaller modules
but it has a practical function in that it's adaptable we can change those modules out for
advertising panels or other things without it really affecting the overall appearance.
We introduced these kind of stainless steel strips between the panels in part to protect
the edges of the panels but it also provides a visual accent, because it's such a large space a
blank wall could just disappear and be very bland and what that does is provide accents and make
sure that the pattern that we've created in the module, which is about again reducing the scale of
the space down to something more human is accented and given prominence. So the most exciting thing
is really to just see people using the space, interacting with it, getting to take friends
and family on the station seeing what everybody thinks really and getting the feedback because
you work on these things for many years and even for us it's kind of reflecting on okay do we
still like what we did, are we pleased with it and standing here today I think I'm very proud of it