Morris & Co wins planning for 52-storey Docklands tower after design tweaks

Morris & Co has secured planning permission for a 52-storey residential tower in east London after reworking its designs to include a second staircase following safety concerns from the London Fire Brigade.

The practice’s 421-home proposals, drawn up for Anglo-Irish developer Ballymore, werepulled from a Tower Hamlets strategic development committee agenda in Januarywhen the strength of LFB’s feelings about the lack of a second means of fire escape became apparent.

陶尔哈姆莱茨的规划官员已经建议批准这一计划，该计划指定在狗岛的古巴街建设一块0.44公顷的土地。目前的规定允许住宅高层建筑只有一种逃生方式，这种设计允许在发生火灾时采取“原地不动”策略。

许多其他国家要求高层建筑至少有两个防火梯，批评人士说，这种设计忽视了格伦费尔大厦火灾的教训，当时“待在原地”的建议让留在大楼上层的居民被困住，失去了生命。

Morris & Co’s reworking of the Cuba Street scheme has taken out one of the building’s three lifts to provide an additional staircase that can be accessed by all floors. A planning statement submitted to Tower Hamlets in support of the change said the size of the three remaining lifts proposed would be increased and that they would operate more quickly to meet waiting-time requirements. The document said that other than the new staircase, the proposals were unchanged from January.

LFB’s original comments argued that the proposals did “not provide suitable and convenient means of escape and associated evacuation strategy for all building users”, as required by the 2021 London Plan.

该小组补充说，他们原本希望只有一条逃生路线的建筑的开发商让自己的工程师提供一份完整的评估报告，以显示该方案的弹性，但这似乎并没有进行。

An update to last night’s strategic development committee meeting included an LFB response expressing appreciation for Morris & Co and Ballymore’s design changes. It added: “We also welcome additional meetings and communication with the Ballymore, the design team and THBC to understand the further development of the design prior to the official building regulations consultation.”

Recommending the scheme for approval, Tower Hamlets planning officers said the tower would be well proportioned and “of appropriately high architectural quality”.

委员会成员被告知，100套新公寓将是“负担得起的”，相当于30.15%的发展，以可居住的房间来衡量。他们以六票对二票支持了这项计划。

The plans will also deliver a new 1,630sq m park at the site, which is south-east of Canary Wharf.

其他参与该方案的公司包括担任主设计师顾问的Pick Everard，担任结构工程师和消防顾问的WSP，以及担任规划顾问的Rolfe Judd。