Morning:
13°c
Designs on Chelsea Barracks shortlist are kept under wraps
Mira Bar-Hillel and Ruth Bloomfield25.09.09
The developers of the Chelsea Barracks site were today accused of keeping local people in the dark after it emerged that designs are to be kept secret.
The Chelsea Barracks Action Group, which was instrumental in having a modern steel and glass complex of flats by architect Lord Rogers thrown out, has been excluded from the panel that will select a new scheme.
Today is the deadline for early designs for the £1 billion project to be submitted to developer Qatari Diar, the investment arm of the Qatari royal family.
The 10 firms of architects shortlisted will submit an overall vision for the site. Prince Charles, who triggered outrage by approaching the developer with concerns about Lord Rogers's modern design, will be represented on the “evaluation panel” to pick three finalists by his charity, The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment.
Modernists such as Peter Stewart, the former head of design review at the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and Sir Richard MacCormac, designer of Southwark Tube station, will also be on the panel, as will local architect Randa Hanna.
Today Georgine Thorburn, chairwoman of the action group, said: “It was my understanding that we were to be involved in deciding on a new scheme, and I think we should as we were the only force against it. We must have somebody on the panel.”
A spokesman for the Chelsea Barracks Partnership, which consults with residents, said the designs were too commercially sensitive to be available to the public and it would “give away” the architects' ideas.
The developers intend to submit a planning application to Westminster council next spring.
Ms Thorburn said residents would object to any building above four stories, and were anxious that the
Victorian renaissance-style church on the site is preserved. “We are looking for something classical but modern,” she said.
