IN Brief:
- Three towers of between 31 and 47 storeys are proposed in Stratford.
- The development includes around 2,100 homes and 1,600 hotel rooms.
- A planning application is expected following public consultation.
Hallmark Property Group has revealed plans for a three-tower mixed-use development on the former London Sphere site between Stratford and Stratford International stations.
The emerging Stratford Junction proposals include buildings ranging from 31 to 47 storeys, around 2,100 shared-living homes, approximately 1,600 hotel rooms, two performance venues, restaurants, public squares, and nearly 20,000 sq m of cultural and immersive-entertainment space.
Used as a coach park during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the 2.05-hectare site later became the proposed location for a large spherical entertainment arena. That scheme was withdrawn, leaving one of Stratford’s most prominent transport-adjacent plots without a settled long-term use.
Squire & Partners is leading the architectural design, which currently centres on three slender towers arranged around publicly accessible ground-floor uses and approximately 1,700 sq m of new public space. The two performance venues would provide a combined capacity of around 4,300 people.
New pedestrian routes are intended to connect older parts of Stratford with the Olympic Park, Westfield, and the area around Stratford International. Although the site benefits from exceptional public-transport access, its position beside two major stations creates demanding design, servicing, crowd-management, and construction-logistics conditions.
Consultation is under way, with a planning application expected during the autumn. The final submission will need to address building height, views, daylight and sunlight, wind conditions, fire strategy, public-realm management, transport, servicing, and the relationship between residential and late-night cultural uses.
Mixed uses will drive design and phasing
Shared-living accommodation, hotels, and cultural venues bring different technical and operational requirements into a single development. Residential floors depend on efficient layouts and communal space, hotels require substantial back-of-house circulation, while performance venues need acoustic separation, crowd management, loading access, ventilation, and robust structural solutions.
Integrating those uses within a constrained high-rise district will require early coordination between architects, structural engineers, building-services designers, operators, fire engineers, façade specialists, and principal contractors. The viability model will also depend on multiple income streams, each with different funding, leasing, and operational assumptions.
Construction access will be especially difficult. Stratford is already one of the UK’s busiest transport interchanges, and the site sits within a dense network of rail lines, roads, public routes, and neighbouring development.
Tower-crane locations, oversailing rights, delivery booking, concrete logistics, façade installation, and temporary pedestrian arrangements will need to be resolved without compromising station access or surrounding businesses. Basement construction and foundations may also be constrained by nearby transport assets and existing below-ground infrastructure.
The proposal continues the movement of London residential development towards operational property models. Shared living, build to rent, purpose-built student accommodation, hotels, and serviced accommodation can attract institutional capital where conventional build-for-sale appraisals struggle, although their delivery depends on confidence in long-term occupancy and operating income.
Building-safety regulation will shape the programme from design through occupation. Residential towers above the relevant threshold will enter the higher-risk building regime, requiring detailed information at gateway stages and a controlled record of design decisions and construction changes.
The presence of public venues and hotels adds further interfaces between fire strategy, evacuation planning, access control, and building management. Those relationships will need to be established early enough to prevent one use from constraining another during approval or operation.
The site’s previous history will also intensify scrutiny. The withdrawn arena proposal generated extensive debate over transport, advertising, visual impact, and local amenity, and the scale of Stratford Junction means the development team will again need to demonstrate how the project contributes to the surrounding district.
If consented, the scheme would extend Stratford’s transition from Olympic regeneration zone into a mature high-density centre. Its prospects will depend on whether the mixed-use strategy can support the cost of tall-building construction while delivering public space, cultural facilities, and connections that function beyond the boundaries of the development.
