Making a modern neighbourhood

Embassy Gardens, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, London

Small practice helps deliver big projects

HAL Architects has worked on EcoWorld Ballymore’s Embassy Gardens since 2009 and designed and delivered 1250 new homes in the development in various mid-rise buildings.

The scheme includes the Sky Pool and club, a cinema, large and small gyms, cafés and restaurants, a business lounge – more amenity than you might find in a luxury hotel.

HAL has given the developer and the scheme dedicated focus over 14 years when values grew 35% and has helped foster architectural coherence across all phases.

Significant adjustments to the character and configuration of apartments in later phases needed to be made to address changes in the market, boost viability and the nature of demand. HAL and EcoWorld Ballymore worked closely to find these solutions.

The practice’s long-term involvement with Embassy Garden, its qualities and identity, has been fundamental in creating a thriving, coherent neighbourhood.

Marketing Pavilion

Setting a benchmark

It all started with a striking marketing pavilion, instrumental in Embassy Gardens’ successful launch in 2012. It was built in 16 weeks and provided a design benchmark for...

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Capital Buildings

The start of something bigger

Phase 1 was conceived before the 2008 crash and includes buildings by HAL (formerly FLACQ), AHMM and FCB Studios.

The layout of the phase was a collaborative effort...

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Legacy Buildings

The Legacy buildings

Three conjoined Legacy Buildings from the 900-home second phase and face the US Embassy to the north. The Sky Pool spans between the first two buildings. The central building...

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Sky Pool

A pool with a view

HAL was asked initially to look at a 25m rooftop pool on one of the buildings in phase 2, The Legacy Buildings, but it wouldn’t fit on one rooftop. The idea of a swimmable...

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Marketing Pavilion

Setting a benchmark

It all started with a striking marketing pavilion, instrumental in Embassy Gardens’ successful launch in 2012. It was built in 16 weeks and provided a design benchmark for the whole development.

Constructed in just 16 weeks, and instrumental in the extraordinarily successful launch of Embassy Gardens in 2012, this pavilion acts as a benchmark for the wider development.

Set behind a garden wall to separate the pavilion from the busy Nine Elms Lane, and placed in a wildflower meadow, visitors enter a building of calm enjoyment.

The show apartments are hung from the roof to allow the glazed façade to remain unobstructed.

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Capital Buildings

The start of something bigger

Phase 1 was conceived before the 2008 crash and includes buildings by HAL (formerly FLACQ), AHMM and FCB Studios.

The layout of the phase was a collaborative effort to adjust an earlier masterplan by Farrells. ‘Pushing and pulling’ the apartment building forms enabled the creation of New Union Square.

HAL designed two of the four buildings that make up the Capital Building to the west of the square, one for Peabody with shared-ownership apartments, the other for market sale.

These two overlook Vauxhall Nine Elms linear park to the south, and between them is a raised residents’ garden shared with the other two buildings, designed by AHMM. The garden steps down to meet the linear park. There is a large cinema and gym.

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Legacy Buildings

The Legacy buildings

Three conjoined Legacy Buildings from the 900-home second phase and face the US Embassy to the north. The Sky Pool spans between the first two buildings. The central building has a ‘super lobby’, a single entrance for the whole phase where everything connects; concierge, deliveries, meet-and-greet areas and main reception.

HAL was then asked to design a third new building, The Modern, as the market cooled in the late 2010s and into the pandemic. All three buildings are linked by a bridge and external courtyard gardens at first floor level.

Design of The Modern involved a radical rethink to provide 10% more units within the consented footprint, enhancing viability, and the need to co-ordinate the new layout of these with the already-constructed first floor slab. A contemporary urban flavour for both the architecture and interiors was preferred - a fresh approach that led to sales outperforming targets.

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Sky Pool

A pool with a view

HAL was asked initially to look at a 25m rooftop pool on one of the buildings in phase 2, The Legacy Buildings, but it wouldn’t fit on one rooftop. The idea of a swimmable bridge between two buildings was born. Initial ideas were for an enclosed aqueduct, but views to the US Embassy and beyond demanded something else.

Sky Pool in Embassy Gardens, a residential development by EcoWorld Ballymore opposite the new US Embassy in Nine Elms, London, is a world first. Made of crystal-clear acrylic, it spans 15 metres, ten storeys up, between two apartment buildings. There is nothing else like it.

Sky Pool has been four years in the making. Initially conceived as a swimmable aqueduct, the design process evolved to make the most of unparalleled views across London.

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