CABE is the government’s advisor on architecture, urban design and public space. CABE is supportive of the centerpiece stadium of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club – an English professional football club based in Tottenham, North London – designed by London-based KSS Design Group. But it expressed its dissatisfaction with the wider masterplan drawn up by Make Architects and the landscape design by Martha Schwartz Partners.
CABE praises the design of the stadium stating, “We support the brief and recognize the quality of the stadium design. It is well-resolved as an object and the overall form, and the structure of the roof in particular, are elegant.”
According to CABE, the masterplan does not integrate the three elements of the design – the stadium, supermarket, and housing – into a coherent whole. As a result, the stadium is not reading comfortably or fits in as the primary element within the overall composition. The residential and supermarket components of the site do not provide a fitting setting for the stadium.
CABE has reservations about the scale and massing of the supermarket and residential block, the quantum and potential residential quality of the housing, and the design of the new square in the south-west corner of the site. Citing all these reasons CABE said that, although it supports the design of the stadium, they cannot support the planning application as a whole.
According to CABE, a clear prioritization of the stadium and its setting is required. CABE also states, “The reconciliation of the stadium’s curved form with the existing, orthogonal streets has not yet been convincingly demonstrated. We find the geometries, particularly of the supermarket block to the north, unsatisfactory. The layout of the whole site should acknowledge, although not necessarily follow, both the rectilinear street context and the oval form of the stadium.”
CABE has also criticized the ‘basic box form’ of the planned supermarket. It has demanded that the roof should be more ‘carefully considered.’ The housing scheme around the stadium has also come under criticism, as the massing can get overshadowed between the blocks.
CABE does not support the planning application in its current form and has recommended that the design of the blocks to the north and south of the stadium should be reconsidered before this application is determined.
