This project led by the London Legacy Development Corporation in partnership with Network Rail had two-fold objectives from the outset; first to form a key new urban link beneath the railway that had separated communities on either side of the raised railway viaduct for decades, and secondly to improve facilities and accessibility to the Overground platforms above.

The design approach is heavily influenced by the lost chemical industries of the Wick, its setting on the banks of the Lee Navigation Canal and its gritty, industrial character. Landolt + Brown worked throughout with collaborating artist Wendy Hardie to develop a highly creative response to these unique qualities. The deep underpass, constructed to one side of the railway and positioned in a 96 hour railway closure, takes its creative clues from the watery spaces under the Lee towpath bridges and incorporates a crystalline glass wall which refracts and reflects light deep into the subway. There are repeating themes of the molecular geometries of chemicals once produced locally, as well as sheet piles of the canal edges, folding factory doors and substantial, plated, weathering steel canopies. Carefully detailed in-situ concrete forms the predominant internal material, using colours and textures reminiscent of the silty banks of the Lee.

The project has received awards from the RIBA (national and regional), Civic Trust, Institute of Civil Engineers, NLA, WAN, and Concrete Society.