Architect Catherine Tucknutt was invited to take part in an exciting design charrette as part of the NLA’s London’s Towns Insight Study. Held at Arup's offices, the workshop brought together young professionals to explore future visions for the development of five TfL station sites in outer London. Their challenge in just one day was to explore London’s outer town centres and unlock new opportunities to support Londoners living and working across a multi-centred city.

Catherine worked on the South Harrow station site, a typical suburban neighbourhood in north-west London; despite being well connected via the London Underground, it remains characterised by low-density residential development with some clustered retail units around the station. Working in a vibrant team combining skills and ideas from an engineer, developer and site expert – the team formulated a conceptual site specific design linking local centres, a new typology responding to the context, and a transferable attitude towards similar sites.

“It was a fascinating day of drawing, collaboration and discussions with other designers working on 5 sites across London, all hugely challenging but invigorated with creative ideas. Input from a number of key experts from TfL, Design South East and the Mayor’s Design Advocates enriched the proposals and the session concluded with the teams presenting to an expert panel for comments and feedback. Many thanks to the nla and TfL for this opportunity – let’s see what the future holds...”