Nine Elms Walking Tour - Saturday 22 February 2025 10.30am
Regular price £19.50
Join Open City for a tour exploring the past present and future of London’s Vauxhall, Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station regeneration zone.
This insightful walking tour — led by expert guide Nick Edwards — tells the story of this waterfront district formerly famous for the Vauxhall gyratory system, Terry Farrell’s MI6, New Covent Garden Market, and a hinterland of associated of sheds, cold warehouses, post office depots, railway viaducts and Battersea Dogs Home – alongside the iconic Giles Gilbert Scott-designed Battersea Power station which has recently been refurbished by Wilkinson Eyre.
The tour will start at the landmark Vauxhall bus station designed by Arup Associates in 2004 and finish at the newly opened Battersea Power Station. The journey will discuss how this former industrial zone less than a mile from parliament was identified as an ‘opportunity area’ in Ken Livingstone’s 2004 London plan and has been going through a lengthy regeneration programme ever since with the aim of creating a vast new £15 billion mixed-use district.
It will examine competing visions for the future of the area and look at how two new Northern Line stations designed by Grimshaw, the first few phases of the Raphael Viñoly’s £9bn Battersea Power Station masterplan, and a sea of towering speculative housing developments have created a critical mass of activity while also reshaping London’s skyline.
Landmark buildings featuring on the tour include include Prospect Place by Frank Gehry, Circus West Village by Simpson Haugh and Nine Elms Square by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The tour will also cover Brunswick House, Terry Farrell’s ‘SIS Building’, the new US Embassy by Kieran Timberlake, the contentious Embassy Gardens sky pool by HAL Architects & ARUP Associates, and the Riverlight development by RSHP.
With the potential to deliver 20,000 new homes, 25,000 new jobs, 600,000m² of commercial space and a 4.8ha linear park, this case study tour will question the successes of the Nine Elms regeneration project to date while also looking ahead to what the future might hold.
Key information
Meet: Vauxhall Bus Station outside Exit 2 from Vauxhall tube Station- Opposite exit from Vauxhall overground station
End: Battersea Power Station (nearest station Battersea Power Station, new extension of the Northern Line)
Duration: 2.5 hours approx
Distance: 2.5 miles approx
Nick Edwards is an architectural educator and change driver with 20 years experience creating innovative participation opportunities which encourage greater understanding of architecture, regeneration, planning, placemaking, active citizenship and sustainability.
Since studying architecture, Nick has spent most of his career working in formal and informal education demystifying built environment processes, changing perceptions and advocating for the role that communities can play in shaping and caring for their neighbourhoods.
Much of Nick’s professional experience has focused on East London and specifically the 2012 Games and its Legacy. This included co-founding Fundamental Architectural Inclusion funded by CABE; establishing the Architecture Crew, Britain’s first youth architecture forum and setting up the Legacy YouthPanel on behalf of the London Legacy Development Corporation to facilitate young people’s response to the Legacy Masterplanning Framework for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and surrounding area and feeding directly into the Legacy Community Strategy; bringing young people to the forefront of influencing and shaping socio economic and community engagement policy at the London Legacy Development Corporation.He joined the Open City team in February 2021.
Tickets are non-refundable and tours go ahead rain or shine.
* Please check for any planned transport engineering works, planned strike action or large scale events that may affect your journey before making your ticket purchase *
If you find you can no longer make the tour for any reason we are unable to transfer you to another date, but please feel free to pass your booked place onto a friend to go and enjoy the tour in your place.
In the event your tour date is cancelled you will be issued with a credit note (with no expiry date) that you can use to
- book onto a rescheduled date
- book onto any other tour from our programme
or you can request a refund.
All ticket purchases are in support of the work of our organisation including our pioneering education programmes. We really appreciate your support!
Get in touch with Adrianna at tours@open-city.org.uk with any queries.
Please select solidarity pricing to help Open City offer concessionary tickets rate.
Please get in touch at tours@open-city.org.uk with any queries.
If you find you can no longer make the tour for Covid or any reason we are unable to transfer you to another date, but please feel free to pass your booked place onto a friend to go in your place.
In the event your tour date is cancelled due to Covid or any other reason you will be provided with the opportunity to book onto a rescheduled date, book onto another tour, provided with a credit note (with no expiry date) or you can request a refund.
All ticket purchases are in support of the work of our organisation including our pioneering education programmes. We really appreciate your support!
Get in touch with Adrianna at tours@open-city.org.uk with any queries.
