please empty your brain below
I genuinely despise the underground malls in Canary Wharf; they're utterly without architectural merit and are badly designed. At a time when shopping malls are becoming more and more open to the elements they're burrowing underground. Presumably it's a bunker mentality; stops the riff raff from wandering in off the streets. Whenever I wander around all I can think of is Dawn of the Dead.

Scottieboy | Homepage | 18.11.13 - 8:21 a.m. | #

Burrowing underground was a very deliberate design decision made by the Canadian owners right at the beginning, matching the way malls in Toronto and Montreal are built beneath street level as protection against the harsh winter.

diamond geezer | 18.11.13 - 8:37 a.m. | #

I like walking through the Malls at Canary Warf, collecting the free newspapers. I have even done some shopping there at Waitrose. Having the Malls underground makes for efficient use of the space, I would sooner have a shopping Mall under a park, than lose the park by building on it.

John | 18.11.13 - 8:54 a.m. | #

How can you not mention that the majority of establishments in the Canary Wharf shopping malls seem to be Pret a Manger's?

Messiah | 18.11.13 - 9:07 a.m. | #

Apart from the Malls which I have said I do not mind walking around, there are in the summer lots of free concerts and films at Canary Wharf, the audience always includes many people who do not work there or have a high income, me included. The parks and the docks are nice to walk around, sometimes visiting ships arrive and are open to tour around. So there are things for ordinary people to enjoy at Canary Wharf.

John | 18.11.13 - 9:08 a.m. | #

Shepard Bush Westfield is more upmarket than Stratford Westfield?

Never! Stratford had Dick and Dom to switch on the christmas lights!

Agent Z | 18.11.13 - 9:09 a.m. | #

Just how would one make an underground mall of "architectural merit"?

Chz | 18.11.13 - 9:21 a.m. | #

If I knew that I could probably earn megabucks. But I don't believe it is impossible. Architecture isn't only soaring spires, it's also things like usability (a house is machine for living in) and detail (choice of doorknobs) and much more. All these things could be applied to an underground mall.

Malcolm | 18.11.13 - 9:46 a.m. | #

You often find underground architecture but possible are not aware of it, the Apollo Theatre at Victoria which is Grade 2 listed and of art decor interior, is mainly underground, when you enter from the street you are at the level of the rear of the circle! The Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus which is also Grade 2* listed is underground.
As for Westfield at Shepherds Bush being more upmarket, well there is a Tiffany Jewelers there, but not at Stratford.

John | 18.11.13 - 9:47 a.m. | #

Architecture is about much more than just the external appearance of a building.

timbo | 18.11.13 - 10:24 a.m. | #

It's the Canary Wharf security staff with dogs that annoy me, especially with their uniforms which at first glance look like police.

Nicks | 18.11.13 - 12:01 p.m. | #

proof, if anymore was really needed, of the more and more wider gap in society. can just imagine what beholds the development of Battersea Power Station...another "gem" no doubt. Maybe, just maybe, if some of those bonus payments were used to offer a job to locals who may not have had the life chances these "high-flyers" got it would go a little way towards closing forementioned gap. With a fraction of what some get as a bonus i reckon there'd be a years wage for some. I'm a dreamer i guess...

E | 18.11.13 - 12:20 p.m. | #

Surely comparing the average (i.e. mean) salaries of one group of people with the median salaries of others is flawed, because for a non-normal distribution, such as salaries, the mean will always be much greater than the median, due to a small number of very wealthy people.

The underlying point you are making is still very valid in a place like TH, but I expect that the difference would be a lot smaller if you were comparing like with like. Median is probably a fairer measure because it guarantees that half earn less and half earn more. For something like salaries, the vast majority of people will earn less than the average.

Ollie | Homepage | 18.11.13 - 1:54 p.m. | #

I remember how dire both Tower Hamlets and Newham were before the massive investments in infrastructure, business and wealth. I have no difficulty in accepting that there is a 'divide'. Better a 'divide' than no opportunities, no access, poor prospects and all the other real depriving circumstances that affect truly poor districts.

B | 18.11.13 - 4:52 p.m. | #

I took all the statistics on income from the Tower Hamlets Fairness Commission Evidence Pack.
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/idoc.ashx?docid=f8ae25ee-d394-429a-8a9d-afb8a66ca43f&version=-1

This says
"The average household income in Tower Hamlets is £29,550."
and
"The average salary of those who work in the borough is £58,000, the second highest in the UK after the City of London."

I know the first figure is a median.
It's not clear whether the second is a median or a mean.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 18.11.13 - 5:38 p.m. | #

I'm tempted to go into the boulangerie and ask for a footlong...

Kirk | 18.11.13 - 7:42 p.m. | #

The civil engineering that went into extending Jubilee Place looks interesting - the floors of the doomed underground car park that used to occupy the lower levels were chopped off the pillars and lowered in bits (some time lapse footage of vaguely Harry Potter-esque moving floor slabs at http://vimeo.com/56744995 for the civil engineeirng geeks out there, with the floors starting to move around about 2 minutes in). By making a mall level 1.5 floors high, they've also created a mysterious half-height floor under the shops.

David | Homepage | 18.11.13 - 9:00 p.m. | #

Thanks David above, that's a real 'who knew it could be done' spot.

Gordon | 18.11.13 - 9:27 p.m. | #

"Architecture is about much more than just the external appearance of a building."

I'm not claiming that underground structures can't be of architectural merit. Most of the Jubilee Line extension is proof of that. I'm claiming that an underground *shopping mall* is going to be pretty difficult to make interesting, particularly in the face of how rare it is for the above ground ones on greenfield sites to be of any merit. And doubly so when it's in a disused car park.

Chz | 19.11.13 - 7:42 a.m. | #











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