Porters Edge

Porters Edge has started the transformation of Canada Water from an out-of-town shopping location into a new mixed-use town centre that will have the vibrancy, intimacy and animation of the traditional high street. It accommodates the re -provision of the existing big box retail tenant by creating them a new flagship store within a mixed-use urban block in a dense town-centre setting, while ensuring Decathlon’s continuity of trade on the site that was essential to the scheme’s commercial viability.

It occupies a prime site overlooking Canada Water dock and is centred on a vast 100,000ft² Decathlon sports store, the largest in the UK. The outlet replaces an earlier store that was located in an anonymous grey shed on the site.

234 new build to rent homes have also been incorporated into the building. A number of townhouse units directly abut the store on the ground floor and the remainder are arranged into three residential blocks that rise above it, one of which reaches a height of 17 storeys.

The residential blocks are arranged around a fourth-floor garden that sits on top of the store. With its generous dimensions, sunny views out and a variety of landscape treatments it is designed to suit a multitude of resident’s needs. Critically, it also acts as entry and distribution space to all three cores, providing natural activity and surveillance.