London's newest rail route recognised for design excellence

The Elizabeth Line - the most significant contribution to London’s transportation in over 20 years - has been shortlisted for the 2024 RIBA Stirling Prize. The line-wide design team of Tenderstream member Grimshaw, Maynard, AtkinsRéalis and Equation was part of the overall Crossrail project involving the creation of ten new London underground stations, interfacing with architects including Tendertream member WilkinsonEyre, John McAslan + Partners, Weston Williamson + Partners, Hawkins\Brown, Aedas, BDP, Adamson Associates, Allies and Morrison and Fereday Pollard.

Running across London from Heathrow Airport and Reading at the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east, the Elizabeth Line boasts 62 miles of track, 26 miles of new tunnels, 10 new, and 31 upgraded stations, including some 9 to 10 storeys below ground. The challenge was to develop a line-wide strategy that conceptually and functionally bound together the distinct stations along the network. The team conceptualised an approach whereby individual stations respond with their own architecture to their individual contexts, while at platform level a line-wide identity becomes apparent with consistent cladding, lighting, signage, furniture, and platform edge screens. 

In the awards citation, Grimshaw partner Neill McClements, lead architect for the Elizabeth Line, emphasised the collaborative nature of the design process, which took place over a number of years. He stated: "It was unusual to have so many architects working so closely together, from the client architecture team led by Julian Robinson, to the nine practices involved with the new stations, all of whom had full engineering and design teams. Then the separate contractors for each station had their own design teams too. It was an amazing experience to be right in the midst of everything, interfacing with so many different parties, all the way from concept design in 2009, to final delivery."

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

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