PADDINGTON STATION

Beneath London’s Westway highway, adjacent to a Victorian Era canal and the Paddington rail station, this site resides at the intersection of three means of transport from three different periods of English history. To create a public space beneath the highway overpass, currently an unloved but necessary part of the community’s lives, RAAD used a completely new form of solar technology to craft the design for a reflective canopy above the space. The new design is a type of “fresnel” reflector system, which, visually, looks like ripples in the adjacent canals. Practically, they enable us to redirect natural sunlight to create a sort of futurist wetlands or duck pond beneath the highway, transforming an unlovely, reviled space into a cherished part of the neighborhood.