The AJ100 practice’s scheme for student accommodation provider Scape would replace existing buildings at 231-235 Southwark Bridge Road with a standalone tower, plus improved public realm and two restored listed townhouses.
Morris + Company says the development, if built, would be one of Europe’s tallest purpose-built student towers – potentially matching Cunniff Design’s 45-storey, 633-bedroom Cirrus Point tower in Leeds, which is believed to hold the title at present.
The practice says the proposal is ‘organised around a highly efficient central core’ which maximises daylight, outlook and flexibility, and provides views of London. The scheme also includes amenities for study, socialising, wellbeing and community uses.
Architecturally, the tower ‘tapers and chamfers as it rises to form a distinctive and elegant silhouette’, while the façade is ‘conceived as a sculpted monolithic surface of smooth pigmented precast architectural stone, with deeply carved reveals exposing darker textured aggregates beneath’, the practice adds.
If approved, the project will retain two locally listed townhouses which will be ‘carefully restored and brought back into active public use’, and frame a new pocket park on the site of a disused single-storey taxi office, which will be flattened.
Joe Morris, founder and director of Morris + Company, said 231-235 Southwark Bridge Road had been designed to meet ‘an extraordinary combination of acoustic, spatial and urban constraints’ including neighbouring railway lines and the Ministry of Sound nightclub.
He added: ‘Our ambition was never simply to deliver a student housing tower. We wanted to improve everything the project touches: the experience of students, the quality of public space, the future of historic buildings and the character of London’s skyline. Every design decision has been driven by that objective.’
Southwark Council will now decide on the development, which neighbours Maccreanor Lavington’s controversial Borough Triangle scheme featuring four brick-clad towers between 10 and 44 storeys high, together delivering 892 homes.
Although the project for developer Berkeley was approved in March 2025 with 35 per cent affordable rooms by habitable room, an amendment due to be decided on this week (9 September) would see that figure cut to just 10 per cent.