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Earls Court is the former site of the famous Earls Court Exhibition Centre. At its peak, the Exhibition Centre contributed around £2bn a year to the national economy and supported many local shops, hotels and businesses. It was a place of huge significance to the local community who hold special memories of what an exciting and amazing place it was. Demolished in 2015, it has lain empty and unused until now. The vision for Earls Court is to bring the wonder back, and to once again make it a major destination.
Earls Court is set to become a better piece of city that is inclusive, climate resilient and with wide reaching benefits for London. A place to discover wonder, a home for creative talent and a showcase for clean and climate tech companies with 2.5 million sq.ft of workspace.
Demolition of the Exhibition Centre left TfL’s Lillie Bridge Depot and a few buildings and train sheds on a 40-acre site straddling the London Boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham. It is bordered by three tube stations and there are multiple bus routes serving the surrounding roads. To the west lies the Gibbs Green Estate, in Hammersmith & Fulham and to the east, in Kensington and Chelsea, the Georgian terraces of the Philbeach Gardens conservation area. London’s largest cleared development site is a concrete scar in the centre of the community.
The largest public green space is Brompton Cemetery, another designated conservation area, the same size as the site. Apart from the cemetery, green space is currently confined to private back gardens and gated garden squares.
Sustainability is at the heart of Earls Court. With an ambition to go beyond net zero; the development will be home to one of the UK’s largest zero carbon energy sharing networks, innovative water management, over 1,000 new trees, and streets that prioritise walking and cycling. These will connect to the three stations edging the site, linking into cycle highways and bus routes providing connectivity to the local area, central London and beyond, encouraging sustainable travel.
The site will be served by a 5th Generation ambient energy network which will provide low cost, zero carbon energy from day one. The development will be fossil fuel free and largely car free. It will showcase some of the lowest embodied carbon workspaces and homes designed to Passivhaus principles.
The masterplan is built on four place pillars: nature, innovation, culture and neighbourhood and sets the standard for future urban development. Earls Court will be an inspiring neighbourhood designed for all stages of life with around 4,000 zero carbon homes, targeting 35% affordable and 300,000 sq ft of retail, dining, leisure and culture, all set within 20 acres of publicly accessible open space and public realm. It will be a showcase for clean and climate tech companies, providing a network of workspaces to foster collaboration. Maker spaces, lab-enabled offices and large campus opportunities will create an incubator for innovation, a magnet for academia, commercial occupiers, start-ups, and creatives. Affordable and low-cost workspace will be available for SMEs, charities, and community organisations. The heritage of live events and music will be revived with a diverse range of cultural spaces including production and recording studios, fixed and pop-up venues, and a hotel. The three largest venues will act as cultural anchors, drawing people into the site. Exciting events will be happening in buildings and spaces all over Earls Court. There will be 20 acres of public open space including a network of Exhibition Gardens, a 4.5-acre urban park, a community green, cascading water features and new public squares. A new ecological corridor will form a major connection across the site from West Brompton, allowing visitors to enter from the station directly into the park.
Earls Court has always been a unique part of London. The masterplan presents a vision which will bring the wonder back to Earls Court, where design excellence is embedded as part of the process of creating a new west side story and being good ancestors for the generations to come. Our talented masterplanning team have taken the time to understand, adapt and respond to complex challenges on one of Central London’s largest cleared development sites.
Hawkins\Brown is an architecture practice based in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin and Toronto. Founded over 30 years ago by Partners Russell Brown and Roger Hawkins and now an Employee-owned Trust, the firm brings a collaborative, people-first approach to projects across a range of types and scale in six main sectors: civic, community & culture; education; workplace; transport & infrastructure; healthcare and residential.
Studio Egret West specialises in designing and curating places that have compelling stories and identities deeply rooted in their surroundings. They focus on creating sustainable communities that emphasise nature, prioritise public spaces, and evolve organically over time. Founded in 2004 by Christophe Egret and David West, the company integrates memorable architecture, strategic urban design, and ecology-driven landscapes in their projects.
