Paddington Square was always going to be a tricky project. Located next to a busy central London station – one coming with its own complexities, somewhat hidden from Praed Street's thoroughfare – over a network of tube lines below and at the crossroads between the city, train tracks and the Paddington basin canal system behind it, this was a dense urban site with considerable challenges. Its architects at Renzo Piano Building Workshop note that with its 2024 completion and official opening of some of its final areas slated for 2025, it took a full ten years for their design to become reality – but it was a task they revelled in.
