In 2023, the Financial Times revealed that office vacancies in the US and London were at 20-year highs. This has directly affected Canary Wharf, a financial district in the site of London’s former docklands.

In the 1980s, the London Docklands Development Company replaced redundant warehouses and dock infrastructure with late-twentieth-century North American office blocks. It is now increasingly likely that these office blocks will become obsolete, forcing the Docklands into a second dereliction. Office tenants are choosing not to renew their 25-year leases, meaning that Canary Wharf will be left with ‘stranded assets’ that require creative retrofit for the development to succeed long-term. This project focuses on several strategies for regeneration including re-use, urban greening, social housing and the University of Research, Retrofit and Re-Use.

Docklands Heronry responds to a very current problem of what to do with all the single-use, rigid structures that will be left behind once companies move away from the typical modern office.