Studio Multi’s innovative design for St Olav's Court, a mixed-use residential development in Southwark, integrated VU.CITY’s 3D modelling and planning data tools. This Q&A explores how VU.CITY streamlined the feasibility study, improved decision-making, and supported the approval process for this ambitious project.
Seth Rutt, Studio Multi
When helping a client with a site acquisition, we typically complete a feasibility study within a week for an initial capacity test and refine it over the next fortnight. The timescale largely depends on how realistic a site vendor’s price
expectation is, and how tight the viability margin is in terms of development quantum. For St Olav's Court, the initial stage took about a month. We use VU.CITY primarily towards the end of the process to assess emerging massing impacts when the consultant team is onboarded and we need to assess massing and daylight impacts for pre-application work.
Seth Rutt, Studio Multi:
Part of the St Olav's Court site boundary lies within the wider setting of the London View Management Framework
(LVMF) Strategic View 5A.2 from Greenwich to St Paul’s Cathedral. This sets horizontal and vertical parameters for
development and has informed the massing of the proposal.
As the LVMF views are included in the VU.CITY London model, we used the platform to test and shape the emerging
massing. We relied upon the VU.CITY model as an accurate representation of the view parameters, using the VU.CITY
alignments to shape the tower in plan, and to limit incursions above the ‘floor’ of the view plane.