Nine Elms to Pimlico Bridge Shortlist

Not to be overshadowed by the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Garden Bridge that would connect Temple and Southbank over the River Thames, the London Borough of Wandsworth is hoping to gain its own river crossing between Nine Elms on the south and Pimlico on the north. The organizer's initial call for submissions elicited 74 designs, collected in a gallery on the competition's website. From those entries the jury* chose four teams that will develop their designs before the selection of the winner in the late fall: 
 

The project has received a £26million and the support of the Mayor of London, but the project has its detractors, most overtly Westminster councilors who stated they don't want a bridge connecting their borough to Wandsworth for aesthetic, environmental and traffic reasons. Westminster encompasses the historic Pimlico district, while Wandsworth encompasses the primarily industrial Nine Elms area that will be home to the new U.S. Embassy, designed by Philadelphia's Kieran Timberlake, in 2016, and the transformed Battersea Power Station with buildings by Frank Gehry and Norman Foster, and a plaza designed by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group.

*The jury is made up of Wandsworth Council leader Ravi Govindia, Lambeth councilor Joanne Simpson, architect Graham Stirk, engineer Henry Bardsley and chair of Cabe at Design Council Pam Alexander.