FORMER NESTLÉ FACTORY
A factory in a garden
Located to the south of Hayes and Harlington Crossrail Station with the Grand Union Canal to the north, our masterplan for the former Nestlé factory site is an exemplar urban renewal project of heritage-led regeneration and industrial intensification. It makes strong connections with the surrounding community, both physically and in terms of its history and identity.
The first factory on the site was opened in 1914 when Eugen Sandow chose it to produce his ‘Health and Strength Cocoa’ due to its connection to the canal and railway. We adaptively re-used Eugen Sandow’s original chocolate factory to create a residential-led, mixed-use neighbourhood combining over 1,300 new homes, extensive new public realm and a state of the art logistics hub for SEGRO.
Art & Nature
Public art can foster a powerful civic experience of connection to a place, engaging the popular imagination and a sense of wonder and discovery through common references to history and culture. The rich themes of the site - for instance: manufacture and trade in the 19th century; the story of Hayes’ developing infrastructure: road, rail and canal; the factory community - have inspired the creation of a site-wide art strategy responding to and celebrating the collective memory of this unique place. There is also a wealth of physical opportunities to develop art pieces – 2D and 3D, large and small, physical and temporal – which will integrate naturally with the buildings and landscape, facilitate place making and expand storytelling opportunities for the locals.
One major intervention is the creation of a large format wall-mural on the brick of the end-gable inspired by Eugen Sandow, the original founder of the site’s factory, Sandow’s Cocoa Works, he was also a circus strongman and Hollywood actor considered to be the father of bodybuilding; he attributed his strength to drinking cocoa.
The retained art-deco facade of the factory maintains a strong sense of character.