Client Genesis Housing Association
Location London, UK
Status Built
Completion 2017
In 2008 a team led by Jestico + Whiles with Peter Barber Architects and Studio 54 Architecture won an international competition to re-invigorate Phase 1B of the masterplan of Grahame Park. Jestico + Whiles was appointed in 2014 to design Plot B6, our second phase in the development.
Plot B6 is made up of three residential blocks and eight terrace houses, all connected at ground floor by three one-storey dwellings. The buildings enclose a central courtyard, which comprises private and communal amenity space and includes a children’s play area.
Stepped façades to the terrace houses follow the angled road they are positioned along. Notches in block façades allow the circulation cores to have natural light and ventilation, and reduce the number of single-aspect units. This also enables more daylight and late afternoon sunlight to penetrate the centre of the scheme, by breaking down the volume of the development.
The material palette of the different blocks was kept restrained to maintain a character across the development. A pale, rustic brick type was chosen with highlights of panels of alternating recessed dark brown brick. The architecture is characterised by a robust composition of inset balconies and windows with deep reveals, with occasional, playful offsets of openings in otherwise regular façades.
Individual character to the different dwelling typologies was then created through recessed balconies to the blocks of flats, and crowning the terrace houses with zinc-clad saw-tooth roofs.
