Client One Housing Group
Location London, UK
Status Built
Awards
2008 Camden Design Award
2007 Evening Standard New Homes Awards - Highly Commended
2007 Regeneration & Renewal Awards - Highly Commended
2007 Regeneration Award Finalist
Gray’s Inn Buildings comprises the award-winning refurbishment of a distinctive and formerly dilapidated Victorian terrace building in Clerkenwell, London. The design consists of 94 new build apartments, 10 refurbished apartments, an office and community centre and carefully retained the prominent existing red brick original front façade and corner building. At the rear, behind the existing façade, four well-defined contemporary buildings have been sensitively constructed with modern accommodation. A further completely new-build rear building has been carefully sited to maximise the amount of daylight available to the rear windows and landscaped courtyard.
The new insertions are respectful of the historic Victorian architecture, replicating, and yet softening, the massing and layout of the former buildings.
The new stair and lift cores are expressed as elegant concrete and glazed vertical elements which rise above the main façade. Coloured glass bridges link the original façade and animate the rear side elevation. The white render rear façade maximizes the amount of reflected light within the predominantly north-facing courtyard and acts as a visual contrast to the warm red brick of the front existing façade.
