BUST, BOOM, BOMB

Many sites in London are the consequenece of thecity's turbulent history of development, destruction and redevelopment – a pattern of boom, bust, and bomb. That was the case for this site in aSouthwark Conservation area, where we were commissioned tobuild a new town house.

The area was originally developed in the early 1800s as a terrace of houses facing a generous central park. By the 1870s, pressure on land meant that the park was developed into terrace housing, but the area was bombed in 1942, and a portion of the terrace was destroyed. Our site, on a narrow piece of land, less than half the width of the adjacent houses was at the edge of this bombed area, now used as a community garden.

Design

The key concept was to build a house that was ‘strangely familiar’ – strange in its expression, but familiar in its materiality and detail. 

Southwark Council supported a design which offered a strong architectural presence to the Community Gardens. Our solution was to refer to the dog-tooth brick cornice detail of the adjacent terraced houses and express this detail on the front and side elevations in a new and slightly unexpected way. Roof and fenestration lines are carried through from old to new, but translat-ed into new proportions and new relationships. The material and geometric connection of new and old anchors the building to its context, and hopeful-ly means that the building doesn’t look too much like the new kid on the block.