Gospel Oak Housing

Following design competition we were appointed to develop schemes for three infill sites in Gospel Oak, to be delivered as part of the borough’s Community Investment Programme. The sites are located between and adjacent to the Victorian housing of Oak Village, the 1950’s Barrington & Lamble Estate and Benson & Forsyth’s Lamble Street maisonettes. The project is self-financing, with the cost of three homes for social-rent funded by income from two built for private sale.

We designed a recognisable family of buildings that animate and stitch together the public realm. The buildings share a palette of materials and details, but in massing and layout are precisely tailored to their immediate context. It is as though tears in a piece of city fabric have been mended with the same piece of cloth, cut and shaped precisely to suit the individual sites.

The houses are clad in a pale variegated brick with a raking bond that gives a flat, directional texture. This mediates between the stock brick of Oak Village and the white render of Benson & Forsyth’s terrace. Where brick is cut back to shelter a front door or cover a balcony, it wraps under the soffit, and glazed slips provide a flash of colour. Windows are generously proportioned with reveal details responding to specifics of privacy and aspect. The homes are efficiently planned around social staircases and large rooflights flood interiors with natural light.

Winner of the Camden Design Awards 2022 in the Major Projects category.

"Yet with deft spatial arrangement, attention to detail and carefully crafted relationship between public and private space the architects have managed to carve out some beautiful homes."

Camden Design Awards judges

Winner of the New London Architecture Awards 2018 in the Homes category.

"It’s a very important contribution...the idea that in London and any big city these sites go for high premium and people get the benefit from wonderfully designed places."

Ricardo Marini, NLA judge

Winner of the Small Housing Development category at the Brick Awards 2018.

"The use of cleverly designed and well executed brickwork across this project has produced buildings of considerable quality."

Brick Awards judges