Islington Housing Association

This current project plans to maximise the potential of an urban site for Orion Housing Association. 

The building is scaled to respond to the existing adjacent housing estate but extends the established building lines and number of storeys without overshadowing or creating an unrelated form within the 3-storey surrounding townscape. Wide green street edges have been rationalised to maximise the building footprint while establishing a suitable privacy threshold between the street and the ground floor habitable rooms.

The aesthetic of the building is contemporary and logical. Materials have been chosen for their appropriateness within this context, longevity, low maintenance characteristics and are readily available at a value cost. This all feeds into our philosophy that long-term sustainability is best achieved through the specification of materials from the outset.

This long and narrow site is simply divided into two almost independent buildings centred around rational and space-efficient circulation cores. Each half of the building has 12 flats consisting of a mix of flat types ranging from 1-bedroom, 2 person flats to 3-bedroom, 5 person flats. The individual flat layouts are influenced by our involvement in housing for elderly people.

Initial feasibility studies included up-to-date statutory requirements for means of escape, minimum floor areas, amenity space as well as logical structural layouts with the view to speeding up the subsequent planning, building control and construction stages.