Old Kent Road

Design research to the Productive City along Old Kent Road, London, UK
Client: ADUP, London, UK
Co-architect: Karin Templin, Florence, I
2017 – 2018

Unfortunately, housing design today is no longer strongly conceptualised through politics nor through an architectural viewpoint. By engaging with political will, developing new development models, and learning from historic urban building types as we redevelop the commercial centres of London we can deliver a desired coexistence of residential and employment use, a relationship which had long represented the very definition of urbanity.

In the Productive City, we seek to address three themes for the long-term development and sustainability of our urban communities. These include:
. Visible economy. Historically, the separation of workspace and home was the exception to the rule. Combination reduces traffic and enhance sustainable modern relations between parents and children.
. Midcomfort. Day-to-day comfort and delight rather than visual excitement and fashion.
. Adaptability. Design for flexibility, not through ‘boxes that can do everything’, but through character: spaces adopted by users and changed slowly and incrementally.

In the Productive City, the relationship between residential and employment uses are addressed from the scale of the large-box retail unit to that of the live-work or home-office.
. Business at S scale, home related, concentrated at ground floor.
. Business at M scale, loosely home related, double door units, mixed through the building.
. Business at L scale non-home related.

Urban housing types which combine home, work, and industry whilst contributing to the urban streetscape are models for regeneration. These include the Venetian palazzi, chambers of Victorian London, and Haussmann Paris blocks.

Winning ADUP bid, in co-operation with Karin Templin.