Sketch of common ground between the front facades of the houses
Model from above
Site plan
View from site towards Brentcross and the countryside beyond the North Circular Road
Panorama collage showing the local vernacular house types and the dense hawthorn hedges that define the site
Panorama view
Model view from within the site
Cross section
As built at The Ideal Home Show 2007
Thirty-six new terrace houses are proposed as part of the Allies and Morrison masterplan for the Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration scheme in North-West London.
Our site consists of two vacant plots defined by the undulating rear garden walls of the semi-detached houses of Clitterhouse Crescent on one side and the ‘unfinished’ Brent Terrace on the other. Brent Terrace is separated from the railway beyond by an existing row of Victorian terrace houses that were built facing the railway line, and so, curiously, their back yards face onto the street.
We propose that the new terrace houses built opposite these also have their backs facing onto Brent Terrace and thus complete the established pattern of the street. This arrangement builds on the typical layout of the street and the crescent, integrating both the current and the new residents as part of the same neighbourhood. An existing hawthorn hedge is to be maintained and will serve as a privacy screen between the new and existing terraces.
We propose that further terrace houses be built at the back of each plot, sitting back-to-back with the semi-detached houses of Clitterhouse Crescent, creating a new public space between the front gardens of the new terraces. The strong relationship between the new crescent shaped terraces and the new Brent Terrace houses creates a cohesive and strong sense of place to the new development.
In proposing an adaptation of the Georgian terrace house, it is our intention to provide a robust architecture against which the different lifestyles of the mixed tenure development can be accommodated. The brick front façade unifies the public space held between facing terraces on each plot. The rear façades change in response to visual amenity, the need for increased ground floor living space to allow for an extra bedroom and the availability of additional rear courtyard and garden space. We have developed two main types of house to accommodate these factors, both of which offer variables in design for implementation at initial build or at a later date as required by subsequent residents.
Each house has a dog-leg staircase that limits the footprint, thus reducing the unit build cost. The consequences of this are manifold: each house has a double-height study on the 1st floor landing; extensive communal spaces are created above and beyond the private garden requirements; the size of the overall insulated external envelope is reduced - with all of the benefits in terms of sustainability and cost that follow.
Our scheme is conceived of as part of the overall vision of the design team for a ‘new Georgian Town’ - the most sustainable example of domestic urbanism in British history. The standard house type we have evolved could be seen as a proto-type, and we built a pair of them for the Ideal Home Show in 2007.
