14 HOUSING
Ruth Slavid
reports on... John Lawder House
SOCIAL HOUSING, UNFORTUNATELY, TENDS NOT TO BE BUILT ON PRIME SITES, SO IT IS UNUSUAL TO HAVE TO TAKE ACCOUNT OF LISTED BUILDINGS. BUT THIS WAS JUST ONE OF THE ISSUES THAT MEPK ARCHITECTS HAD TO CONTEND WITH IN ITS DEVELOPMENT OF JOHN LAWDER HOUSE IN LIMEHOUSE, EAST LONDON. THE SITE, EFFECTIVELY AN ISLAND SURROUNDED BY TRAFFIC, HAS LITTLE ARCHITECTURAL MERIT ITSELF, BUT IS OPPOSITE ST ANNE’S CHURCH, THE LARGEST OF HAWKSMOOR’S LONDON CHURCHES, AND GRADE 1 LISTED.
N
ot surprisingly, the planners took a keen interest in what went on the site, and this was further complicated by an
extraordinary mix of tenures and types of accommodation. It is to the architect’s credit that it came up with a design that unified these uses while still giving them some identity of their own – in particular distinguishing the relatively small amount of housing for sale, and facing it in the most promising direction.
As if there had not been difficulties enough, the project was further delayed when not one but two design-and-build contractors went into administration partway through construction. A third contractor, Rooff, took the job on at the end of 2007 after a considerable hiatus. As a result the project, which received planning in 2005, and should not have been on site for much more than a year, is receiving its finishing touches some four years later.
One of the great attributes of Hawksmoor’s church is that it managed to survive the devastating World War Two bombing raids on London’s churches. Many areas around were affected including the one where MEPK’s housing now sits. It was then occupied by two-storey supported housing for the elderly which was, says MEPK’s Simon Cottingham, ‘very tired’ and built to densities more suited to the suburbs than to this gritty part of the city.
Bethnal Green Victoria Park Housing Trust (which subsequently became Gateway Housing Association) commissioned the architect to replace the buildings on the site with a mix of social uses, plus some shared-ownership housing. The elderly supported accommodation is in the centre of the site, facing north towards the church and forming part of a fairly solid wall of accommodation on this frontage. To its west is a mix of key-worker housing and general social housing, while to the east are blocks of
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move-on accommodation for both the elderly and for young people leaving care.
In the southeast corner, facing out from the site and deliberately separate from it is the block of shared-ownership housing, given a different elevational treatment from its neighbours. The centre of the site is occupied by gardens, mostly communal but some private, which benefit from the buffering that the blocks provide from the noise of the busy Commercial Road to the east of the site.
The buildings are five storeys high at one end of the site, stepping down to four at the other. ‘Whereas before the buildings were in the middle of the site, we were re-establishing the historic street line,’ said Cottingham. Main entrances are generally off Three Colt Street, the street to the north side of the site, separating it from the church. This orientation brings back some activity to the street.
The shared-ownership block is distinguished by its terracotta cladding. Hawksmoor’s church can be seen in the background of this visualisation
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