070 DIFFICULT SITES


SOME OF the most remarkable architectural achievements have emerged from difficult circumstances. When faced with challenging locations, architects are often compelled to innovate, creating designs that not only tackle constraints head on, but even transform them into defining features. At the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the exhibition Difficult Sites: Architecture Against Te Odds presents 18 British projects that in different ways demonstrate the skill, ingenuity and creativity of architects in overcoming some of the most awkward and demanding conditions. From negotiating irregular-sized plots and difficult topography, to conservation considerations and zoning laws, architects are routinely called upon to surmount obstacles with groundbreaking solutions. As the exhibition’s diverse selection so ably illustrates, the difficulties of a site are not merely obstacles to be overcome but opportunities to reimagine what is


possible in the built environment. Time and time again, creativity is shown to flourish under constraint as problems are transformed into triumphs of design. While the projects on display cover a


good deal of the UK, a large proportion are London-based, where space is at a premium. Tis was especially true of the site of the London School of Economics’ Saw Swee Hock Student Centre (2012), designed by O’Donnell and Tuomey. Te building’s sharp edges and irregular geometries reflect the architects’ ingenious solution to an extremely narrow and restrictive site set at the convergence of several medieval streets in central London. Indeed, urban environments frequently pose some of the toughest tests for architects, who have to grapple with unwieldy plots or carefully negotiate between the old and the new. A particularly impressive example is Archway Studios (2012), a live-workspace that Undercurrent Architects managed to squeeze


into a severely constrained site beside and beneath a brick archway in a Victorian railway viaduct in south London. Among the building’s innovative design features is a ring of slender steel foils around its vaulted interior that isolate the property from the noise of trains, while the apertures of its slender Corten steel atrium are cleverly designed to allow daylight to penetrate deep inside the recessed interiors. Te stunning Tardis-like property, which serves as both a family home and photography studio, was crowned House of the Year in the 2013 London Architecture Awards. When it comes to mass social housing,


one of the most iconic solutions to the limitations of available sites in the English capital is Neave Brown’s Alexandra Road Estate (1978). Located in Camden and covering 6.47 hectares, this landmark of British modernist architecture combines low-rise terraced housing principles with


This image and right Archway Studios is a live-workspace that Undercurrent Architects squeezed into a


constrained site beside and beneath a brick archway in a Victorian railway viaduct in south London


Above The site for Caruso St John’s Brick House is described by the practice as of almost insuperable dificulty


Far right An iconic solution to the limitations of available sites in London is Neave Brown’s Alexandra Road Estate


UNDERCURRENT ARCHITECTS


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