Arts and Crafts details enliven London housing by Metropolitan Workshop
Textured brickwork, arch motifs and large mansard roofs nod to the Arts and Crafts style surroundings of Farmstead Road, an affordable housing development in London by local studio Metropolitan Workshop.
Located on an infill site in the 1920s Bellingham Estate in Lewisham, the 24-unit development was designed for not-for-profit, resident-led association Phoenix Community Housing.
The surrounding Bellingham Estate was originally designed as a cottage estate, comprising smaller-scale terraced homes that were influenced by the Arts and Crafts and Garden City movements.
To maintain the scale of these surroundings, Metropolitan Workshop divided Farmstead Road into three volumes, containing a mixture of two and three-bedroom apartments, all designed to Passivhaus standards.
"We had to demonstrate that it was possible to develop a sensitive design which didn't compromise the integrity of the estate's radial masterplan and character," said studio partner Tom Mitchell.
"We did this by adapting the layout to the surrounding estate geometries, so that, when you zoom out, you'd think it was part of the original estate design. Luckily, the planning officers agreed," he told Dezeen.
Facing the street corner, the development replaces an existing terrace with two "gatehouse" volumes. These frame a driveway into a shared parking area and green space at the centre of the scheme.
This shared space is hugged by a larger block with a butterfly-shaped plan, which was created in response to the surrounding site boundary.
The two angled wings of this block flank a central open-air stairwell that looks back towards the street through a large arched opening – a motif that is repeated on the balconies of the gatehouse blocks.
Each block has been finished in brickwork chosen to closely match the surrounding estate, with textured and tiled areas introduced alongside entrances and openings.
The brickwork is complemented by orange metalwork used for balustrades and guttering, as well as the frames of dormer windows projecting from oversized mansard roofs.
These roofs allowed additional homes to be added without the scale of the buildings becoming too dominant.
"Brick patterns mark entrances and frame circulation, chimney features house lifts and service risers, archways mark the routes through to the communal gardens – a common local aspect," said Mitchell.
"These forms are playfully flipped upside down to form scalloped balustrades to the gatehouse balconies and sociable circulation terraces of the butterfly block," he added.
Metropolitan Workshop was founded in 2005 by Neil Deely and David Prichard, and has offices in London and Dublin.
Previous projects by the studio include a tower of modular homes in Wandsworth for developer Pocket Living, which is finished in "chameleon-style" glazed ceramic tiles.
Other housing blocks recently completed in London include Albion Street by Bell Phillips, which features a scalloped facade of white brickwork, and a faceted retirement complex in Hampstead by Stanton Williams.
The photography is by Fred Haworth.
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