Cuozzo.Company wraps London infill block around deep lightwell
Local architecture studio Cuozzo.Company has completed 112 Peckham High Street, a mixed-use infill block in London, which is organised around a communal lightwell and fern garden.
The scheme contains one retail unit and four apartments on a constrained site in southeast London, which had proven difficult to develop due to extensions to the neighbouring buildings and numerous windows in the party walls on either side.
To negotiate these constraints, Cuozzo.Company has organised the three-storey block around a deep lightwell, providing green space and natural light for the apartments while keeping the neighbouring windows unobstructed.
"Our response had to carefully respond to these windows in order to maintain privacy, light and views," founder Alessio Cuozzo told Dezeen.
"This was the fundamental driving force behind the need for the central lightwell and its design as a light-filled, outdoor space," Cuozzo continued.
"We sought to maximise the efficiency of space wherever we could to offset the space lost due to the lightwell window constraints."
Above the ground-floor retail unit, currently occupied by a hairdresser, the four apartments are split across either side of the central lightwell. They are connected by a concrete stair and perforated walkways sheltered by metal bars for climbing plants.
Small bathroom windows overlook the courtyard at the lower levels, while on the top floor, one apartment features an external terrace and another a sawtooth row of timber-framed windows overlooking a large planter.
At the rear of the block, apartments have been given access to balconies, while those at the front benefit from rows of large, deep-set windows with arched openings that project from the zinc-clad mansard roof.
The presence of the lightwell informed the material palette. Black brick is used for the street-facing facade and narrow entrance corridor, while white brick is used internally, creating a sense of "compression and release".
"The full height, full width, black exterior sets the robust tone and expectation of what is within," Cuozzo said.
"The access from street to lightwell is also finished in black brick, and is relatively narrow, creating a sense of compression which finally releases on entering the lightwell," he added. "The mansard is finished with zinc shingles with a range of tones to give a lightly mottled effect and introduce a bit of grain into an otherwise stark material."
London-based Cuozzo.Company, formerly known as Cuozzo Fleming, was founded in 2015.
Other infill schemes recently completed in London include a net-zero social housing complex in Hackney by Satish Jassal Architects and Spruce House by Ao-ft in Walthamstow.
The photography is by Francesco Russo.
The post Cuozzo.Company wraps London infill block around deep lightwell appeared first on Dezeen.
