2010 WINNING SCHEMES > Project Winners

 

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Lambeth Council has driven the redevelopment of its Mary Seacole House on Clapham High Street to boost local services, including a Primary Care Trust (PCT), café, library and nursery. A second site (not shown) will house a swimming pool and gym and together they form Cathedral Group’s winning bid to build neighbourhood amenities and 136 1- and 2-bed market sale apartments above them.

The proposals, preferred by both Lambeth Council and design champions in Clapham’s Civic Society in a limited competition, take a corner site and let rip. Curved buildings of seven to 12 storeys spin off a vortex which houses the library, its book shelving edging a ramp that spirals upwards like the access ramps within the GLA or the Vatican. The neighbourhood facilities are linked across the ground floor with the PCT tucked to the back of the site in rectangular single-storey buildings offering privacy to both patients and relief to neighbours.

The architect says it “loves curves” and elliptical blocks cluster like amoeba, making it hard to distinguish elements. But blocks clearly step from the front to the back of the site, creating large semi-circular roof terraces whose comfortingly solid balconies will be the parapet of the white masonry walls rising to them. Pale cladding was chosen to soften the impact of what will become the tallest building in the area. There is additional outdoor space in the communal roof gardens on the 7th and 8th floor.

Judges were aware that too many curved walls create issues for anyone furnishing them. However, individual plans illustrate how most homes only have one room affected, adding more variety than conundrum. The curved massing boosts the number of flats with more than one aspect. Some rooms even have views scanning 180 degrees or more, as you would find in a lookout tower.

Joyous flourishes aside, the scheme promises to be highly disciplined in its energy use, with the ground floor amenities built to BREEAM Very Good and the homes to Code Level 4.

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