ADELAIDE WHARF - architeria.eu

Adelaide Wharf.

The Adelaide Wharf site is being developed by English Partnerships in partnership with First Base as part
of the London Wide Initiative, which aims to substantially increase the supply of affordable homes for
keyworkers in London, in mixed tenure schemes. The LWI scheme also aims to encourage exemplars
for regeneration of disused and abandoned property in key London Boroughs. This mixed use site will
deliver 147 flats, with a mixture of privately sold, socially rented and shared ownership, and some B1
office space. The appearance is essentially “tenure blind” as all the housing is built and managed
to the same specifications.

Project Description

The Adelaide Wharf site is in a residential part of Hackney, with the Regent’s Canal to the north and
Haggerston Park to the south. It was previously used as warehousing, on the site of an old timber wharf.
A six storey block will wrap around three sides of a landscaped courtyard, with five storeys of flats above
a ground floor of varied accommodation that has direct access from the street. The three sides of the
scheme define the edges of the city block, and the two street elevations have coloured entrance courts
punched through between streetscape and courtyard, linking into the circulation cores in each corner.
The plan of the upper residential floors is based on a rotational symmetry about the two cores, from which
the corridors radiate out. The three blocks express this rotation externally in the way in which they turn
the corners and their gable ends are clad.

The two main entrances to the building are sheltered and gated outdoor spaces, double height slots extruded
through the building, which are lined in glossy vitreous enamel cladding panels. They emphasise the break in
the block at street level and frame views of the garden from the streetside. Graphics and the strong colour
give each entrance a clear identity and address. Enclosed stair lobbies, post-boxes and concierge’s facilities
for the housing above are located to the side of these entrance courts. The cores take up the shift in the
building grid at each corner, and the break is used to provide a full height slot window from lobby glazing up to
a rooflight, maximising daylight in the circulation, and providing views into the landscaped courtyard from each
lift and stair landing.

The circulation is arranged in double banked corridors, each with daylight at one end to orientate the user.
The corridor ending at the canal has a fully glazed slot, and double and triple height voids next to the window,
to maximise the amount of daylight falling into the corridor, and to dramatize the view.

The ground floor is a smooth engineering brick base, taking up taking up the changes in level as the road
climbs towards the canal bridge. Recesses and projections on the ground floor create a series of events
on the street, with coloured doors and signage acting as a contrast to the brick. The entrances to
the ground floor 4 bed flats each have stairs projecting onto the street, defining their defensible space.
The cladding to the upper storeys is lighter and more textured in character, and consists of vertical boards
of rough sawn Siberian Larch, fixed board on board to emphasise the vertical grain, set between bands
of smooth zinc. Its fenestration has two repeating window patterns, one of large window openings
to the living rooms, and one of vertically proportioned windows onto the bedrooms. This pattern repeats
around the building reflecting the arrangement of the flats inside, and the whole treatment is unified
by the horizontal zinc band running at each floor level.

Each flat has a balcony supported from beams at roof level, cantilevering like lifting beams on warehouses.
Each balcony is clad with a coloured plane with a single fold in it, and offset from the windows, cantilevering
in alternate directions at each floor to produce double height gaps between them and reduce overshadowing
to the living rooms below. The colours on the planes of the balconies are then graduated across the façade,
which seen are seen to best advantage obliquely down the street.

The courtyard at the heart of the scheme is a shared garden for use by the residents, the landscaping
providing a focus when viewed from above and from the street. Simple use of geometric lines relating
to the facades, circulation and lines of movement through the site create a variety of smaller spaces for
the use of different groups of people for resting or playing in the space simultaneously. These are formed
by lines of hedges and trees delineating different simple surface finishes.

The scheme is currently achieving an “Excellent” Ecohomes rating, and includes items such as a centralised
heating system and a green/brown biodiverse roof, which is not for amenity use but to provide a natural
habitat along the Regents Canal, to support the canal’s status as a wildlife green corridor.

Internal Layouts

The design of the 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments all follow a similar strategy. Circulation is kept to a minimum,
so that the living area is maximised and the deep plan locates all the serviced spaces along the corridor wall,
with the living / sleeping spaces making maximum use of the window walls. The repetition of the bathroom
types, kitchen types and flat layouts allows for one carefully considered and worked out solution to be applied
across all the flats, so that they all benefit from the quality derived by the standardisation of the architectural
idea. The layouts all have open plan living/kitchen/diners, to maximise the sense of space. Additionally, the one
bedroom flats have double doors opening between the living and bedroom, extending the main space so that
the occupants can occupy the space more flexibly.

The family flats within the upper storeys are mostly located on the south facing elevations. Their enlarged
balconies are extensions of the living room areas, and provide a room sized external amenity, but even the
balconies to the smaller flats are large enough for a table and chairs, and to operate as a useable outdoor space.

Photographers: Tim Soar, Rob Parrish, Matt Chisnall