Charlton Kings Road, NW5
Camden, London Complete 4 Houses & Office Space
Winner - Camden Design Awards 2013 - People's Choice Residential Development
The site is a typical backland space leftover between the rear gardens of terraced houses, and formerly used as a builders yard. Accessed from the main road, a gated undercroft leads to the 10-wide parcel of derelict land which was enclosed on all 4 sides by existing residential properties.
This client wanted to redevelop this urban brownfield site for residential use with a small Mews of terraced houses, similar in style to an earlier development completed by us at Crown Place Mews in Kentish Town. Our designs provide a discreet and compact terrace of 3 storey houses within the new Mews environment with individual houses configured to maintain the amenity and privacy of neighbouring dwellings.
The ground-floor entrances face onto a small south facing paved footpath that is flanked by the high wall of neighbouring gardens. To avoid a claustrophobic feel to this access, we have introduced a living wall to soften the entrance area, which is surprisingly bright, benefiting from the reflected light from rendered walls of the new houses.
The New Mews
The compact footprint of dwellings prohibited large garden area at ground floor and so we introduced individual internal courtyard spaces for each new dwelling which allow sunlight and daylight to penetrate down to the lower levels and facilitates windows being positioned to avoid direct overlooking onto neighbours.
Each house is designed internally to create a bright and open plan feel, belying the compact space occupied and this is reinforced by the introduction of white walls and natural wood floors to maximise the light available. The scheme design is car free but allows for cycle parking and is within close-proximity to good public transport.
This backland site redevelopment is similar to other parcels of land found across Camden and many other London Boroughs and we hope demonstrates a possible model for the provision of new homes in other backland situations.
