05/11/2008
State-of-the-Art Key Worker Housing Opens in London
Cartwright Pickard Architects’ latest housing project for the Hyelm Group, Hyelm Old Street, has now been officially opened.
Cartwright Pickard Architects has designed a high quality development for 125 key workers and young people in work and study. This initiative, by the registered charity and social landlord, the Hyelm Group, provides much-needed affordable accommodation in central London. The housing project opened with advance bookings of 100%, and sets the standards for excellence in this sector. The waiting list to get into Hyelm now stretches to 1000 people.
Hyelm Old Street comprises a refurbished and extended six-storey building and a new, seven-storey building, as well as a two-storey ancillary administration office in the courtyard between the main buildings. The scheme offers a varied portfolio of one-bedroom flats and ‘cluster’ apartments with communal living spaces. The state-of-the-art social facilities include a hotel-style reception and lounge, internet café, fitness suite, saunas, landscaped courtyard garden, skyline roof terraces and business spaces.
A contemporary use of high quality terracotta and vertical timber cladding is combined with pop-out windows and coloured enamelled panels to create a strong identity for the buildings in this prominent scheme. The interior is executed to an exceptional standard of modern design, and provides light, attractive spaces for the residents.
The New North Road façade is set next to a Grade 2 listed Georgian façade, and careful negotiations with the planning and listed building officers were undertaken in order to ensure the design although new, would echo the rythmn of the streetscape. The decision to refurbish, rather than knock down the building, also took into consideration that this option was more sustainable.
Peter Cartwright said, “We are proud to have designed the latest scheme in the Hyelm Group’s portfolio. Our team has produced high quality homes for a crucial sector within our capital, and we believe that the standards of these homes will have a positive impact on those who live there.”