Europan 8: Stonebridge, London

Runners-up

Park, Pond, House, Flat and Loft

Team members

• Djordje Stojanovic, architect
• Sarah Ichioka, planning consultant
• Nathaniel Kolbe, architect
• Lida Charsouli, architect
• Raymond Lau, architect
• Antonio Ramirez Lopez, architect

The project

The runner up for Stonebridge makes a clear distinction between the problems of the two sites (A and B), and takes a strong position by not dealing directly with the park.

Site A encloses its block, following the cue of its neighbour to the immediate north. In doing so, it creates a secure mews zone for private parking and back yards for the ground floor units. Site B opens up to the public spaces of an urban ‘pond’ and new patio seating for the Stonebridge Hotel, allowing pedestrian through-traffic. The buildings proposed for both sites contain a mix of three residential types: the house, the flat and the loft. Every unit is designed with double aspect and has access to personal green space, either as a backyard or a terrace.

An essential component of this proposal is the creation of an attractively landscaped public courtyard, centred on the pond. Both blocks A and B enjoy a privileged relationship to the ‘natural’ elements of park and pond. This relationship, combined with the site's location only 20 minutes from central London, could create an attractive urban oasis. The opened-up space in the midst of site B becomes a key landscape element with the water feature and new bridge element both references to Stonebridge's origins and attractions for social gathering. The space is traversed by a low-tech floating deck with three ‘prongs’, which enables pedestrian access from Hilltop Avenue, the park and nursery to the north, the Hillside high street and Harlesden Underground Station to the south, and the community/health centre to the east. While allowing for circulation through the site, it preserves the privacy of residents by blocking physical access to the buildings from the rear.

Jury comments

Park, Pond, House, Flat and Loft was one of the few projects to resolve the issue of the two housing sites having very different constraints and opportunities.

The northern block completes the terrace and forms a 'book-end' to the park, which is deliberately left as a simple recreation space. To the south the proposal deals particularly well with the resolution of the housing’s dual aspect. The team suggest extending the proposed lake to meet the building edge, which proves to be an elegant move as it removes security issues of a building potentially accessible on four sides, while at the same time grounding the project with a sense of place.