Leaside Road
Using landscaping to define and integrate
Location
Hackney, London
Status
Completed
2009
Client
Metropolitan Housing Trust
RIBA workstages
Concept to Completion
This residential scheme alongside the River Lea provides both private and affordable housing within a unified and coherent landscaped setting.
APPROACH
The project houses eighty apartments, and has transformed the area by opening up access to the River Lea, and Hackney marshes beyond, that had been built over for over 150 years.
DESIGN
The design concept derived from the desire to create a new interaction between the wide expanse of the Hackney Marshes and Clapton’s dense terraced housing.
Three carefully landscaped gardens, perpendicular to the river, define the orientation and form of the five blocks of housing, and allow open views through to the river.
Two of the five blocks provide thirty-two socially rented apartments for Metropolitan Housing Trust, with a proportion dedicated to low cost housing for local orthodox Jewish families.