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Munkenbeck and Marshall, Nile Street mixed-tenure housing, London, 2006The varied palette of materials has been skilfully and simply detailed to create an elegant social housingdevelopment in the heart of London.

Home Run

Nile Street: Mixed-TenureHousingBruce Stewart describes how Munkenbeck and Marshall, a practice whose work is moreoften associated with high-end design, have, at a site in Hackney near the City of London,produced a complex scheme for Peabody that is considered in its treatment of mixed tenure.

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Continuing a very successful career asone of the UK’s more thoughtfularchitectural practices, Munkenbeckand Marshall have just completed amixed-tenure housing development forthe Peabody Trust Housing Association,in London. The practice, founded morethan 20 years ago, has had a varied andcritically acclaimed history. Projectsundertaken during this period haveranged from the deftly detailed retailinterior shop space for Yohji Yamamotoand the Orsino restaurant in London,via award-winning schemes such as theRoche Sculpture Gallery in Salisbury, tolarge urban-planning proposals.Throughout all of the firm’s completedworks runs a consistent strand ofsearching enquiry and innovativesolution: low cost does not mean areduced aesthetic sensibility – theexperience of the end user is vital to theprocesses brought to bear.

The Nile Street project for thePeabody Trust continues this designmethodology. Located in the Shoreditcharea of London, it consists of key-workerunits, affordable-rent units (for PeabodyTrust tenants), shared-ownership andprivate-sale apartments. This mix of

tenure is unusual for the Peabody Trustin that it includes, for the first time in aproject solely undertaken by thehousing association, homes that arecompletely for private sale (instead ofthe usual shared-ownership schemes),making the trust a developer as well asa registered social landlord (RSL).

In other, private, schemes such asAlbion Wharf by Foster & Partners (see‘Home Run’, 4 Vol 75, No 6, Nov/Dec2005), the inclusion of affordablehousing is a direct result of governmentpolicy. In developments of more than 20units, a percentage of the total numbermust be allocated as affordable units forthose on lower income levels.1 Themanagement of such social housingelements is then adopted by a housingassociation – the Peabody Trust in thecase of Albion Wharf – which is involvedfrom the outset as to the requirementsand specifications of the affordableaccommodation.

Such a mix of tenures, private andaffordable, has, in many other schemes,led to a separating out of the twomarket groups with a clear distinctionin which sector is housed where. Theaffordable element is often placed on

Allocation of Nile Street units

South BlockTotal of 71 units over nine floors:

30 x one-bedroom shared-ownership flatson ground, first and second floors (75%for Corporation of London, 25% forLondon Borough of Hackney), approx 47 m2 each, price £200,000–250,000

27 x one-bedroom private-sale flats, approx48 m2 each, price £235,000

14 x two-bedroom private-sale flats, approx73 m2 each, price £298,000–490,000(on the remaining upper floors)

North BlockTotal of 78 units over six floors:

77 x one-bedroom key-worker studios,approx 30.5 m2 each, rent £70+ per week

1 x one-bedroom key-worker flat, approx 38 m2 each, rent £70+ per week

East Block20 affordable-rent flats over five floors thatwill provide social rented housing forPeabody Trust tenants:

5 x one-bedroom flats (two-person), approx45m2 each, rent £62.30 per week

5 x two-bedroom flats (four-person), approx65m2 each, rent £77.49 per week

10 x three-bedroom flats (six-person),approx 87 m2 each, rent £ 85.81 per week

Youth centre on ground floor: 250 m2

West BlockTotal of six units over three floors:

6 x two-bedroom private-sale flats, approx76 m2 each, price £298,000– £315,000

Rental and capital values are approximateand subject to change.

Adapted from the Nile Street Fact Sheet,Peabody Trust, 2005. Used with kindpermission.

Where possible, the views out of the site have been exploited to the fullest, providing the apartmentswith glimpses of London’s changing skyline.

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the less attractive areas of a site, andcan often be of a lower quality in termsof finishes. It has been argued thatthere should be no such demarcation, asit may lead to social stigmatisation, butthere are equally strong, practicalarguments that, when handledsensitively, the separation can be morebeneficial for those in the housingassociation accommodation, as spacestandards in such mixed-tenuredevelopments are generally better thanin the social housing sector.

The careful and well thought outseparation of these sectors is alsodesirable for the housing associationsthemselves, in terms of how the portionof the scheme that is managed by themcan be maintained. At Nile Street, theplanning of the project as a whole hasled to the almost total allocation of eachunit type to a specific block, but this hasin no way led to a compromise in thequality of the accommodation providedor in space standards. The project isvery high density, with 175 homesarranged around a central courtyard ona 3035-square-metre (32,700-square-foot)site that was purchased by the PeabodyTrust from Hackney Borough Council.The shared-ownership scheme

prioritises council tenants and housingassociation residents, including keyworkers, from the Corporation ofLondon and the London Borough ofHackney. The location, on the corner ofNile Street and Provost Street, is idealfor the provision of key-worker studioapartments as it is adjacent to MoorfieldsEye Hospital and close to the City.

The provision of such a large andvaried number of apartments on arelatively small site was a challenge forthe architects. In addition, quite strictlocal authority planning requirements,in terms of the surrounding area, alsohad to be taken into consideration.Bounded by an interwar housing estateto the north and west, a primaryschool to the south, and more recenthousing for nurses from Moorfields tothe east (none of which are of anyparticular quality), the new scheme byMunkenbeck and Marshall needed totie in with existing building heightsand lines (the boundaries of public and private realms). But despite therestrictions, the finished buildings are quite distinct, largely due to the palette of materials used and the intelligent massing of the fourblocks that make up the project.

Along the Nile Street (west block) andProvost Street (north block) elevations,prepatinated copper cladding has beenused, with the remainder of the schemeclad in wood. All of the apartments hereare further articulated by balconies thatnot only provide essential externalspace, but also add a sculpturalelement. It is this careful handling ofthe external spaces that contributesconsiderably to the success of thisproject. The central courtyard is plantedwith silver birch trees around a waterfeature and surfaced with white gravel.While all the apartments on this, internal,side can appreciate the relaxed natureof this amenity, a decision has been madeto restrict physical access to it, with thekeys to the gate held by the concierge,to maintain the quality of the space.

Further external space is provided forthe tenants of the smaller key-workerstudio apartments, on the northern sideof the site, with the creation of a largeroof terrace. It is in the planning andconsideration of these units that thearchitects have been particularlysuccessful. Each studio also has aprivate balcony, further increasing theamount of usable space, with slidingglass doors ensuring the amount ofnatural light let in is maximised. Inanother clever move, the entrance toeach studio is a usable internal space,increasing the number of designated‘habitable’ rooms. This not onlyprovides useful extra space, but enabledthe architects to raise significant extrafunding for the development(approximately £45,000 per unit). Thefunding has been used to keep thequality of the internal finishes andfittings to a very high standard,achieving the best possible environmentfor the key-worker tenants.

This high level of finish is alsomaintained in the flats for rent toPeabody tenants, and is a very goodminimum against which the units forsale, either privately or by sharedownership, compete. Throughout thescheme this attention to detail, and thesincere belief that all sectors of the

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The articulation of the Nile Street facade brings life and dynamism to a previously run-down and dull area of east London.

housing market are entitled to the bestpossible quality of space and amenities,raises this project above so many of itscontemporaries.

Each of the blocks has its ownentrance and foyer. However, theconsistent use of materials throughoutensures that there is no visualdemarcation between each of the tenuretypes. In addition, to help sustain themixed-tenure community, a youthcentre that had fallen into disrepair wasreinstated as part of the brief. This space,below the rented accommodation to thewest of the site, will eventually be usedfor a variety of purposes, and as such

the architects were asked to include asoundproofed space for practisingmusical instruments. As well as includinga crèche, there is also a significantamount of outside space for the users toenjoy, which will also be available forthe rest of the residents in the area.

The architecture of the Nile Streetdevelopment takes its user base veryseriously, and provides the often talkedabout intangible notion of ‘added value’for its residents. Great care andimagination has gone into every level ofthe thinking behind this scheme, witheach tenure base considered equally. Inthese terms, Munkenbeck and Marshall

are leading the way regarding thefuture of the provision of affordablehousing in the UK. 4+

Note1. However, some local authorities and housingassociations in areas outside the southeast ofEngland (for example, in and around GreaterManchester), may have a surplus of housing andthis policy is therefore not applicable to any largerprivate housing developments.

Bruce Stewart is currently researching and writingThe Architects’ Navigation Guide to New Housing,to be published in early 2007 by Wiley-Academy.He trained as an architect and is currently acollege teacher at the Bartlett School ofArchitecture, UCL London.