Peabody
Peabody housing competition Plaistow, London
Shortlisted entry
Our approach has been to take practical, flexible, attractive and - most importantly, for the long-term success of the community - popular London housing typologies.
The masterplan adopts and strengthens the typical London grain of the surrounding streets; enhancing the setting of the retained hospital buildings, which rise above the rooftops of the adjacent houses, and terminate long views in a manner analogous to the image of the ship at the end of an east-end terrace. The existing hospital boundary wall is selectively retained to create a walled gardens and mews conditions, as well as preserving a memory of the historic site condition. Perimeter buildings are set hard against the street partly in order to strengthen the street, but also to eliminate the uneasy no-mans land that sometimes occurs where houses are set back a small distance from the pavement.
The crescent mediates between the terrace and hospital block forms and helps to provide a spatial and community focus or ‘heart’ in the form of the elongated, planted village green and the small town square formed by the break in the crescent, and whose edges are defined by the Estate Office and retained nurses accommodation. The crescent additionally increases surveillance (and therefore security) of the street, while maximising the length of garden elevation of each dwelling.
