London Dynamics

/ Among Victorian warehouses on the banks of the Thames, a new mixed-use complex has interlocking split-level apartments. Thanks to an elaborate dovetailing inspired by the game of Tetris

“WE MEASURE IN CUBIC METRES RATHER THAN SQUARE METRES,” says the Londoner Roger Zogolovitch. The architect and developer from the firm Solidspace has come up with an ingenious means of subdivision in section that makes it possible to realize split-level apartments, articulated by landing and staircases. A recent example, designed in collaboration with Allford Hall Monaghan Morris Architects, is the mixed-use complex on Weston Street in the former industrial zone of Southwark, nowadays undergoing a process of gentrification. It has taken ten years to finish this animated building that houses eight apartments and an entire floor of offices (the top one) and is located between old warehouses in the Victorian style and Guy Street Park. The units are fitted together in a “Tetris-like” scheme so that they have a double-height central space facing south (living room, kitchen, dining room and study) and more intimate secondary volumes for the bedrooms, two or three depending on the size of the apartment.

“As a result the flat looks much bigger than the actual number of square metres,” points out the architect Sadie Morgan, one of the eight residents. While Simon Allford, one of the four partners of the architectural practice, explains: “It was right for this geometric and formal system to be legible on the façade.” Out of this came the distinctive L- and T-shaped windows that offer a glimpse of the internal split-level arrangement of the spaces and at the same time flood the apartments with light. The three-dimensional composition and in

“THE COMBINATION OF THE VISUAL FLOW AND THE WAY THAT LIGHT FLOODS THE APARTMENT FROM MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS THAT CREATES A UNIQUE SENSE OF SPACE AND VOLUME” (Alison Nimmo, resident)

THE COLDNESS OF THE INTERNAL SURFACES OF RAW CONCRETE IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE “WARMTH” OF THE WOOD

terlocking volumes are what produces the irregular profile of the complex, from which jut long prefabricated concrete balconies. In the creation of such an intricate work of architecture the designers chose to avoid the traditional post-and-beam structure and rely instead on a structural shell of concrete cast on side. Materials and finishes dialogue with one another through contrast: handcrafted and industrial, rough and smooth, warm and cold, finished and raw. A “skin” of hand-finished bricks is juxtaposed with internal surfaces of raw concrete; the coldness of the concrete is associated with the “warmth” of the wood that defines certain elements and internal fittings like the stairs (oak and walnut) and bookcases. As the the urbanist Hank Dittmar, consultant to governments and cities around the world, wrote “this complex aspires to become a model for buildings of medium height in London, a traditional ‘species’ to be preserved and protected. Especially now that skyscrapers are proliferating.” ○