Peter Barber Architect Transform McGrath Road
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Peter Barber Architect's new project features a block of multiple shared-ownership homes around a central courtyard in Stratford, London.The square comprises 28 little tower houses, creating a beautiful street corner in East London and laid out around a pictuPeter Barber Architect Transform McGrath Road
Peter Barber Architect's new project features a block of multiple shared-ownership homes around a central courtyard in Stratford, London.The square comprises 28 little tower houses, creating a beautiful street corner in East London and laid out around a picturesque tree-lined square. Houses have double height arcaded frontages; 1, 2 or 3 bedrooms; and a top floor living room and roof terrace. Inspired by the Victorian era, the square comes through as a reinterpretation of the Victorian back-to-back housing typology popular in England's rapidly expanding industrial cities during the early 20th century.The housing at McGrath Road aims at making the most of the density provided by back-to-backs, which were squeezed in tightly, with single-aspect spaces, no gardens, and few windows. It also expands the standard of both indoor and outdoor spaces.«Back-to-back housing was the default typology for low cost high density housing in many northern and midland industrial cities during their rapid expansion in the nineteenth century. Hundreds of thousands were built in cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Birmingham and Leeds, though strangely it was rare in London. Their construction was outlawed in the 1909 Housing Act although some local authorities sanctioned their continued construction as recently as the late 1930’s,» stated the architecture studio.Director of the studio Peter Barber commented, «In my view the type had a great many benefits..They were cheap to build and therefore relatively inexpensive to rent, and were arranged along streets and in courts which assisted in creating the potential for neighborliness.»While the western block of the project uses a back-to-back plan, with units arranged symmetrically against one another but stacked to allow for dual-aspect openings, on the opposite side, the slimmer eastern block consists of a single run of homes, and together the two blocks surround a central planted courtyard.The square's northern and western heights bend around the road corner, with an exterior explained by profound, curved block uncovers that outline windows and an entryway into each home and give a secured, semi-private space.According to the architecture studio, «They are a radical reworking of “back of pavement terraces” and “back-to-back” house types.»Peter Barber has worked with Richard Rogers, Will Alsop, and Jestico+Whiles prior to establishing his own practice in 1989. He is currently a lecturer and reader in architecture at the University of Westminster. Barber has lectured about the work of the Practice at many institutions, including the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Architectural League in New York, and numerous international and domestic university schools of architecture including Helsinki, Pretoria, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Burma, Munich, Genoa Istanbul and Colombo as well as Oxford University and The Bartlett - University College London. https://www.blouinartinfo.com/ Founder: Louise Blouin Read more