We fell in love with this tapered site located between two south London streets, with its high arches and elevated railway tracks. It was 400 square metres of forgotten land owned by the London Borough of Lambeth.
We bought the site at auction in December 1998 and appointed dRMM architects a year later.
Our first planning application for six units in a six-storey bock was refused in October that year. We thought about appealing but compromised instead. The second application, approved in August 2000, was for a five-unit scheme over four storeys. We weren’t prepared to build the compromise and made a third application, approved in 2000, for a four-storey, four unit version of the first scheme.
The project was completed in March 2003. It was constructed around three zones: the first zone being 4 metres wide with bathrooms, bedrooms, entrances and a lobby, granting cocoon to the occupier against the viaduct, the second was 2.5 metres wide with the balconies, winter gardens and internal stairs linking levels and kitchens; the third, a double height living space providing user volume.
The entire development demonstrates the gap site feasibility of bigger units between 120 and 160 square metres equating to a density of 100 units per hectare.
You can purchase a dedicated monograph on this project here.
Location: One Centaur Street, London SE1 7EG
Completed: 2003
Site area: 368m2
Gross internal area: 618m2
Number of units: 4
Number of levels: 4
Architect: dRMM
Photos: Morley von Sternberg, Keith Collie