Adelaide Wharf, Haggerston Housing, Hackney Building, Architect, East London Homes Images

Adelaide Wharf Housing : Hackney Architecture

Haggerston Residential Development, southeast England – design by AHMM architects

1 Oct 2008

Adelaide Wharf

Location: Haggerston, Hackney, northeast London, UK

Date built: 2008

Design: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM)

photo © Tim Soar

RIBA Award Jul 2008

At Adelaide Wharf, the project team developed a high quality, sustainable building with 147 homes and provided an innovative prototype for future housing schemes.

photographs © Tim Soar

Adelaide Wharf, located in a residential part of Hackney, is a six storey block wrapped around three sides of a landscaped courtyard defining the edges of the city block. The two street elevations have coloured entrance courts lined in glossy vitreous enamel cladding panels punched through between streetscape and courtyard. Within the apartments, circulation is minimised with all serviced spaces located along the corridor wall, and the living/sleeping spaces making maximum use of the window walls. The layouts all have open plan living/kitchen/diners, and one bedroom apartments have double doors opening between the living and bedroom to maximise the sense of space.

photographs © Rob Parrish

The modern construction methods employed at Adelaide Wharf reduced trades to as few as possible, minimising wet trades on site and making extensive and pragmatic use of prefabrication to reduce time on site and improve the quality of build. The principal components are a concrete frame with flat slabs and blade columns using prefabricated reinforcement mats, a unitised cladding system avoiding the need for scaffolding, prefabricated bathroom pods, balconies and plant, and dry-lined internal partitions. The build was completed in 18 months.

photographs © Rob Parrish

The simple massing of the building made the quality and articulation of the façade critical. Adelaide Wharf derives its aesthetic identity from a unitised facade system and pre-assembled balconies and its appearance a colourful blend of timber, zinc and glass.

photographs © Rob Parrish