St Stephens 

 

Sandwiched between two school blocks, a set back run-down family house presents as an anomaly on St Stephens Road in Ealing.  Having assessed the building and determined that, on balance, demolition was the only sensible and most sustainable option,  IBLA were tasked with designing new high-quality residential accommodation for the site that would relate better to its surroundings.

 

An examination of the existing urban context suggested that the site lay at a transition between predominantly pitched-roof, gable-ended blocks to the west and larger flat-roofed buildings to the east. It followed that a building form that could mediate between these typologies would be an appropriate response. Strategically, a T-shaped plan allowed for retention of the most existing trees and planted areas.  IBLA developed a scheme for nine flats, expressed as a grouping of three individual ‘villas’ each housing a stack of three flats, with a shared entrance and communal staircase in the gap between them.  Every flat has either a private balcony or garden, and access from the street is through a landscaped forecourt. 

 

Each of the three ‘villa’ blocks is expressed as a simple cube, with a sloped metal roof and central rooflight, giving a legible visual presence to each unit.  The facades of each cube are subdivided into a grid of nine generous glazed openings given a vertical emphasis by recessed masonry apron panels beneath each window.  A glazed lantern marks the point of entry, and the material palette - a grey brown brick, with subtle detailing in the form of a projecting course between the ground floor and first floor and a slightly set back top floor - was chosen to complement the existing context.