DMA

We are proud to have been the delivery architects of this 49-home residential development at Cosway Street with Osborne for Westminster City Council. The development forms part of the first phase of Westminster City Council’s Church Street masterplan programme and is the largest of a package of three delivery projects that we have recently completed for Westminster City Council, creating 77 new homes in total.

The design, by Bell Phillips Architects, features scalloped brick facades to reflect the rhythm and proportions of the neighbouring streets. A carefully selected palette of soft-toned bricks, alongside crisp stone dressings and contrasting mortar shades, splits the building into three with each distinct section responding to the character of the building across the street.

The building facades and external walls were constructed offsite using precast components faced with brick. Eight panels were installed daily to significantly reduce build time and on-site disruption to the neighbourhood, and to ensure a high quality finish.

Amongst the engineering challenges of the scheme was the location adjacent to the Bakerloo line, which runs under Bell Street directly to the south of the site. A cantilevered piling solution was designed to ensure the requisite no-build offsets from the tunnel were maintained, whilst the whole building sits on anti-vibration pads, mitigating the rumble from passing trains.

Sundas Rohilla, project architect at David Miller Architects said:

“With the complexity of the brickwork design and the Bakerloo line running directly below the site, Cosway Street was technically challenging. Our priority was to maintain the original design concept whilst delivering it in a practical and economic way, and this carefully crafted building is something that everyone who has been involved in can feel extremely proud of.”

James Green, Director of Development at Westminster City Council said:

“Cosway Street represents another significant milestone in Westminster’s housebuilding programme following the successful delivery of schemes at nearby Ashmill and Ashbridge Street as part of a trio of interconnected projects.  Using the sales revenue generated from this scheme, it help will cross-subsidise the delivery of affordable homes at nearby projects and schemes across the City, playing a key part of our ambitious wider housing plan to deliver quality and sustainable homes across tenures”.

Click here for more project details on Cosway Street and Ashbridge Street, and you can watch project architect, Sundas Rohilla, talk about Cosway Street with Vandersanden Bricks here.

Photography: Agnese Sanvito and Simon Turner