Metropolitan Workshop and Haworth Tompkins have revealed the replacement housing for London’s historic Robin Hood Gardens estate.
The two companies have each designed two buildings for the current site of the Brutalist 1970s estate in Poplar.
The second phase of the £500 million Blackwall Reach Regeneration Project will see 268 new homes created for residential developer Swan Housing.
The Robin Hood Gardens’ western block will be replaced by the four buildings, while the third development phase will see the demolition of the eastern block.
The blocks have been designed to “share a common architectural language” but in order to ensure they differ in style, they have created “two distinct architectural quarters” for the site.
The grassy mound in the middle of the estate will be kept as an amenity for residents.
After the campaign to save Robin Hood Gardens failed, the projects were put in place to replace it.
A petition to have the complex heritage listed was signed by high profile architects including Toyo Ito, Robert Venturi, Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers, with Rogers describing it as Britain’s most important post-war housing development.
A Director at Haworth Tompkins, Toby Johnson, commented: “We respect the legacy of the Smithsons and have been all too aware of the intellectual challenge involved in working on Blackwall Reach.”
Swan Housing has now submitted a planning application to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
The project will form part of a five phase regeneration scheme which aims to create over 1,500 new homes in total, along with community facilities and commercial properties, with the first phase having been completed last year.
Executive Director of Regeneration and Development at Swan Housing, Geoff Pearce, said the latest designs were “inspired and deliverable.”
Metropolitan Workshop is based in London and was founded in 2005 by Neil Deely, David Prichard and Tim Peake. It has completed a range projects in Norway and Ireland, as well as UK housing schemes.
