Melior Place
In 2016 Nick Baker Architects were commissioned to design a mix-use development near London Bridge in Southwark, London. The “Art House” scheme consists of 7 residential units and an Art Gallery on the Ground Floor.
The overall intent of the proposal is to create a building that acknowledges its historic context and celebrates its content and expression in an artistic way, enlivening and contributing to a ‘new corner’ in the developing identity of the London Bridge area.
The principle form of the design is based around the extrusion of the site boundary up to a variety of different heights. These heights have been selected from an appreciation of the scale and massing of the immediate neighbours. The resulting scheme comprises a form that rises out of the corner plot in a round edged block. As it rises to the south it steps back creating terraces to its southern aspect. The south western elevation is also stepped back in a terraced format allowing daylight into the eastern elevation of its neighbour.
One of the key characteristics in portraying the identity and use of buildings in the area was established to be via its façade. More specifically its openings, their proportions and windows. The typical existing light industrial Bermondsey warehouse block was identified as having had a steel or concrete structure frame with brick cladding and infill panels, (some earlier ones also included structural brickwork). Due to the requirement for large and deep open plan floorplates, these warehouses had expansive windows that stretched horizontally between columns and to the underside of ceilings to allow as much daylight in as possible.
“Thank you for the comprehensive and well thought through packages”
-Michael Wurzel
Art House, Bermondsey, London 2015–2025
Client: Private Client
Project Status: Construction
Budget: Confidential
Team
Nick Baker Architects
Ignacio Calvo
Alyn O’Donnell
Mechanical & Electrical Engineer
DSA
Structural Engineer
TZG Partnership
Quantity Surveyor
JBA
Planning Consultant
JLL