Bourbon Lane, an Octavia Housing development in White City has won a London RIBA Award, along with Wembley Stadium, and Terminal 5. But West London fared badly, winning only three of the twenty nine Awards.
Westminster Academy, on Harrow Road in Westminster (near Royal Oak) is West London-ish, and also picked up an Award, but most of the others headed to the City or East.
Bourbon Lane – the £11m Cartwright Pickard Architects designed scheme had already won a Housing Design Award, and a CABE Award.
Built by Como Homes and project managed by MDA Consulting, Bourbon Lane provides 78 affordable homes for families and key workers, for rent and shared ownership.
Sandwiched between the £1bn Westfield Centre in White City, and an existing Victorian residential properties, the scheme is a radical departure from stale social housing, bringing together design elements old and new. The building forms have been designed to integrate with the shopping centre and the existing properties, to create an attractive and thriving neighbourhood, without the appearance of conventional social housing.
The homes are arranged in eight low-rise blocks, which feature larch timber cladding, bold use of colour and dramatic overhanging cantilevers above the entrances. Each home is dual aspect to benefit from morning and evening sun, has good natural ventilation. All have either a garden, balcony or roof terrace.
The scheme was built using modern methods of construction to improve quality and performance. A prefabricated cladding system reduced the need for scaffolding, reducing time on site, and improving air tightness and safety. This approach also allowed the windows to be pre-installed offsite.
More on Bourbon Lane at the Octavia Housing site.
