1-7 Dace Road

An exercise in neighbourhood-building, the masterplanning and detail design for a development of residential and commercial buildings in east London is as much concerned with public spaces as the buildings themselves. 1-7 Dace Road sits within Fish Island Village, a £45m, 2.85ha, mixed-use site on the edge of London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Appointed to design three residential-led buildings and one commercial building at the southwest entrance to Hackney Wick, the project afforded us a rare opportunity to create a new kind of residential scheme, mixing creative and business opportunities to create a development with economic and social resilience. We have worked to achieve a robustness and permanence that reflects the area's historical warehouses, whilst creating a new public realm of public squares, tree-lined streets and commercial yards. New trees have been planted along pedestrian routes between the buildings, leading into a central, landscaped courtyard, providing a new public space and a key pedestrian route at the southwestern gateway to Hackney Wick. Four buildings provide 144 new affordable homes for Southern Housing Group and 6,300m2 (GIA) of commercial space for Hackney Wick’s community of Small to Medium Enterprises at ground floor. Inspired by the converted warehouse from the surrounding area, the buildings are a contemporary mix of brick and glass. The new homes were delivered as 100% affordable, with the first handovers taking place six months ahead of the contract programme.