Between Room and City

The brief asked to provide a housing program with mixed social and working facilities appropriate to the local area, and within a proposal that investigates the articulation of an architectural idea. The proposal needed to address the hierarchical relationships between the elements of composition and the architecture of the context. My proposal creates two mixed use buildings with a gallery, cafe, community space and spa in the public spaces, and private co-living housing above. The proposed design seeks to re-engage the corner condition of the site and the relationships between King’s Road and Markham square. The design continues to explores ideas of architectural tension through a formal sense of movement towards the corner. Depth is created within the façade with a variety of openings to external spaces punctuating the solidity of the forms. The two buildings become a shared abutment to the residential square, appearing to mirror each other but with their own individualities inspired by the contextual mass and forms from the local architectural heritage. The result is an architecture that provides a sense of familiarity but still holds tension and provides moments of the unexpected. The provided sites are two existing buildings on King’s Road, fronting Markham Square in Chelsea. The two buildings form the entrance to the square. They currently are completely independent and do not communicate with each other. The small building is also facing a street and corner opposite where there is an opportunity to engage. The existing sites present an interesting corner condition with three corners in conversation and particularly the smaller site also presenting a façade facing the end of a street.  Through sketching and photographing the local area I worked like an artist, composing a series of forms and architectural objects taken from the Victorian architecture into three-dimensional compositional sketches and models to discover the potentialities of the corner condition of the site. The formal games began to become complex as they increasingly directed towards the conditions of the site and the concept of a deep façade that wraps up and over the corner.