A split-section apartment building by AHMM for Solidspace draws on the successes of the past in search of a new model of living attuned to the present, finds Mary Duggan

Words
Mary Duggan
Photos
Rory Gardiner

Most people in this country will have lived in a Victorian or Edwardian house at some point, and enjoyed the fluidity of such buildings. The house may have contained a wide hallway complete with mirror and family portraits, a generous stair doubling as a play area with large landings and open balustrades, and a newel post stacked with coats and bags. Easy to recall the sound of the doorbell, or the creaky floorboards that made it impossible to sneak home late.

The rooms themselves saw less activity: television watching and sleeping. Doors were there to keep the noise in, the warmth in the lounge and coolth in the pantry, to keep the party contained, to keep the kids out, the coal in the hole, tobacco smells in the study, the dog off the rug. These cellular, split-level houses allowed a degree of separation between family members while retaining a sense of proximity.

These reflections also provoke a realisation that we now live and behave differently in our homes. Television may have replaced the hearth, but we now traverse our living spaces with tablets in our hands. Our homes need to respond to this new programme.

These questions of assigned functions and proximity in domestic space have preoccupied Roger Zogolovich of developer Solidspace for many years. His concept, evolved over a series of projects, has a shorthand name – the Split Section – but is much more than a levels game. It seeks a new model for living by referencing the successes of the past, both emotive and spatial, while accommodating contemporary patterns of behaviour.

The latest, at Weston Street, Bermondsey, was realised in collaboration with architect Simon Allford of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) over 10 years and follows earlier London schemes such as Stapleton Road and Shepherdess Walk, all based around this concept, with each learning from its precedessor. Above ground-floor offices, Weston Street provides eight flats. Though aimed at the upper end of the market, the project has wider relevance in a sector defined by low expectations and minimum standards.

The project gives thought to features of contemporary life that are often overlooked in housing design: temperatures in modern homes are evenly distributed; we eat better, and togetherness mostly revolves around eating; we have a greater need for flat surfaces for flexible working and tablet use. We need different degrees of separation, and are generally apart more, and together sporadically with a reduced requirement to synchronise activities as families or co-habitors. This emerging theatre of domestic life is exciting, but its organisation needs more consideration than it generally receives.

In the Victorian house, the organising devices of the staircase and doorways are both significant. The staircase doubles as a playground – a transient use – while doorways demarcate spaces with dedicated functions. This is the departure point for Solidspace’s Split Section model. It uses the staircase to mark a change in function from one space to the next: ‘live’, ‘eat’ and ‘work’ spaces are arranged on three levels. Apart from bedroom thresholds, doors are not required, so traditional rooms are discarded. Conceptually, it is a Victorian plan without walls. It allows for conscious surveillance, a state of coexistence with degrees of separation, a fluid space that can mitigate between, but not close off functions.

Weston Street takes this thoughtful approach further, with practical decisions that bring efficiencies: 1.4-metre level differences ensure floor-to-floor views of the adjacent functions; up from ‘eat’ to ‘work’, and down to ‘live’. At the entrance level a hallway encapsulates cloakroom and a kitchen-dining area. The 1.4-metre descent leads to a lounge and hidden library, so the eat/work/live topology is both connected and broken by no more than eight steps either way around a central void.

The triad of functions is curated well. You can remotely chat to your partner in the study area, or not, as you choose; the degree of elevation enables casual togetherness or separation. Offshoots from this core area lead to bedrooms and bathrooms. The plan form is therefore largely repeated, but effortlessly tessellated across the building block in handed configurations, making it relatively efficient.

This is a large building, but shrinks into its surroundings, and appears modest from the street. It is orientated north-south, with its slimmest, lowest facade facing east onto Weston Street, and steps up to the west, where it overlooks a park. The ground-floor offices are built up to the existing boundary wall of the park, which has been retained, lending a sense of familiarity. The building is new, but already rooted.

Every double-aspect flat has views of both the park and the entrance court. From the outside each individual unit is identifiable from windows tracing its section across the facade, like a block puzzle. Very clear. Very AHMM. And very different to the numbing repetition of much contemporary housing.

Of course we need to be mindful of the need for density and of our housing targets. But we also need to be mindful of our legacy. We need to convince housebuilders to do away with the current reductive programme and to think outside the simple box. Today’s architects design housing with incredible rigour to hit unit area and cost targets set by housebuilders, a task that increasingly comes to resemble the operations of an efficiency algorithm, and gives low importance to spatial dynamics.

Value and quality expectations that are only achievable in familiar materials add to a suffocating set of conditions forced upon a profession full of talent. Operating in this way is whittling away our ability to create housing that fosters emotional attachment, so that occupants come to think of it as ‘home’.

At home we have a particular awareness of our surroundings, both conscious and unconscious. We are secure, accustomed, and meditative. Our sense of home is the long-term result of layer upon layer of memories; emotive, abstracted and embellished over time. And often those memories are prompted by the particular features of a house – the fireplace, or the kitchen table for example; the details that surround the experience.

Today, in our mad rush to deliver homes quickly and compactly, are we not missing this point? In taking all the surplus out – area, level differences, specification – what is the cost? And how will this affect our wellbeing further down the line?

We should be asking what are the details that can reinforce a sense of belonging, or a strong emotional connection with a space; what are the circumstances that allow us to cohabit comfortably and fluidly with our partners, our children or just our possessions? At Weston Street, a thoughtful, intelligent architect and an optimistic developer pushing forward a new model have asked these questions, and come up with ideas that can travel.

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