Bell Phillips’ sensitively handled development of 40 social rent homes for Leathermarket Community Benefit Society (LCBS) is a rewarding housing delivery model that provides for local needs, says Mellis Haward.

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Kilian O’Sullivan

In the shadow of the Shard, the Leathermarket Community Benefit Society (LCBS) has been resolutely pursuing the goal of creating more affordable housing for local people in this prime London location. In the generally accepted knowledge that Southwark Council’s housing delivery programme focusses on market housing sales in the popular northern half of the borough, and social housing numbers in the southern half, this is an important effort to deliver equity of affordable housing across the borough.

The Leathermarket CBS began in 1996 as a tenant’s management organisation, responsible for the management and repairs of 1500 homes in in Borough and Bermondsey between London Bridge and Tower Bridge. In 2016 the CBS became aware that bigger changes within their housing provision were needed, with many residents over-occupying homes they’d moved into in the 1950s and many others struggling with the access issues of their ‘walk-up’ homes. There was also a need to entice residents who were under occupying larger homes to move to modern and accessible one-bedroom homes, thereby freeing up family homes for others.

Tired garages and an isolated single-storey annex were cleared to make way for a new communal garden

The client, Andy Bates, Manager of Leathermarket CBS, also described the community benefit society’s wish to balance out a historically discriminative racial legacy where the popular 1950s estates with larger space standards were typically occupied by long-term settled white families, now under occupying their gloriously large homes; while smaller 1930s flats were occupied by black and minority families.

In 2016 Leathermarket CBS entered the housing development, and with no prior experience of where the land or money would come from, they partnered with Igloo, at the time run by the imitable Chris Brown, to guide them through the process. During the time of the Localism Act, Chris Brown was advocating to architects that there was an opportunity to work on local and meaningful projects, and in Bell Phillips they found a local architect who took on this worthwhile challenge. Bell Phillips and Leathermarket CBS now have a long-term and flourishing client-architect relationship.

The Marklake Court development, completed in 2018 on land gifted by the Council and designed by Bell Phillips, was the first project developed by Leathermarket CMS. This successful project demonstrated to both Southwark and others that community-led housing can really deliver the numbers on infill sites. Once the concept had been proved, Southwark Council decided to take on a bigger role at Joyce Newman House, taking half of the homes for their own housing allocations list. This meant that the architects were unable to replicate the intense co-design process they’d had with the future residents, as they’d done on Marklake Court. Director Hari Phillips described how the architects workshopped proposals with the residents ‘only’ seven times during the design stages – a large number by any typical development standards.

All but one of the homes are dual or triple aspect with high-performance windows to deliver cross ventilation, natural light, views, and thermal comfort with low energy-light fittings throughout

Joyce Newman House and Joseph Lancaster Terrace occupy the site of a disused former nursery and comprises two brick buildings: a new block of 34 apartments, and an adjoining terrace containing six houses. All the homes are let as affordable social rent. These two blocks complete the side of a square made by two other existing blocks of flats, thereby framing a new communal courtyard garden.

The lower terrace of homes runs along a ‘mews’ style street, with each home having a small back garden leading onto the shared courtyard garden. The apartment block consists of three stepped brick blocks, rising from four to eight storeys, with projecting balconies. Proposed shared roof terraces, so successful at Marklake Court, were vetoed by the planners in fear of anti-social behaviour, which seems like a short-sighted decision.

Some design decisions were a product of necessity, including the way both wings of housing are raised slightly off street level, a move dictated by the flood risk zoning of the site. Along Deverell Street, apartments are reached up a short flight of stairs via a generous double-height atrium. This change in levels gives the mews street in particular a sense of neighbourlyness and provides chances for children to play outside their front door.

A mix of home sizes caters for different needs – from young families to downsizers

Opaque bedroom windows to the mews street pop out of the main elevation with clear glazing in the side lights – a move designed to overcome the proximity to opposite neighbours. This simultaneously creates a characterful elevation and provides master bedrooms with daylight and privacy.

Between the mews houses and apartment block, a new pedestrian route is created though the Lawson Estate, and the central garden is left open to the public. The landscape is unpretentious and well handled by landscape architect Anna French.

The elevation on Deverell Street is animated by balconies, and Bell Phillips has included a generous over-provision of two balconies per flat, which seems to have slid through the slippery value-engineering process. Perhaps this is a result of its fortunate position as both design guardian and delivery architect while novated to the contractor.

Talking to Director Hari Phillips, he’s clearly enjoyed the rewarding and ongoing relationship with a client who’s making such a palpable and positive impact on its community. With the extensive experience in affordable housing, this scheme doesn’t seem to have posed much of a challenge to the architects. Whereas the Marklake Court scheme has some enjoyable brick flourishes, responding to the conservation area opposite, this scheme is more paired back – elegant in its understatement. The most impactful design move is to clad the balconies in a shimmering anodised perforated aluminium sheet manufactured by Cadish. The zig-zag profile creates privacy and visual uniformity, and a scalloped edge against the skyline. The balconies shimmer for passing pedestrians, and in their form and translucence, the comparison has been made to a huge collection of Donald Judd sculptures.

Perhaps that’s the real skill here of Bell Phillips’ design. Whereas much of its work is known for its characterful material flourishes, in this scheme they’ve focused on a robust layout, with the material exuberance judiciously focussed on the balconies.

Anodised perforated aluminium sheeting is used to clad the balconies

In terms of sustainability, the designs were conceived in 2018 making it one of the last schemes to be completed under the previous iteration of the Building Regulations. Green roofs and solar panels add to the story.

Ongoing costs to the social housing tenants are of prime concern to Andy and the team at Leathermarket CBS, and they highlighted their concern that the scheme entails a higher level of service charge compared to their other 20th century housing stock. This is the natural outcome of having contemporary facilities, such as the lift, but there’s also an infuriating discrepancy in terms of council tax. Southwark Council is currently valuing these elegant new homes as of equivalent value to the luxury flats of the nearby Elephant Gardens, despite their affordable social rent status, and the allocated tax band means residents are paying a disproportionate level of council tax.

The client-architect relationship is progressing on a number of other estate infill sites in the area, but in some ways the Leathermarket CBS is doing so well in creating such high-quality affordable homes, that there’s the potential danger of it seeming like Southwark Council’s happy face of housing development. Though anyone who has taken a walk with Andy Bates through this patch of South London will see how many residents he stops to chat to, illustrating the real commitment and familiarity he has for his tenants and the estates he manages.

All in all, Joyce Newman House is an example of an extremely rewarding housing delivery model, providing for real local need, sensitively and creatively handled by Bell Phillips.

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