Studio Stolon has completed an exemplar, low-carbon housing project on a backland site in Beckenham.

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George B Ward

Designed by Stolon Studio, Stables Yard comprises six homes and a coach house located on a backland site set between Victorian terraces in Beckenham, London. Conceived as an exemplar low-carbon, flood-resilient development, the brief from the developer/contractor client was simple: build the best possible houses for the site – homes to be proud of, not just now but into the future.

The building form, which was developed in response to site constraints, flood-risk, easements, outlook and privacy, lends itself to modern methods of construction, says the architect. This appealed to the client as it provided an opportunity to showcase the strengths of his team in joinery and carpentry. The off-site manufactured timber frame is clad in colourful yet durable cementitious planks to a carefully coordinated, but seemingly random pattern. This arrangement not only facilitates a subtle play of dappled light filtered through the surrounding trees, but also creates a distinct unifying identity.

In common with all of the practice’s ‘sociable housing’ projects, private space is combined with valuable shared amenity, contributing to and supporting the residential community. The dining spaces at the front of the houses open onto a shared access deck – a semi-private space for a morning coffee, doorstep play and incidental interaction. The living areas open onto private outdoor decks at the rear with gardens beyond. Meadow-like planting adds biodiversity to an area dominated by hard surfaces. Rooms on the first floor benefit from vaulted ceilings, which aid passive ‘stack’ cooling. Window louvres provide a degree of privacy and summer shading.

the need for flood resilience (due to the development’s proximity to a culverted river) and onsite parking, led the team to set the parking over a 70-cubic-metre cellular storage tank, capped by a permeable surface. This also creates a change of levels which is used to help mediate private and communal space.

The project adopts a ‘fabric first’ approach to reducing carbon in-use, combining a highly insulated building envelope with an east/west orientation to benefit from solar gain, without the risk of overheating. Elsewhere, the houses incorporate air source heat pumps (discreetly located along the deck), mechanical heat recovery, solar photovoltaic panels and electric car charging points.

Using the EPC assessment, the dwellings achieve an A rating (97) and emit 0.1 tonnes of CO2 per annum. The average home is EPC D (60) and emits 6 tonnes of CO2 per annum. Less than one per cent of London homes offer similar benefits, says the architect, but this does not take into account any impact that the sharing of resources will have.

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