Between the lines: living with industry.

To rise to the challenge of creating 1.5 million new homes we must consider using our land more effectively. To do this we must rethink issues related to green, brown, and grey site development and examine the urban fabric around us.

Hidden in plain sight are important Strategic Industrial Locations (SIL) vital to the ebb and flow of materials which serve our daily needs. Current planning policies segregating industrial from residential uses were developed to protect from noise, pollution, and disturbances between seemingly “conflicting” uses. 

We believe it is time to rethink planning rigidity and to acknowledge that co-location is an everyday occurrence within dense urban centres. Our scheme is a provocation of the “binary” nature of policies. We have identified several key SIL sites with railhead access throughout London and will use Battersea’s Stewarts Lane Rail Depot as a test site to develop a thoroughly mixed development of over 500 new quality homes.

At the micro scale, our work will retain, consolidate, and intensify existing industrial uses with a framework of horizontal and vertical co-location using modular construction with goods provided by rail. We will reframe the perception of industrial sites through a human centric and planet first approach to how we live and how goods move through the city.

We will address buildability, acoustics, carbon expenditure, we will employ Passive House design principles and will create a new sustainable neighbourhood.

Our team is made of HomeGrown Plus (engagement), Expedition Engineering (sustainable cities), The Robert Bird Group (over rail development), Third Revolution (planning), and Atelier Crescendo (acoustics).