A “ribbon” of curved concrete crowns Forest Road, a brick apartment block in London that local practice Gort Scott designed to reference the area’s connections to the 20th-century Arts and Crafts movement.
Designed for Pocket Living – a developer specialising in small homes for first-time buyers – the block in Walthamstow provides 90 one-bedroom apartments overlooking Lloyd Park, the site of the Grade II-listed William Morris Gallery.
Its prominent corner plot was formerly occupied by a defunct, fenced-off care home, and Gort Scott saw Forest Road as an opportunity to open up the site to its surroundings and better reflect the area’s existing built fabric.
“There had previously been a poor quality post-war building on the site, which sat uncomfortably with the Victorian terraces that dominate this part of Walthamstow and at an oblique angle to surrounding streets,” Gort Scott associate Andrew Tam told Dezeen.
“We saw an opportunity to create a building whose presence engages more positively with the terraced houses that surround it and its prominent location on arterial Forest Road, while nevertheless offering a different typology, ” Tam added.
The brick volumes of Forest Road form a V-shape in plan, creating a new frontage on both the adjoining main road and side street while leaving space for a large communal courtyard behind.
Looking to foster a sense of what Tam calls a “mutually supportive community”, both this courtyard and the apartments are accessed off a generous entrance lobby.
This lobby connects both wings of the V-shape plan with a skylit, open-sided stairwell.
“The building is in a prominent location so we felt it important for it to have a civic presence,” Tam said.
“The site’s angled geometry and three-sidedness was a challenge that we turned into an opportunity – without it we wouldn’t have the dramatic lightwell and stair that provides the building’s central moment,” he added.
While predominantly finished in buff brick, Forest Road has been enlivened with a series of details that nod to the area’s Arts and Crafts history.
On the window lintels and top of the building, sections of concave pigmented concrete reference the curved bay windows of the William Morris Gallery, while deep red tiles line the entrance lobby.
In collaboration with cultural programmers Hive Curates, two murals by local artist Adriana Jaros were added to each side of the building.
“The murals aren’t as shouty and obvious as other street art in the area and look like they’ve always belonged to the building with plaques explaining the creative and inclusive process behind them,” said Tam.
“We used pigmented concrete decorative details at the crown of the building to complement the brick. Placed together, they create a ribbon that wraps around the top of the building, and give it a lightness when viewed from the street,” he added.
Forest Road is the second scheme completed by Gort Scott for Pocket Living in Walthamstow, following the Gainsford Road scheme that opened in 2018.
Other projects by the studio include the redevelopment of a college at the University of Oxford, which reunites it with a nearby river, and a concrete house that hugs a rocky crag in Whistler.
The photography is by Jack Hobhouse.
