HTA@50 - Kender Triangle
With an established reputation for large scale urban renewal HTA were selected by Hyde Housing Group and residents to work with them to provide designs for new homes and transform the 350 flats of the Kender Estate in Lewisham. The partnership has enabled a remarkable and prolonged transformation of the area known as the Kender Triangle providing more than 500 new homes.
Collaborating with Hyde and residents to deliver planning consents and then with contractor Geoffrey Osborne on the construction, HTA would work from conception to completion on several phases of development over 15 years. The longevity of the relationships has enabled the same design team to demonstrate the evolution in London housing design, take account of procurement and tenure changes, construction practises and technical changes all in one location, remarkable in today’s construction industry.
Commencing the first phase in 2001, developing open areas in front of existing blocks on Queens road allowed 100% re-provision with new homes. Both Phase One and Phase Two were constructed with a pioneering use of timber frame to five storeys to complete 190 homes in two years. The next phase took on the former Avonley Hospital site and included the refurbishment of some of its Victorian buildings alongside new timber frame Flats and houses completing in 2006. This was quickly followed by the 2007 completion of a landmark building sited beside Phase 2 and local amenities providing 12 shared ownership units with a new resident’s community building and retail space.
Phase 3 facing Eckington Gardens embraced off site manufacture being constructed using the Innovare system, a Structural Insulated Panel System (SIPS) to provide 76 homes for Affordable rent and sale and was completed in 2009. The final, largest and most complex phase combined a multi-storey storey tower, midrise flats of masonry construction around courtyards and 3-storey houses of timber frame to provide over 200 homes to complete the transformation of the area. The result was described by Lewisham Independent Design Review panel as exemplary.
The redesign of the housing mix has greatly benefited both existing and new residents providing a greater number of spacious houses with large private gardens for families, attractive communal gardens and improvements to the public realm. Through consultation, successful placemaking and productive working relationships the estate has been rejuvenated and expanded maintaining the strong sense of community at Kender.
