Architecture and design Archives - Page 3 of 3

Furnishing your new Pocket home

November 23, 2015April 12, 2021 Hannah Godwin 3 Comments

A house doesn’t become a home until you put a personal stamp on the place. After the potential stress of buying a house, the real fun begins with decorating. Helpfully, our Pocket homes provide plenty of space and flexibility, whether you are buying furniture for your new home, picking out a specific living room rug or catching the eye with a statement art piece.

However, with various rooms and functions to consider, knowing where to start is far from easy. If the idea of how to furnish a new home gives you a headache, this guide could be useful for you.

Pocket Regen – a new way to regenerate London’s housing estates

September 15, 2015February 2, 2016 Hannah Godwin 1 Comment

Pocket Regen , is our submission for the NLA’s recent competition, ‘New Ideas for Housing London’. Pocket Regen is a new way of managing estate regeneration. By engaging openly with estate communities, and offering real reasons to welcome regeneration, we can provide additional 100% affordable housing for the very people that make this city great.

Cladding our new tower with teapots

June 24, 2015November 22, 2019 Hannah Godwin 7 Comments

View 3_150204 Facade View

Pocket has just received consent from the planning committee to proceed to build a 24 storey tower of affordable homes in Wandsworth. This is big news! A tower in Wandsworth with 63 Pocket homes might not make us a giant in the world of property development but it does symbolise the fact that we’ve come of age. London desperately needs more starter homes for its city makers, and we’re working hard to help deliver as many as we can. Moving into the world of towers means we can deliver more affordable homes on a tight plot of land in a great location.

But what about the teapots?

Our first tower at Mapleton Crescent SW18 is designed by award-winning architects Metropolitan Workshop. Met Workshop are well known for their innovative work, and we briefed them to come up with a proposal for this scheme that contributed positively to the local area, and stood as a thing of beauty – while at the same time delivering affordable new homes for the way London’s city makers live today. Met Workshop are working with ceramiscist Loraine Rutt to develop a range of striking green tiles with which to clad the building.

Designing for community at Marcon Place E8

May 28, 2015August 4, 2015 Hannah Godwin Leave a comment

By Tom Westwood, Waugh Thistleton Architects, Associate

Marcon Place E8 is Waugh Thistleton’s first built project for Pocket, and Pocket’s first endeavour in Hackney – working together proved a perfect match. We’ve done a good amount of work in the Borough, and Pocket knows the way to getting good quality, fairly-priced housing in the areas that people want to live and work.

At the forefront of Marcon Place E8 was always the commitment to strong design, so we worked closely with the team at Pocket to create smart, thoughtful, and welcoming spaces. What ultimately developed is a design that proves that high density housing can employ natural materials, a human scale and a generosity of communal spaces. It proves to residents that there need not be a compromise in the quality of accommodation required to enjoy the benefits of central London living.

Marcon Place’s 31 homes are arranged in four blocks around a landscaped courtyard which forms the heart of the scheme. This common outdoor area inspires community living and gives Marcon Place that splash of green all tenants desire.

Marcon Place early sketch

Is it really a compromise to have less living space?

May 11, 2015September 17, 2020 Hannah Godwin 1 Comment

The London property market is getting more and more expensive, so it makes sense that young buyers are finding they need to ‘compromise’ to get their foot on the housing ladder – moving to less popular, less central areas is all part of London’s evolution, and buyers are expecting less and less space as they go further out. But is having less space really a compromise?

More space costs more to furnish, more to heat, and gives you more room to keep more stuff, while today’s young workforce is trying to minimize all of this.

Are we suffering from Stuffocation?

James Wallman’s book Stuffocation (www.stuffocation.org) describes that, the consumer culture of the west is starting to wane; people are finding that more does not mean better. He looks at this from a range of angles and all the indicators seem to be pointing in the same direction. The new digital generation coming of age now can be viewed from various intellectual perspectives:

Political scientists say they have grown up in relative stability and therefore don’t feel the need to hoard material goods
Environmentalists will tell you that the threat of global warming has meant a greater consciousness of consumption
Psychologists note that earning more and buying more doesn’t equate to happiness
Economists also point out that in a world of rising costs and stagnating incomes, most people simply do not have the money to keep buying more stuff
Technologists tell us the reason why we are turning away from material goods is, actually, because we can. After all, what’s the point of owning physical books and CDs when you can access them from the cloud?

Marcon Place E8 – nearly there

April 27, 2015April 29, 2015 Hannah Godwin 2 Comments

Marcon Place E8 will be the next Pocket building to welcome residents – 28 city makers will be moving into their very first homes, just a stone’s throw from Hackney Downs station, within the next couple of months. We’re in the final throes of construction, and the Pocket team went to check on progress last week. This handsome brick building is looking really good, especially in the Spring sunshine! It was amazing to stand in the courtyard and imagine the activity this central communal outdoor space will be seeing over the years to come. The external stairwells have a striking red paint finish, with lovely tactile timber hand rails, and there’s specially-designed timber slatting to allow views into the courtyard. We’re introducing the residents to each other this week at a local wine bar, and now all we need is a move in date! The last few weeks of a construction project are always tight and slightly stressful as we try to achieve all the sign-offs and checks to confirm that the building is ready for occupation, and manage the expectations and excitement of the buyers. Not long to go now, Pocket people!

Pocket two bedroom – setting the standard for a compact two bedroom home

February 9, 2015April 24, 2015 Hannah Godwin Leave a comment

Customers love our Pocket one bedroom apartment design, but there are plenty of people out there who want an affordable, compact two bedroom home in London. They might be friends buying together, a couple who have plans to start a family, or homeworkers who need the extra room.

Planning policy currently states that a two bedroom home must be a minimum of 61sqm in size, which allows for a household of three adults, and is generally unaffordable to the first time buyer market.

We thought that there might be a better offer for first time buyers looking for a two bedroom home, by using compact design to develop a proposal for two adults – a two bedroom two person offer (2b2p).