Karakusevic Carson’s estate-wide improvement plans for Broadwater Farm Estate in the London Borough of Haringey have been granted planning approval. Guided by our overarching Urban Design Framework (UDF), the approval is for 242 replacement council homes and 52 additional new homes which will be delivered on the sites of two blocks, which were found in 2018 to have irreparable structural issues, and a vacant school site, to the north of the estate.
Through a Community Design Group and regular, wider engagement events, residents have played a key role in defining the brief for Broadwater Farm including; maintaining the generous open character of public spaces, designing the new community park, ensuring 100% of new homes are dual-aspect and the criteria for improving existing homes. Residents have shown strong support for the proposals with 85% voting in favour of our plans at a public ballot in March 2022.
The layout and massing of the new housing has been informed by the contrasting urban conditions of the post-war estate and the surrounding grain of Edwardian streets nearby. Our new buildings will repair the physically fragmented neighbourhood and work with retained buildings to define a new network of pedestrian friendly streets. Framing half a mile of streets across the estate, our new buildings incorporate an affordable Enterprise Centre, a wellbeing hub with GP practice and a new shop and are arranged to generate a strong civic presence on key routes and bring to life currently inactive and car-dominated public realm. Generous public space is woven through this new townscape, with consistent pavements, semi-public courtyards and a new, centrally located community park.
The new buildings include 35% family homes with a wide variety of larger house types including; terraced houses, ground and upper-level maisonettes and triple aspect rooftop apartments, creating homes that prioritise individual needs as well as the varying experiences and choices of residents. As few of the existing homes have private outdoor space, requirements for outdoor amenity space for new dwellings have inspired the creation of generous and more various thresholds between the street and the new homes with open and usable access galleries onto courtyards, semi-protruding balconies to streets and south facing projecting balconies.
To support the long-term quality of life of residents and help achieve Haringey Council’s targets to be net-zero carbon, all new homes incorporate passive measures and will be connected into a wider district heat network to reduce fuel bills, which will also decarbonise the wider estate.
Lead Architect and Masterplanner: Karakusevic Carson Architects
Collaborating Architect: Architecture Doing Place
Landscape & Public Realm designers: East
Planning Consultant: CMA (Charles Moran Associates)
Transport & Waste Consultant: Velocity
MEP Engineering & Sustainability: XCO2
Structural and Civil Engineering: Elliott Wood
Fire Engineering: Trigon Fire
Ecology Consultant: Temple Group
Daylight & Sunlight Consultant: Waldrams
PFB Construction Management: CDM
Community and Engagement: Karakusevic Carson Architects, Beyond the Box Consultants,
The Means, The Glass-House Community-led Design
