Lansdowne Apartments
Octagon
London 2004
The idea here was to create not another conventional block of flats,
but a series of lateral houses, each ‘house’ occupying a single floor,
with an upper duplex apartment. The equivalent of a London terraced
house in terms of floor space – considerably more in the case of the
duplex - these apartments would enjoy the privacy and individual character of
a conventional house, with the security, open interiors and aspect
associated with apartment living.
Key to the exterior form was the project’s corner site, meaning
that the design had to deal simultaneously with two strikingly
different contexts - the dignified villas of Lansdowne Crescent and the
larger scale structures of Ladbroke Grove.
In
2003 the project was sold by the commissioning developer. While the
exterior was subsequently realised in accordance with the original
scheme, significant modifications where made to the interiors.