Award for Best Use of a Brownfield Site
CRYSTAL CLEAR
Angel Waterside is one of several developments in Islington by Grove Manor Homes (the trading name of Groveworld), earlier schemes including Angel on the Green and Angel Southside. Most of Groveworld's developments are joint ventures with other companies such as Frogmore, but this is a joint venture with PTE Services, the development arm of an award-winning firm of architects, Pollard Thomas Edwards, who have done other developments, including their own offices at Diespeker Wharf, formerly a Grade II listed Victorian mill building adjoining Harris Wharf. PTE are very much the new breed of architects who are also enablers, with seven directors, 94 staff and offices in London and Liverpool.
In this case, PTEA were both architects and developers who won an open competition held by British Waterways in 1998 for the Harris Wharf site fronting the City Road Basin of the Regent's Canal. The site was formerly a timber storage warehouse and yard owned by C F Anderson & Son. PTE's winning design was for a mixed-use canalside development of 57 flats and 15,000 sq ft of offices, plus a landscaped courtyard and basement parking.
Following the competition, PTE went into a joint-venture partnership with Groveworld as co-developers of the scheme, for which they are also the architects. Islington's planners were keen to see a spectacular building on this prominent site, and PTE obliged with strong visual forms and innovative detailing.
The £7-million development consists of three linked blocks arranged round a landscaped courtyard, with the fourth side formed by Diespeker Wharf (whose restoration and conversion gained a Civic Trust commendation in 2000). Planting will eventually cascade down the sloping roof of Crystal Wharf, the second phase of the development, to continue the green chain of canalside planting already established by the adjoining garden of Diespeker's Wharf, created by demolishing a large area of semi-derelict outbuildings of the original mill.
The first phase of apartments is a red-brick building called Palazzo, and the third building is a low-rise metal-clad wing fronting onto Graham Street with a glazed entrance lodge. Sales prices of the 57 apartments ranged from £200,000 to £1.5 million.
Homebuilder: HARRIS WHARF DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LIMITED - A joint venture
4a Helenslea Avenue, London NW11 8ND
Tel 020 8455 3999
Fax 020 8455 8015
Wesbite: www.angelwaterside.co.uk
Contact: Jeff Duggan, Director.
Email: jduggan@groveworld.co.uk
PTE SERVICES LIMITED
Diespeker Wharf, 38 Graham Street, London N1 8JX
Tel 020 7336 7777
Fax 020 7336 0770
Website: www.ptea.co.uk
Contact: Andrew Beharrell, Director.
Email: andrew.beharrell@ptea.co.uk
Architects: POLLARD THOMAS EDWARDS ARCHITECTS
Diespeker Wharf, 38 Graham Street, London N1 8JX
Tel 020 7336 7777
Fax 020 7336 0770
Website: www.ptea.co.uk
Contact: Stephen Fisher, Director.
Email: stephen.fisher@ptea.co.uk