Charity Building, Hackney, East London

We were approached to form a feasibility project and for a charity in Hackney, East London. They currently had 2 sites, which housed a wide range of different uses including office space for staff, a bakery, cafe, art rooms, and counciling rooms. Thye hoped to increase the floor area of one of their premises and update it so that they could then vacate the second unit and receive a rental income.

Due to the tight nature of the side and the planning restriction in place due to a previous pre planning application, we choose to keep the extension minimal by simply lifting the roof on the pitched roof element of the building to create another floor which would house the office space. This would then in open onto the flat roof which would become a roof terrace / garden area. We open up the basement level by removing the solid concrete slab and replacing it with a metal grate to increase sunlight into the lightwell below. We choose the ground floor front of the building to include the cafe space with direct street frontage, the rear facing onto the courtyard garden for the art room, and basement for the bakery and councilling rooms.

For the facade materials we chose to sand blast the front to take it back to the original brickwork. The new Crittal glazing, charred black timber for the roof terrace boundary and black zinc for the pitched roof extension all sought to complement this red brick.