Langham Square

Goddard Manton Architects has amassed a strong portfolio of buildings located on Upper Richmond Road and in the East Hill Area. Langham Square represents the successful implementation of evolved residential design and site planning combined with strong urban design principles to deliver a complete project combining 104 residential units, commercial units and a public space. Goddard Manton Architects were appointed by St. James, a division of the Berkeley Group, to produce a design proposal for a redundant office building site at 77-83 Upper Richmond Road Putney. The site forms part of the public precinct surrounding the East Putney station that could be considered as East gateway into the Putney commercial corridor, which extends from East Putney station to Putney High Street. The redevelopment proposals comprise a residential led mixed use scheme which includes apartments, office accommodation, retail and café/restaurant use accommodated within two buildings of 13 and 9 storeys. Publically accessible commercial uses are located at ground level, with office and residential units above. The massing arrangement of two buildings on this highly constrained site, orientated on a North South axis allows for the penetration of sunlight into the centre of the site. A single level link block to the rear of the site forms a surround to an open central public piazza which creates and extension to the public space associated with adjacent railway station, whilst introducing new vibrant and active frontages to the area. The massing of the blocks is reduced by ‘fragmentation’ introduced into the design of the both plan and elevational treatments. The elevations are broken down into distinctive components to further segment the building form. This includes cutting away the lower sections of the blocks on the street frontage to produce a greater public precinct at ground level. The extensively glazed and well-lit frontage to these areas will provide a high degree of overlooking and ‘sense of security’ to the pedestrian precinct. The central public space is intended to incorporate a high level of flexibility not only as an outdoor café and restaurant usage in the summer months, but winter seasonal facilities such as ‘farmers markets’, public events etc. A ‘winter garden’ is incorporated into the restaurant space at the end of the piazza to maintain a permanent ‘active frontage’, reminiscent of the Paris sidewalk café.