Maitland Park Estate Redevelopment, Camden, London

2025 RIBA London Award

Cullinan Studio with ECE Westworks for Camden Council
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 10,377m²

Maitland Park delivers 119 new homes and a new community hall on a large Camden council-owned estate in-between Chalk Farm and Gospel Oak. It is a community-centric design, delivering high-quality, low-energy homes with generous private and shared external amenity.

The estate, arranged around a large central park, was built in the 1930s and redeveloped in phases until the 1980s. The latest designs for two previously developed sites were the result of extensive consultation over several years. While refurbishment of the former buildings was considered, there was a desire from the tenants for new homes.

The well-considered layout accommodates the new homes in three principal buildings. One sits at the end of the park, on the site of a former single-storey community centre, which is provided at its base. This building combines a short tower, acknowledging the sequence of existing towers in the park landscape, with a lower street frontage that reflects the surrounding older terraces.

A single townhouse sits apart from this block, framing a route from the street to the park. The second and third buildings form a reciprocal pair perpendicular to the central park, reflecting the large apartment buildings that give a built edge to the open landscape. A U-shaped block sits to the rear of the site with a smaller point block at the front of the site. This arrangement allows for double aspects to homes while allowing direct sunlight into a central courtyard. New hard and soft landscaping surrounds the buildings, providing a high-quality shared amenity.

The new homes are for both social rented and private ownership, in a variety of sizes to address Camden’s pressing housing needs. All have either ground-floor gardens or generous projecting balconies. Fully accessible and adaptable dwellings are incorporated across the development.

The three buildings adopt the same palette of brown brick and complementary lighter-coloured detailing that has some consistency across the various periods of building on the estate. The strong horizontal banding, further emphasised by the projecting terraces, frames subtly patterned brick panels that show a care for detail. Overall, these clearly contemporary buildings fit positively within their context.

All the homes benefit from good natural light and cross ventilation. High levels of insulation and good airtightness enable the use of air-source heat pumps powered by rooftop photovoltaic panels. The scheme has achieved the BRE Home Quality Mark accreditation, based on an assessment of occupant wellbeing. Such ambitions were ahead of their time.

The jury admired how the scheme exemplifies a community-focused approach to delivering much-needed new homes that are environmentally responsible and positively affect not just the lives of those who inhabit them, but those who live around them too.

See the rest of the 2025 RIBA London winners here. And all our RIBA UK Award winners here.

View the full RIBA UK Awards 2025 process.

 

RIBA Regional Awards 2025 sponsored by Autodesk, EH Smith, Equitone and Velux