News: architect David Adjaye has been commissioned to design a fashion hub in Hackney as part of efforts to regenerate the area after the 2011 riots.

The £100 million Hackney Fashion Hub will be supported with £2 million from a regeneration fund set up by the Greater London Authority to help businesses and retailers affected by the rioting.

Working with Manhattan Loft Corporation, the developers behind the restoration of London's St Pancras Renaissance hotel, Adjaye will create a permanent retail space in two buildings to include shops, a cafe, restaurant and design studios.

"Our proposals offer a beacon for Hackney Central," said Adjaye. "The buildings will create a light-filled, compelling environment that captures Hackney’s creative energy, gives local residents a sense of pride in their built environment and provides an exciting new draw for visitors."

The area is already home to a small cluster of fashion outlets for luxury brands Burberry, Pringle and Aquascutum.

In 2006 the Tanzanian-born architect was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize for his Whitechapel Idea Store, a glass-fronted community building in another deprived part of east London. A year later he was awarded an OBE for services to British architecture.

Last year Adjaye completed two neighbourhood libraries in Washington DC and topped a list of Britain's most influential black people – see all architecture by David Adjaye.

See more architecture and design from Hackney.

Here's the full press release:

New Hackney Landmark Looks Set to Create Hundreds of Jobs in East London

Renowned architect David Adjaye has been commissioned to design a new landmark for Hackney: a world class fashion development in E9.

Manhattan Loft Corporation, the developers behind the St Pancras Renaissance restoration and Chatham Works are looking to build a new ‘fashion hub’ on Morning Lane and Chatham Place.

As part of the plans, which will be submitted to the London Borough of Hackney at the end of March permanent retail space will be provided across two buildings over five and eight floors.

The buildings will be located on Morning Lane. Alongside leading fashion houses offering customers the opportunity to buy discounted goods, design studios will also be created where up and coming local designers can showcase and sell their products; making the fashion hub a unique centre for Hackney’s design community.

The hope is that the provision of a permanent fashion hub will create hundreds of jobs for local people.

It will be the UK’s first inner-city fashion outlet centre, providing a complete shopping experience.

Harry Handelsman, Chief Executive of Manhattan Loft Corporation, said: “The aim of this fashion hub is to establish a focus in Hackney Town Centre for the promotion of both local and international brands involved in the design, manufacture and sale of retail products.

“It will deliver major investment and lasting regeneration to this part of London and we hope to be able to encourage more creative people to bring companies such as Tatty Devine, Black Truffle and Fabrications into the area. We are incredibly excited about making the heart of Hackney an international focal point for the world of fashion.”

Jack Basrawy, of Chatham Works said: “We’ve been working closely with Hackney Council’s Ways into Work scheme, a programme that supports the unemployed, so that Hackney residents are at the front of the queue for the new jobs. Pringle and Aquascutum are already employing Hackney residents. Our proposals will hopefully create even more job opportunities for local people.”

David Adjaye, Principal Architect of Adjaye Associates, who was named Most Influential Black Figure of 2012 and is recognised as producing some of the best building designs in the world, said: “Our proposals offer a beacon for Hackney Central. The buildings will create a light-filled, compelling environment that captures Hackney’s creative energy, gives local residents a sense of pride in their built environment and provides an exciting new draw for visitors.”

Digby Nicklin, Commercial Director of Commercial Estate at Network Rail, said: “Across the capital, we are working with our neighbours to open up and renovate arches to attract niche entrepreneurs and build business communities.

“Working with small business through arch development schemes we are also helping to regenerate parts of London and creating employment opportunities.”

The permanent world class fashion development will replace the temporary structures which have already been created on site by Manhattan Loft Corporation and Chatham Works and which currently house leading fashion brands Pringle and Aquascutum.

Work has already started to convert the railway arches in Morning Lane between Churchwell Path and Link Street into new retail spaces; also designed by Adjaye Associates these will sit alongside the new development.

The plans for the development will see some 7,000 square metres of new retail space created for fashion outlets, a café, restaurant and design studios.

In addition to new open space, pedestrianised areas and signage will be created to encourage visitors to explore Hackney Central and visit Mare Street, Narroway and other surrounding retail areas.

Hackney Council, Network Rail and the Mayor of London have provided support for the scheme, which is set to create jobs for local people and benefit local businesses, with the expected increase in visitors to the area. Local people are currently being consulted about the plans. If granted permission in the summer of this year the fashion hub could be built by 2016.

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Nicknamed the Gingerbread House by neighbours, the two-storey house sits behind the reconstructed wall of a former Victorian box factory and its tall windows overlap the mismatched brickwork.

"I and the planners were keen to retain something of the original building envelope," Laura Dewe Mathews told Dezeen. "The pale grey/blue bricks were part of the workshop when I bought it and the clean London stock bricks were infills."

The architect drew inspiration from decorative vernacular architecture in Russia to design the cedar-shingle facade, then added windows framed by thick galvanised steel surrounds.

"I was keen that the cladding somehow softened the sharp silhouette of the overall, stylised building form and thought the round 'fancy butts' might achieve this," she said. "Contemporary architecture can often be perceived to be severe and alienating and I wanted to avoid that. I hope the balance of the sharp galvanised steel window reveals and cills versus the round singles manages to be more friendly."

To avoid overlooking neighbouring houses, all windows had to be placed on the north-facing street elevation, so Dewe Mathews also added a large skylight to bring in natural light from above.

A double-height kitchen and dining room sits below this skylight on one side of the house and opens out to a small patio. The adjoining two-storey structure contains a living room on the ground floor, plus a bedroom, bathroom and small study upstairs.

Walls and ceilings are lined with timber panels, while a resin floor runs throughout the house.

The building was the winner of the AJ Small Projects Awards 2013. Also nominated was a wooden folly that cantilevers across a garden lake and a reed-covered tower that functions as a camera obscura.

Scale-like facades have featured in a few buildings over the last year, including a university building in Melbourne and an apartment block in alpine Slovenia.

Photography is by Chloe Dewe Mathews.

Above: the original site

Here's a project description from Laura Dewe Mathews:

Box House / "Gingerbread House"

This is the first new build project by Laura Dewe Mathews. The motivation for the project was to create a domestic set of spaces with generous proportions and lots of natural light while working with a limited budget.

Above: ground floor plan - click above for larger image

The site was originally part of the garden of an early Victorian end of terrace house in Hackney. It was first built on in the 1880s, to provide Mr Alfred Chinn (the then resident of the end of terrace house) with space for his box factory, making wooden boxes for perfume and jewellery.

Above: first floor plan - click above for larger image

In discovering the history of the site, Laura Dewe Mathews was drawn to assemble yet another box inside the original envelope of the factory.

Above: cross section through kitchen and dining room

The one bed, new-build house was recently completed using a cross-laminated timber super structure, placed inside the existing perimeter brickwork walls and rising up out of them. The timber structure has been left exposed internally. Externally the palette of materials is limited to the original and infill brickwork, round "fancy-butt" western red cedar shingles and galvanised steel flashings, window frames and window reveals. The soft shape of the shingles contrasting with the crisp edges of the galvanized steel.

Above: cross section through living room and bedroom

The form of the proposal was a response to tricky site constraints, common for urban developments in already built up areas. The neighbours’ rights to sunlight, daylight and privacy needed to be respected. Consequently the only elevation that could have any windows was the north facing, pavement fronted elevation. The proposal counters this with large south facing roof-lights; added to this, light is brought into the main living spaces via a new private yard.

Above: front elevation

At 80msq the result is a small yet generously proportioned house. At ground floor level it retains the openness of the original workshop while feeling a sense of separation from the street immediately adjacent.

Above: side elevations

Structural engineer: Tall Engineers
Main contractor: J & C Meadows, now incorporated within IMS Building Solutions

Above: rear elevation

Sub contractor/suppliers:
KLH – cross laminated timber super structure
Stratum – resin flooring
Vincent timber – cedar shingle supplier
The Rooflight Company – roof light supplier
Roy Middleton – bespoke joinery including kitchen
MPM engineering – stainless steel to kitchen

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by Laura Dewe Mathews appeared first on Dezeen.

The fit-out is the latest in a string of installations at the venue by artists and designers. "Normally it involves mostly the walls and perhaps some lighting," East London Furniture's Christian Dillon told Dezeen. "We wanted to take over the whole bar."

The team removed all the furniture and replaced it with tables made from pallets and ceiling joists, plus benches inspired by nineteenth century Shaker furniture.

"We created all of the free-standing seating, tables and lighting in our workshop, but left the inbuilt elements to be created in situ," said Dillon. "So much of the inbuilt seating, especially the booth or 'pulpit', were conceived in the space from materials we had to hand."

The team have lined the walls and front of the counter with wooden panels, while the throne-like seating booth is made from old skirting boards and fills the recess beside a staircase.

The cube-shaped lights hanging above the bar were created from the offcuts of other furniture made by the team and the wall-mounted lighting was produced from recycled wooden blocks.

Friend and regular collaborator Alessandro Mistrulli has decorated many of the surfaces with illustrations showing severed arms and wood-working tools. "I think I saw him reading a book on Russian prison tattoos the night before he delivered the main graphic," said Dillon.

The installation will remain in place for two months, but was completed to coincide with the London Design Festival last week.

"For us to have a show in the festival, where people are actually using the furniture to have a nice meal, a nice beer or chatting to a nice girl or guy is so much more interesting than a static display of our furniture," explained Dillon.

Dillon and team mates Ben Green and Reuben Le Prevost founded the Hackney-based furniture company in 2011 - see our earlier story about them here.

A past installation we've featured at DreamBags JaguarShoes featured wallpaper that changes under different lighting conditions.

See more stories about the London Design Festival »

Photography is by Jeff Metal, courtesy of JaguarShoes Collective.

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