Dezeen Magazine

Cadence by Alison Brooks Architects
Alison Brooks believes that housing should feature more balconies

Alison Brooks Architects unveils brick archways on London apartments

Red brick archways define the lower and topmost levels of Cadence, a housing development designed by Alison Brooks Architects next to Coal Drops Yard at King's Cross, London.

A total of 103 homes will be built behind the brick facades.

Cadence by Alison Brooks Architects

Dramatic brick archways will form a colonnade along the ground floor, reflected back in a water feature in a central courtyard. White-washed vaulted communal spaces will feature at the entrance.

Arches will also feature at the top of a multi-storey block of apartments that will have a row of recessed balconies.

Cadence by Alison Brooks Architects

"We've created a new language of brick arches and vaulted spaces that echo the exuberant architecture of King's Cross and St Pancras stations," said architect Alison Brooks, founder of Alison Brooks Architects.

"It will reveal itself slowly as you move around and through it."

Cadence by Alison Brooks Architects

Designed for developer Argent, the 103 homes will be a combination of studios, and one, two and three bedroom apartments.

Conran and Partners, the architecture firm that recently converted Centre Point tower into housing, will be designing the interiors for 53 of the Cadence homes.

Cadence by Alison Brooks Architects

Small homes developer Pocket Living will be managing the other 60 units in the development, renting them out to local workers on middle incomes.

Pocket Living collaborated with architecture studio Metropolitan Workshop to build a 27-storey tower of 86 apartments in Wandsworth.

Cadence by Alison Brooks Architects

Cadence, which is due to complete in 2022, will be located in London King's Cross area, close to the Thomas Heatherwick-designed shopping centre Coal Drops Yard.

Heatherwick converted two 19th-century coal houses for the project, adding swooping slate roofs that meet in the middle.

Cadence by Alison Brooks Architects

A large swathe of land behind the King's Cross railway station is under redevelopment. Victorian gas holders have been turned into housing by WilkinsonEyre, and both Facebook and Google are building office blocks.

Alison Brooks founded her eponymous architecture studio in 1996 The studio was a finalist for the Mies van der Rohe Award for a development of 44 homes that is part of the  South Kilburn Estate Regeneration Masterplan.