An innovative co-living urban development in Waltham Forest reaches practical completion 27.04.26

The Altham at No 1 Blackhorse Lane in northeast London has reached practical completion. Developed for Scape Living, this innovative co-living scheme delivers 321 apartments with a series of shared residential amenity spaces, ground floor public café and new purpose-built cultural venue.

Located on a prominent site opposite Blackhorse Lane station the new building engages with the urban corner of Blackhorse Lane and Forest Road, mediating the busy crossroads and emerging context of newer taller buildings to the west of the site and established lower residential buildings to the east through a series of stepped planted terraces. This articulated massing provides each floor with an outside terrace. Furthermore, as the form of the building tiers up, it creates a south facing landscaped courtyard adjacent to the shared amenity spaces for the building.

The stepped form is enhanced floor by floor by continuous horizontal banding of articulated brickwork that wrap around the building define the balconies as they step back. At the base of the building, a colonnade wraps along the building’s south and east public street facing facades, integrating the new public realm and providing a clear civic street frontage to the scheme. A double height expression off the colonnade defines the main entrance to the co-living building. The entrance to the venue is in the south-west corner of the building benefitting from a taller colonnade as the public realm slopes

The Altham creates a new residential community which puts wellbeing at the schemes heart, with extensive internal amenity and a unique first floor communal terrace for residents. The scheme also reinstates a local event venue, enabling the site to continue its tradition of providing entertainment to the local and wider London community by replacing a much-loved music and comedy venue (the Standard) that previously occupied the site.

Marc Williams, AHMM Executive Director, comments: “The way the building relates to the Blackhorse Lane intersection, cascading down, enclosing a first floor south facing terrace and inverting perhaps a more traditional way of 'holding' corner seemed a really appropriate way to mediate between the tall buildings of the new developments along Forest Road to the West and the established low rise residential buildings to the East. We hope it creates a sense of drama as you emerge from the Blackhorse Lane station with a more playful form.”