The redevelopment of the site at No 1 Blackhorse Lane in northeast London for Scape Living provides innovative co-living accommodation for 321 residential apartments with a series of shared residential amenity spaces, ground floor retail unit, and a purpose-built music and comedy venue.
The site, previously home to The Standard public house, is located on a prominent corner of Blackhorse Lane & Forrest Road, opposite Blackhorse Lane station. The proposed scheme presents a different urban approach to a key junction in the area with a series of stepped planted terraces that seeks to mediate between the established low rise residential buildings along Forest Road to the east and the newer taller buildings of the Blackhorse Lane Masterplan to the west. This articulated massing provides each floor with an outside terrace and the form of the building tiers up and creates a south facing central 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 with a cafe / bar on the ground floor and 700-person venue in the basement.
The new purpose-built cultural venue for Waltham Forest, The Standard, will enable the site to continue its tradition of providing entertainment to the local area by replacing the vacant pub and much-loved music and comedy venue that previously occupied the site.
