Octavia Housing and Care’s innovative Bourbon Lane affordable housing scheme in West London has won the Civic Trust Special Award for Housing, sponsored by English Partnerships. It also received a Civic Trust Award.
The design by Cartwright Pickard Architects in partnership with French practice B+C Architectes, is a radical move away from conventional housing design in the UK and incorporates a host of new ideas. It was the result of an international competition run by CABE and has already won a CABE award and a Housing Design Award.
Built by Como Homes and project managed by MDA Consulting, Bourbon Lane provides 78 much needed affordable homes for families and key workers, for rent and shared ownership.
The scheme was praised by the Civic Trust for ‘creating an imaginative interpretation of the traditional London mews’ and for being ‘crisply detailed and impeccably built.’
The judges also commented, ‘This is a lively and exciting approach to a very difficult public realm site. Bourbon Lane demonstrates how well planned landscape and architectural design can create an interesting, attractive and thriving neighbourhood. We hope this development will encourage such qualities in other social housing projects’.
Grahame Hindes, Chief Executive of Octavia Housing and Care, said, “This is exactly the sort of affordable housing this area needed. With a pioneering design, high environmental standards and a safe environment for children, this award demonstrates how Bourbon Lane is blazing a trail for similar developments around London.”
James Pickard, Project Director at Cartwright Pickard Architects, said, “We are delighted to receive this award. This was a challenging site and we had to provide a wide range of house types that integrate well into the existing urban fabric. The result is an innovative scheme that breaks new ground in urban design and incorporates a number of fresh ideas in the provision of affordable housing, and particularly the design of high density family homes, without the appearance of conventional social housing.”
The homes are arranged in eight low-rise blocks, which feature larch timber cladding, bold use of colour and dramatic overhanging cantilevers above the entrances. Each home is dual aspect to benefit from morning and evening sun, good natural ventilation and all the dwellings have either a garden, balcony or generous roof terrace.
The blocks are organised around a semi-public open courtyard to help create a sense of place and identity, and integrate the scheme with the adjacent shopping centre and existing listed housing.
Sustainability and energy efficiency were also strong themes in the design. Environmental features include a combined heat and power system, which generates electricity on site and provides domestic hot water to heat radiators. There is a whole house ventilation system or continuous mechanical ventilation system within each dwelling with heat recovery, and interface units in each home to encourage residents to minimise energy consumption.
The scheme was built using modern methods of construction to improve quality and performance. A prefabricated cladding system reduced the need for scaffolding, reducing time on site, and improving air tightness and safety. This approach also allowed the windows to be pre-installed off site.
There is extensive attractive landscaping throughout with both green spaces between buildings and planting to roof terraces, giving the appearance of a high specification private development. Pedestrianised ‘Home Zones’ allow children to play in a safe and secure environment.

This project of 78 affordable homes for families and key workers, for rent and shared ownership in west London conceals behide a warm timber cladding its structure entirely made of steel. This type of solution, directly inspired by its success in the office market in England, where it's now the norm, is evermore often used for residential projects.
The idea was born out of the partnership of two teams oneFrench one British.

, in the framework of a bilateral action for architectural and urban quality of social housing launched by the respective governments. Winners of consultation mixed together five teams at the place predestined White City as site of the Franco-British exhibition of 1908, the project is part of a large-scale urban renewal, between a future shopping center and a neighborhood of homes in strips of the nineteenth century. The party has retained a comb-shaped located perpendicular to the wall of the mall, mixing scales with variable height of buildings, housing together with collective and individual gardens ground floor.
The structure consists of an assembly of beams HEB 260 bolted on slabs cellular-down prefabricated concrete, in which the components of prefabricated facade elements and openings. This has significantly reduced the scaffolding during the project while ensuring the highest quality of construction. In addition it guarantees the freedom of composition with carriers obtained through false beams and décrochements Vierendeel that can break down for spare volumes terraces planted.
Small balconies galvanized come animate the facades. Gables are treated fiber colored panels. Much attention has been paid to the environmental quality, both in terms of materials (wood renewable, recyclable steel), equipment (double-flow ventilation with energy recovery, cogeneration gas, compact fluorescent lighting) that the high-performance thermal insulation. The use of a dry track allows easy disassembly and recycling full steel structure at the end of life of the building. This project is certified HQE "Eco Homes" at a high level, "very good", indeed!

Tout de bois habillée, cette opération de soixantedix-huit logements sociaux dans l’ouest de Londres dissimule sous sa chaleureuse vêture une structure entièrement métallique. Ce type de solution, directement inspirée de son succès dans le marché des bureaux en Angleterre, où elle est désormais devenue la norme, trouve un champ d’application de plus en plus étendu outre-manche dans le secteur résidentiel.
L’idée est née d’une coopération entre deux équipes, l’une française, l’autre britannique, dans le cadre d’une action bilatérale en faveur de la qualité architecturale et urbaine du logement social lancée par les gouvernements respectifs. Lauréats d’une consultation réunissant cinq équipes mixtes sur le lieu prédestiné de White City puisque site de l’exposition franco-britannique de 1908, le projet s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une vaste opération de revitalisation urbaine, entre un futur centre commercial et un quartier de maisons en bandes du XIXe siècle. Le parti retenu est une disposition en forme de peigne implanté perpendiculairement au mur d’enceinte du centre commercial, en mêlant les échelles avec des bâtiments de hauteur variable, fédérant logements collectifs et individuels avec jardins en rez-de-chaussée.
La structure est composée d’un assemblage de poutrelles HEB 260 boulonnés, portant des dalles alvéo-lées en béton préfabriqué, dans lequel s’inscrivent les composants préfabriqués des éléments de façade et des ouvrants. Ce principe a permis de réduire considérablement les éléments d’échafaudage pendant la période de chantier tout en assurant une très haute qualité de construction. En outre il garantit une grande liberté de composition avec des porteà-faux obtenus grâce à des poutres Vierendeel et des décrochements qui permettent de fragmenter les volumes pour ménager des terrasses plantées.
De petits balcons en acier galvanisé viennent animer les façades. Les pignons sont traités en panneaux de fibrociment colorés. Une grande attention a été portée à la qualité environnementale, tant au niveau des matériaux (essences de bois renouvelables, acier recyclable), des équipements (ventilation double-flux avec récupération d’énergie, centrale de cogénération à gaz, éclairage compact fluorescent) que de l’isolation thermique très performante. Le recours à une filière sèche permet le démontage facile et le recyclage intégral de l’acier de structure en fin de vie du bâtiment. Ce projet en démarche HQE est certifié « Eco Homes » à un niveau élevé : « very good », indeed !
Bertrand Lemoine