220 Blackfriars Road

An innovative, charity-led development of a prominent urban block in Southwark to unlock commercial value and enable the provision of almshouses for local residents.

Client Southwark Charities
Sector Workplace
Size 41,750m²
Location Southwark, London

We partnered with Southwark Charities to create a highly sustainable mixed-use development in Blackfriars, designed to unlock commercial value and enable a large-scale new almshouse community for local people facing hardship to live independently and affordably.

Our proposals created a 22,500m² workspace building on Blackfriars Road, enabling the development of 62 contemporary almshouses for elderly Southwark residents supported by community uses and 950m² public landscaped gardens.

Granted planning consent unanimously in 2021, our innovative scheme won a 2023 NLA Award, received a Special Mention in the 2022 Housing Design Awards and was featured in London Property Alliance’s Social Value in the Built Environment Report and NLA’s Tall Building research.

The development is currently being delivered by JTRE London in partnership with Southwark Charities.

Former almshouse development and residents

Chris Wilson, CEO at Southwark Charities
‘Fathom completely understood our priority of providing truly affordable homes for those in need, hardship or distress. They have unlocked the potential of the site, creating an attractive and durable high quality office building, and risen magnificently to the challenge of creating new almshouses in an urban setting’.

Establishing a complementary and sustainable mix of uses

Looking holistically at the site, we identified three distinct elements that would overlap and support the success of the development as a whole.

On Blackfriars Road, the 21-storey office building was designed with detailed terracotta façades to mediate between traditional brick warehouses and more recent glass towers towards the River Thames, offering high quality workspace.

The paler terracotta almshouse building, facing Nicholson Street, creates a 15-storey vertical community where local elderly people facing hardship can live independently in a supported environment.

Community spaces at the base of the buildings open onto a new public garden designed in collaboration with MRG Studio, creating 950sqm of landscaped outdoor space to encourage interaction between residents, office workers and their neighbours.

At ground level, the three-storey glazed workplace entrance activates Blackfriars Road, along with a new premises for the much-loved neighbourhood pub, the Prince William Henry.

A new East-West pedestrian route links Blackfriars Road to the sheltered public gardens, named ‘Edwards’ Walk’ in recognition of the philanthropist who established the original almshouses on the site, Edward Edwards.

An inherently local design response

Designs were inspired by the historic use of the Blackfriars site in the 1750’s as tenter grounds, large open fields where textiles were stretched out flat to dry.

Richly detailed terracotta façades reference the 18th century textile process of dyed fabric being stretched and pinned to timber frames outside to dry, conceived as pinned fabric between tenterhooks, articulated with pleating, gathering and softly curved corners.

The unique requirements of our design were beyond standard façade systems on the market, but we were determined to achieve the site-specific approach in a way that was affordable, functional and beautiful.

Working with a specialist terracotta manufacturer in Holland, we developed details of a bespoke unitised cladding system with extruded aluminium framing profiles, insulation and bespoke glazed terracotta panels.

Southwark Planning Committee Report
‘The terracotta, coupled with devices and motifs inspired by the historic use of the site, results in a building that will not only stand out from its glassy neighbours, but provide an elegant and highly articulated design. The architectural treatment successfully links the two uses with a common but distinctive character.’

Designing for environmental responsibility

Throughout the design process we aimed to minimise environmental impact and optimise building efficiency.

We designed the development with Passivhaus-standard insulation and air tightness to prevent overheating and keep operational costs as low as possible.

Measures to harness excess heat from the offices will provide hot water for residents, and the use of air source heat pumps will remove all fossil fuel connections.

Strong connections with nature are introduced across the site, with productive gardens and social landscaped spaces at street, terrace and roof levels.

Workspace occupiers will benefit from bike storage, showers and changing areas to encourage cycling as a primary means of commuting.