Unity Place

by Design Architects - Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios / Alison Brooks Architects / Gort Scott | Delivery Architects - RM_A Architects

Client London Borough of Brent

Award RIBA London Award 2024 and shortlisted for the Neave Brown Award for housing.

A key element in the 15-year South Kilburn Regeneration Programme, Unity Place successfully transforms the area with a neighbourhood of 235 social rent homes designed to integrate with its surroundings. It not only seeks to significantly enhance the living conditions of existing residents but also to complement the area’s architectural heritage, especially nearby St Augustine’s Church.

The scheme offers 100% affordable homes across a mix of sizes and unit types, from one-bed single-floor flats to four-bed two-storey maisonettes, alongside community-focused amenities such as a hub, landscaped areas, publicly accessible playspace, and parking. It also features an energy centre for the wider South Kilburn estate.

Infrastructure constraints and the proximity to conservation areas and listed buildings posed challenges for the design. The architects met these with a varied but unified scheme that reinstates historical street patterns, harmonising high-density housing with the surrounding low- to medium-rise buildings through contextually sympathetic materials.

Read the full citation from the RIBA Awards Jury on RIBA Journal.

Contractor Telford Homes

Structural Engineer Buro Happold

Environmental/M&E Engineer Buro Happold

Acoustic Engineer Buro Happold

Transport Buro Happold

Civil Engineer Buro Happold

Landscape Architect Grant Associates

Fire Engineer The Fire Surgery

Gross internal area in m² 26,964