Keith Williams Architects’ residential led project in Rye Lane Peckham for developer Reality Holdings, has been unanimously approved by Southwark Council (Dec 2017).
The project will deliver 716 m2 of retail floor space and 27 residential units above, and will replace a dilapidated three storey 1960s converted office building on an important corner site in the heart of Peckham’s vibrant Rye Lane, one of the most aesthetically varied, and culturally mixed streets in London.
Set within the Rye Lane Conservation Area, the new building transitions in scale from the two storey C19th housing on Highshore Road, to a height of six storeys as the building faces onto Rye Lane itself; a scale similar to some of the grander former department stores and bank buildings, a number of which still punctuate the street scene.
The double height columnar treatment to the main façade gives a vertical more elegant emphasis to the composition, and whilst the main Rye Lane façade is continuous to give a civic scale to the main street, the same elevational rhythm is further subdivided before dropping in scale to respond to finer architectural grain of Highshore Road, where the new building responds to the character of the 19the century semi-detached villas that characterise the street scene.
Facing materials include red brick surmounted by polished aluminium cladding to the sixth storey rooftop pavilion.
Keith Williams stated..”I am very pleased that Southwark have finally been able to approve this project. Whilst perhaps modest in scale it will occupy a very prominent site on Rye Lane. The project will help contribute to the ongoing regeneration of this vibrant area providing much needed housing within an appropriately crafted new building, which we have carefully conceived in response to its immediate and wider architectural context.”
