Pollard Thomas Edwards architects (PTEa), working with client MacDonald Egan, have been granted planning for a new ‘urban quarter’ in the Blackhorse Lane Industrial area in Walthamstow.
The mixed-use, residential-led regeneration will transform a declining industrial estate into a thriving community to include new homes, student accommodation, community and commercial space. Blackhorse Lane will be the first significant development of student accommodation in Waltham Forest.
The site lies between Blackhorse Lane and the High Maynard Reservoir, just north of Waltham Forest Town Centre. Gnome House, a 1930s industrial building will be retained and refurbished as a community gallery and café to stimulate the local, emerging creative industries and act as a focus for the new neighbourhood.
The masterplan creates a new tree-lined link, which begins at Gnome House and runs east-west through the site, allowing future public access to the Walthamstow Wetlands, London’s largest urban wetland nature reserve.
Flats and maisonettes are laid out around semi-private courtyards, with affordable homes for families located in a terrace of three and four- bedroom houses and maisonettes with large private outdoor spaces. New retail accommodation fronts onto Blackhorse Lane activating the area closest to the nearby Blackhorse Road station.
Director Carl Vann said: "The existing site and edges have a unique industrial character which we felt shouldn’t be muted with a conventional suburban scale. Our approach has been to capture the charm of an evolving, ‘working’ quarter in the scale and texture of the architecture and landscaping."
