Hyde Park Competition London : Architecture

Hyde Park, London Amin Taha Architects Invited Competition Mixed use development principally high end residential. A number of apartment and house options were suggested whose permutations could be mixed to meet the clients preferred development criteria. Sat within two conservation areas the options looked to the possibility of having to retain the existing facades. This developed to give the site a unique identity allowing them to become screens mediating the public street through a series of richer thresholds to private areas. Providing privacy yet expansive windows, light and glimpsed views. The developer is an art collector, an early reference was Hockney's 'Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy' painted when both lived in the neighbouring block and in a manner the design team felt captured the area's Bohemian intent while still set into a classical status composition. The apartments are therefore entered in axis with the living space as status foreground and the retained and detached Edwardian facade acting both physically as the public to private gateway threshold while its windows hang as a backdrop landscape framing device. The roof of the retail area is planted and used a typical Nottinghill communal garden. Hyde Park Competition images / information from Amin Taha Architects