Building Tour: Bourne Estate with Matthew Lloyd

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This scheme for London Borough of Camden provides 75 new residential units in a mix of tenures, with improved public realm and open spaces, within the Grade II listed Bourne Estate in Holborn. Sitting partially within the Hatton Garden Conservation Area, the original estate is a key example of early, innovative LCC housing estates built in 1901 – 1903. Matthew Lloyd Architects’ new housing blocks derive from and respond to the original architecture: fine brick detailing emulates the pride and care shown in the old buildings, while the footprints of the new blocks respond to those of the adjacent buildings to create a positive rhythm and hierarchy of spaces. Encompassing both buildings and landscape, the new design creates vistas while clearly defining key routes and boundaries. Multiple ground floor entrances in the new blocks provide activity at street level. In keeping with the original buildings, the design includes secure shared access balconies for at most 4 flats, open to the air, as well as private balconies or gardens. The practice won this project in a limited competition in 2012 and worked initially for Camden Council to gain a full planning consent, and subsequently was directly employed as delivery architects by the contractor, Higgins, for the construction phase for this £19m building contract. The project was completed and occupied in 2018. It was praised by the Camden Design Awards jury in 2017 as a “highly intelligent and mature response to the existing Edwardian architecture”.

Matthew Lloyd

Matthew is founding partner at Matthew Lloyd Architects, which over the past 20 years has won acclaim for sensitive, innovative architecture in complex urban settings, often in social and historic contexts. The practice’s Bourne Estate housing scheme for Camden Council won a 2017 Camden Design Award, won an RIBA London Award and was named Overall Winner of the Housing Design Awards 2018.