We were appointed to design this new sustainable living quarter following success in a competition sponsored by The New Deal for Communities, New Cross Gate. The brief was to provide health, educational, community, creative and performing arts facilities together with a new public square and housing.

Our winning scheme proposes 76 residential units surrounding a large public square planted with mature trees. At ground floor along the perimeter of the square are a doctors’ surgery, dentist, pharmacy, community hall, performance space, crèche and community café. A prominent civic building on New Cross Road houses a new adult learning centre and library.

The scheme demonstrates our obsession with shape, form and place-making. The scheme is like a Rubik cube unfolding – a series of complex buildings which together form a unified whole. This is one of the Mayor of London’s 100 spaces and our aim is ambitious: to pull together all the inter-connecting routes across this extensive site, to form a community with a strongly defined edge.

By defining the square with buildings of differing architectural languages, the square establishes itself as a public space for the entire community rather than a facility limited to this single development.