Higher-Density Housing with Character, Street-life and Spaces for Social Interaction
One Westmoreland occupies a prominent but challenging corner site at the southern gateway to Bromley High Street, divided into two triangular plots by a culvert that crosses the site. A previous scheme to transform the long-vacant brownfield - formerly occupied by a derelict 1950s office building - had been refused planning permission. The massing had been considered insensitive to neighbouring buildings; there were too many single-aspect homes, insufficient outdoor amenity, limited active frontage, and encroachment on the culvert.
Studio Woodroffe Papa and Curl la Tourelle Head, working for London Land Group, were brought in to start again. We built a close relationship with the borough’s design officers and replaced the refused massing with a family of three buildings that step around the culvert, maximise dual-aspect homes, and respond to the different sensitivities along each edge of the site. The arrangement also re-opens the visual link between the Grade II-listed former St Mark’s School and the locally listed church. R1, the taller building facing the High Street, provides slender dual-aspect apartments with inset balconies and generous views; its faceted façade addresses both townscape and microclimate. R2 offers specialist housing for older residents, designed around accessibility and wellbeing, reintegrating with the scale and character of nearby Edwardian terraces. C1 provides flexible workspace, responding sensitively to the listed school through a restrained brick expression that balances heritage with new use.
The consented scheme delivers 107 high-quality build-to-rent homes, 31 specialist older-persons units, flexible workspaces, a café, and a landscaped public plaza. Active frontage on every side; biodiversity net gain in excess of policy. A new benchmark for higher-density housing at the southern gateway of Bromley High Street.
- One Westmoreland
- UK, Bromley
- Client
- London Land Group
- Programme
- 138 homes\
1022 m2 workspace\
61 m2 retail\
Site area: 0.34 ha\
Workscope: Building Commission\
Team: Studio Woodroffe Papa\ Curl la Tourelle Head\
Status: Ongoing
Higher-Density Housing with Character, Street-life and Spaces for Social Interaction
