High Density Housing Quarter

Donnybrook quarter was commissioned by Circle 33 Housing Trust in 2003, after it was selected as winner of the Architecture Foundations’ high profile “Innovations in Housing competition” from 150 entries worldwide.

It has since won a Housing Design Award and the Royal Academy Architecture Prize.

The project has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and has attracted significant media and academic interest.

Donnybrook is a low rise, high density street based city quarter located on a prominent corner site just south of Victoria Park in Hackney.

The scheme is laid out around two new tree lined streets which cross the site creating very strong spatial connections with adjacent neighborhoods and a handy cut through for their residents.

The streets have an intimate scale being 7.5 m wide and bordered on each side by two and three storey buildings.

At their intersection, at the heart of the scheme, the two streets broaden out into a delightful tree lined square.

Throughout the project public space is heavily overlooked by the residents on either side. Balconies and oriel windows overhang the street, terraces and the numerous front doors create a sense of ownership and the opportunity for personalization (pots, deck chairs, hanging baskets).

Along the south edge of the site the buildings rise to three and a half stories with a landmark corner building at the junction of Old Ford Road and Parnell Road. Non residential uses are introduced at ground floor.

Along the eastern edge of the site an elegant residential terrace follows the slow sweeping curve of Parnell Road. At its north end the terrace rises to 4 stories marking an entrance to the site and terminating a view along Rushton Street.

In formal terms the project is conceived as a rectilinear grid inflected and morphed by the complex geometries of the adjacent streets and urban form. To this extent it is highly contextual.

Unique’ notched terrace’ housing typology

There are a variety of ‘out of the ordinary’ dwelling types at Donnybrook including some highly unusual ones and 2 bedroom courtyard houses.

But the most significant innovation is PBA’s ingenious double stack hybrid terrace/courtyard housing typology (or ‘notched terrace’).

This new type comprises in each bay; -An upper maisonette entered from the street up a gated external staircase through a delightful courtyard garden in the ‘notch’ at first floor. The living area has a fully glazed screen which faces south over the courtyard. At second floor there are two double bedrooms, a bathroom and a balcony overlooking the street.

-A ground floor 2 bedroom apartment with large open plan living area and a fully glazed screen giving access into a rear courtyard.

The ingenious sectional arrangement removes the problem of British Planning systems overlooking rules dictating back to back distances and has unlocked the potential for very high densities with a scheme that is only three stories high.

This unique housing innovation has fascinating implications for the dwellings and their relationship with the city: - creating a hard edge to the street with no front garden. ( a reworking of the ubiquitous Victorian worker housing type known as ‘the back of pavement terrace’. - enabling every dwelling to have its own front door with circulation between units concentrated in the public open space of the streets and not in gloomy stairwells and decks. - creating the strongest possible visual and spatial relationship between the street and dwellings so that every inch of public space is overlooked. - making it possible for every single dwelling to have its own good sized private outdoor space in the form of an 8 m x 4 m courtyard garden and a very high level of privacy. - making it possible to achieve high densities of 400 habitable rooms per hectare with a scheme that is only between one and three stories high.