Harrow View East

Harrow View East Phase 3 will deliver 1,238 new homes as part of an ambitious redevelopment to create a new neighbourhood on the site of the old Kodak Factory in Harrow, North London. The masterplan has been led by Pollard Thomas Edwards architects, with the public realm by East. Individual buildings have been designed by Pollard Thomas Edwards, East, Piercy&Company (Buildings D2 and D5) and Makower Architects.

Building D2 is a simple courtyard block, consisting of four buildings arranged around a central communal podium garden. A well-proportioned, regular facade creates an elegant architectural language, with a repetitive window format echoing the industrial heritage of the site. Architectural detail is focused at ground floor, where entrances and thresholds are articulated through playful variations in the brick bond, and a textured-bond brick base gives increased tactility where the building engages with the street and the wider public realm.

Building D5 is a tall building positioned to serve as a focal point when approaching the site along key routes from the South and the West. The building consists of a tower sitting on a podium, with a regular gridded facade of vertical brick piers framing recessed window bays. Concrete banding gives a horizontality to break the vertical brick piers, and provides an architectural language that ties together the tower and the podium. A subtle variation in the façade grid provides an elegant crown element to the upper two floors, and a generous commercial unit at the base ensures an active and permeable base at ground level.