A smart new housing scheme in Manchester should make conventional volume house-builders sit up and take notice.
Called hoUSe, the scheme is designed by Liverpool architects shedkm and sits in New Islington, a former brownfield site flanked by two canals. The quarter is dominated by Will Alsop's Chips apartment block, with its inevitable cantilever, and is also home to Islington Square, 23 eclectic social housing units by FAT.
Developer Urban Splash – best known for their loft spaces – tasked shedkm with creating a modern-day Georgian terrace of 43 units that could be customised by the home-owner. Shedkm's solution was to design each of the three floors as a self-contained box, which slot on top of each other.
Nottinghamshire manufacturers of structural timber panels, InsulShell, which worked on Hopkins Architects' velodrome for the London 2012 Olympics, created the boxes in their factory and transported them to the plot.
Services such as kitchen and bathrooms are plugged into the central core, and buyers can choose different configurations of living rooms and bedrooms. What's more, they can position sleeping quarters either on the ground floor or the top floor, which has a pitched roof.
Unlike many offerings from volume house-builders, skedkm's 1,500 sq ft, £330,000 dwellings are no diminutive Victorian pastiche. As well as the flexible layout, the ceilings are high, the internal doors are full height, the windows are big, and the exterior is clad in black panels. What's more, they can be constructed in a matter of weeks rather than the years conventional building methods can take.
At the moment this latest terrace and its two-storey sister terrace nearby are surrounded by muddy building work: a garden square that is being landscaped at the back of the development's pocket-handkerchief-sized gardens, and a block of flats going up in front. But once this area matures, the hoUSe scheme should sit pretty.
Urban Splash and shedkm have more hoUSe sites earmarked for northern cities, as well as an appealing mansion block model. 'We would like to build this in lots of locations,' says Urban Splash's co-founder and creative director Jonathan Falkingham.
The task was to create a modern-day Georgian terrace of 43 units that could be customised by the home-owner.
Shedkm designed each of the three floors as a self-contained box, which slot on top of each other.
Services such as kitchen and bathrooms are plugged into the central core, and buyers can choose different configurations of living rooms and bedrooms.
The boxes were created in the factory of Nottinghamshire manufacturers of structural timber panels, InsulShell.
INFORMATION
For more information visit the shedkm website
-
Teenage Engineering switches to the dark side with the Field System Black seriesNone more black: TE’s studio in a pocket is reissued in a new matte black finish to match the cult audio company’s OP-XY sequencer
-
The world of Bart Prince, where architecture is born from the inside outFor the Albuquerque architect Bart Prince, function trumps form, and all building starts from the inside out; we revisit a profile from the Wallpaper* archive, first published in April 2009
-
The natural stars in a 15-ingredient new sleep supplement could help you rest easyOur writer tries Rested, the debut sleep supplement from Diome, which addresses physical and mental wellbeing to help your body do what should come naturally
-
Inside Abbey Road's refresh: touring the legendary studio's new interiorAbbey Road gets an interior refresh by Threefold Architects, bringing the legendary London recording studio in tune with the 21st century
-
The Serpentine Pavilion 2025 is ready to visit, ‘an exhibition you can use’The Serpentine Pavilion 2025 is ready for its public opening on 6 June; we toured the structure and spoke to its architect, Marina Tabassum
-
A meticulously crafted artist’s space in east London evokes the area’s long creative historyMaich Swift Architects’ artist’s space has radically reconfigured a Victorian terraced house, transforming it into a contemporary live/work interior
-
Welcome to Omved Gardens, north London’s hidden green oasisThis secret space in Highgate is relaunching as a vibrant community hub with new spaces, activities and exhibitions
-
This contemporary cabin cantilevers over a Scottish lochRock Cove, Cameron Webster Architects’ contemporary cabin in Argyll, Scotland, makes the most of its wild setting
-
What to see at the London Festival of Architecture 2025June is all about the London Festival of Architecture 2025; we browsed the over 450-event rich programme for its highlights, so you won't have to
-
V&A East Storehouse is a new London museum, but not as you know itDesigned by DS+R, the V&A East Storehouse immerses visitors in history as objects of all scales mesmerise, seemingly ‘floating’ in all directions
-
Timeless yet daring, this Marylebone penthouse 'floats' on top of a grand London buildingA Marylebone penthouse near Regent’s Park by design studio Wendover is transformed into a light-filled family home
