Lynch Architects

Lynch Architects has been chosen by Hackney Council to design the latest scheme in its Housing Supply Programme in Hoxton, east London

The practice will build 60 homes on an empty car park plot in Thaxted Court overshadowed by an 18-storey 1960s tower.

Hackney’s innovative Housing Supply Programme aims to build more than 400 homes on 11 infill sites. Seventy per cent will be for social rent and shared ownership.

Lynch Architects won the job following a competition in which more than 50 practices submitted expressions of interests. It is understood the firm was selected ahead of a shortlist which included Duggan Morris Architects, DSDHA and Sergison Bates.

Describing his approach to the scheme, Patrick Lynch, founder of the east London-based practice, said: ‘The problem of the integration of 1960s towers into a hospitable streetscape seems to be a recurring theme in our work at the moment.

Lynch Architects has been chosen by Hackney Council to design the latest scheme in its Housing Supply Programme in Hoxton, east London

The practice will build 60 homes on an empty car park plot in Thaxted Court overshadowed by an 18-storey 1960s tower.

Hackney’s innovative Housing Supply Programme aims to build more than 400 homes on 11 infill sites. Seventy per cent will be for social rent and shared ownership.

Lynch Architects won the job following a competition in which more than 50 practices submitted expressions of interests. It is understood the firm was selected ahead of a shortlist which included Duggan Morris Architects, DSDHA and Sergison Bates.

Describing his approach to the scheme, Patrick Lynch, founder of the east London-based practice, said: ‘The problem of the integration of 1960s towers into a hospitable streetscape seems to be a recurring theme in our work at the moment.

‘We lived and worked in Hoxton during the ’90s and ’00s and are very familiar with the problems that arise from the non-determinate landscapes around its Modernist housing blocks, some of which provide accommodation of a very high standard.

‘Our aim is to learn from these examples and to contribute to the existing and emerging urban conditions. We propose to ”ground” the neighbouring buildings in a legible urban form made up of two new mid-rise blocks situated in a sequence of courtyards and gardens.’

Mayor of Hackney Philip Glanville said the scheme involved working with residents ‘to make the most of under-used land to provide genuinely affordable places to live’.

Lynch architects is the fourth practice to win a scheme for Hackney’s Housing Supply Programme.

In February, Hackney-based Al-Jawad Pike, a practice run by two former David Chipperfield architects, was appointed to design 10 new homes replacing disused garages in Mandeville Street, Clapton.

Also in February, Housing Design Awards champion Ash Sakula won a Hackney Council competition to design 17 homes for the programme on a site containing a disused incinerator.

In November Surman Weston won the programme’s first commission, landing a project to design 16 micro-flats, reconfiguring existing spaces inside Gooch House, an ageing tower block.

Work is expected to start on the Murray Grove site next year, with a completion date scheduled for 2020.