Last week Pocket Living’s Mapleton Crescent won the RICS Social Impact Award 2020 for Best Residential Project. There were many notable contenders for the prize and its worth having a look at the short video produced by the RICS to see the kind of creativity that exists in the residential development sector. The story of Mapleton is one worth hearing about. It’s a story of innovation and can-do spirit; it’s a tale of what a group of talented people can do under the right conditions and with a supportive environment around them. It’s a narrative relevant for London today and one I hope you don’t mind hearing from me.
Land and planning
Mapleton was one of the first deals I ever did at Pocket. It was a postage stamp of a site measuring 0.01 hectares in size and had been a derelict piece of land behind Wandsworth town centre for many years. It benefited from an old planning permission but it was not viable.
Mixed tenure buildings on such small sites are extremely challenging for developers to take on. There is a high build cost coupled with single core and entrance constraints. This makes it difficult to find housing associations willing to manage homes which may share the same service regime as open market homes. The Pocket typology, an affordable for sale home solves this conundrum. As a discount market sale tenure and with careful design it can work well in a single core arrangement. I took a double take at Mapleton and felt if Pocket could succeed anywhere, it could succeed on this site.
Constraints
Yet planning wasn’t the only challenge. The triangular site was bounded by the river Wandle on one side with a culvert actually cutting into the plot. Opposite the site was Southside shopping centre and its main loading bay; a twenty four hour facility served through a one way access. There was more still to contend with, just outside the front of the site was a busy TFL bus stop and waiting area. Last but by no means least, behind the site bounding the other side to the shopping centre and the river was a UK Power Networks (UKPN) primary substation. The UKPN asset served the entire centre of Wandsworth and was heavily safeguarded.
At this point if you are still reading you maybe thinking why an earth would anyone take on this challenge. This is where the art of property development comes into its own. Mix an innovative architect, a pragmatic local authority together with a developer determined to unlock small sites and you have an answer.
Architecture
Pocket brought in Neil Deeley and his team from Met Workshop. Neil is a thoughtful and creative architect. He instantly saw the opportunity for height in a way I had not envisaged when I had initially gauged the opportunity. Neil’s answer was to deliver something so stunning that the Local Authority would be willing to support another tall building of scale.
The cladding is particularly interesting at Mapleton. Neil advised that Pocket opt for a very high quality, green terracotta ceramic tile. It won over Wandsworth who quickly saw the opportunity not only to bring forward a windfall site but one which would deliver an exceptional piece of architecture and affordable homes as part of the bargain. The quality of the finish would go onto outstrip all other new buildings in the area by a country mile.
Delivery
The real challenge was delivery. The team at Pocket, led by Nick Williams and Sarah Davies had numerous problems to solve. Met Workshop’s design covered 95% of the site. How would a contractor be able to build Mapleton on such a tight site?
Enter modular and Tide construction. Pocket had built a good relationship with Tide through its programme of affordable homes in Lambeth. Modular makes sense for Pocket. The homes are identical and can be replicated in a factory floor. Moreover, modular can get things done quicker.
Tide proposed constructing the first three floors using traditional methods and creating a 1.5 meter transfer slab to take some of the weight of the building. The core was also reinforced. The wall thickness was 400 mm as opposed to normally 200 mm and was made from a stronger mix of concrete. The result was a very robust structure which could take the weight of the modular homes across the compact site. The slip formed core was built in the space of 6 weeks. A remarkable achievement and this allowed a crane to be attached to the top of the stair core, an unconventional but effective approach to managing the size of the site. Once the site was set up, it allowed the modules to be assembled. Due to the nature and organizational approach of modular, Mapleton went up quickly, a floor every three to four days. See this time lapse video here.
Pocket kept a positive dialogue with the various stakeholders throughout. UKPN were particularly accommodating and an agreement was reached to over sail their boundary. Over sailing rights is another big challenge on small sites and is often overlooked. It’s a very significant risk when you don’t have much land to play with. The fact that an agreement was reached was a remarkable achievement and down to the grit of Sarah Davies and her team of Pocket PMs.
The result
There’s so much about Mapleton which is positive. There were over 1,200 applicants for the 52 Pocket affordable homes. The average age of the buyers was 30 and the average salary of the individuals was just under £45,000. Thanks to the close collaboration with Council officers we were also able to price in some Wandsworth residents from their own housing waiting list, a really good result.
From a sustainability perspective, 90% of the waste was recyclable and there was 60% fewer materials on site. Today Mapleton sits as a fine example of what tall buildings can achieve in design terms. The terracotta green is a high quality and beautiful finish. Mapleton shows that modern residential buildings can be assets to London’s townscape, not just entrants for the carbuncle cup.
The big learning for me is that innovation requires pragmatism and grit. Local Authorities which are pragmatic and accept the trade offs enable developers to come forward with creative solutions. If the operating environment is stable then with grit and determination, great things are possible.
