Park East New Build Estate Regeneration

We worked with Wates Residential and Orbit Housing Association on their joint venture regenerative masterplan, delivering 320 new homes in 5-blocks of varying scales, ranging from 3 to 8-storeys in height, at Arthur Street in Erith. The homes range from 1 bed apartments to 3 bed duplex dwellings. We took on this regeneration project post planning, at the start of Stage 4, and led the design team to achieve the detailed design and construction of the regeneration of what was a run-down estate. 80% of these homes will be for London Living rent, London Affordable rent or shared ownership. The need to redevelop the estate was an opportunity to create a more community-focused layout and warmer homes.

We worked collaboratively with Wates to develop the project designs through workshops and design reviews. We developed federated models to ensure our designs were coordinated with the engineers, and developed a Hazard Identifiers script within the BIM software Revit, which we use to represent the risk register in 3D. As with all projects there were some key design challenges to overcome, that were resolved through collaboratively working with the whole project team. ECD Architects’ industry awareness, particularly in sustainability and fire safety, allowed us to be ahead of the curve in relation to changing regulations.

In line with our commitment to support the communities in which we work, we ran a 3-day workshop with construction students at London South East Colleges, taking them through the project design process. As the balconies to one block were proposed to be perforated, with the detailed design still to be carried out, we worked with the students to develop the patterns to be applied to these balconies. Having explained how balconies fit into the construction, students developed designs for perforated balconies and visited the factory where they are made, providing them with an understanding of the manufacturing process.