East End Live Work Scheme Fizzes With Modernism

East End Live Work Scheme Fizzes With Modernism

Published on 18-10-2007 by Skyscrapernews.com
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Giving work live apartments a unique new look is SoDa Studios, a new development located in London.

Containing 46 live/work apartments and retail units it is located in Dalston, E8 off Kingsland Road approximately 1 mile north east of Old Street Roundabout and about the same distance east of Islington.

The architect is Thinking Space who have worked together with the developer, the Investland Group, on numerous projects throughout the past decade.

SoDa displays aesthetics of stripped bare white with a strong visual expression of the slab-like design that helps create a modernistic look fitting of a 1920s seaside house. Adding further to the feel is the timber detailing. The long slender plot that shapes the building is bulked up thanks to the heavy use of projecting balconies which add mass to the exterior.

Penthouses have sun-boxes hanging literally out of the building that also accommodate the stairs for the individual apartments that have access to roof terraces. Continuing the heavy use of timber on the roof is the decking using the same warm wood as the rest of the design employs.

With live/work property the most important thing for the layout of each unit is a clear demarcation between the private and commercial. In SoDa this has been achieved by making the majority of the units split level on two floors with the commercial space on the lower floor and the residential areas on the upper floors of each duplex.

In building the project the developer, the Investland Group, has taken advantage of what was a loop-hole in the planning laws that allowed developers to build housing in industrial areas as long as it had a commercial use too but is now being tightened up by the local council meaning that SoDa will be one of the last live/work developments of its type in the borough.

Although this technicality allowed developers to exploit a gap in the planning laws, it also helped encourage the construction of more live/work properties, a very much in demand sector of the market thanks to the burgeoning numbers of contractors, consultants, freelancers and new media businesses.

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