Virtual Building Tour – Carnaby Court by Rolfe Judd Architects

As a new member of the AIA UK Board, I agreed to take on the responsibilities of managing the chapter’s 2020 building tour series and set about arranging that year’s first traditional site visit to 1 Finsbury Ave, developed by AHMM. In an all too familiar scene by now, the pandemic’s arrival changed everything.  Whilst the ensuing health crisis upended daily life and left an indelible mark on the globe, on the local scale it also forced us to innovate new ways of working, learning and rebuilding our sense of community.  Hence, the AIA ‘Virtual Building Tours’ were created and kicked off in July 2020. 

During the past year, I have had the pleasure of hosting a variety of tours ranging from noted industry stalwarts like Zaha Hadid Architect’s Leeza Soho to lesser known works such as CSK Architect’s Cork House.  We have had the opportunity to learn about these award-winning projects from concept to completion and explore the completed designs that ranged from intimate scale installations to large-scale buildings.  While the physical experience of interacting and exploring a building could never be fully replicated, the virtual tours have added a new dimension to our tour experience.  They have enabled us to broaden our geographic scope and engage with the primary principals who have educated us on the genesis of concepts, delved into the minutia of the detail and the explained the fabrication processes of a variety of innovative construction technologies and materials.  This tour intimacy has opened up a refreshing way to explore newly completed and innovative buildings.

The 2021 series of the AIA UK Chapter’s “Virtual Building Tours” of AIA UK Design Award winners continued on 08 July with a visit to Carnaby Court, designed by Rolfe Judd Architects (RJA) and completed in 2019. 

Jonathan Carter, RJA Board Director, led us through a detailed visit of the six-storey, mixed-use building consisting of two linked structures, located at 22-25 Kingly Street and 14-18 Foubert’s Place in Soho, London. The building is uniquely positioned just off iconic Carnaby Street, well-known not only for its past contributions to commerce and the arts but also as a modern retail and leisure destination.  Jonathan began the tour with a pictorial history of Carnaby Street from the 1930’s to present day to give us a sense of the character of Carnaby Court.  Some amazing historic photographs included one of John Lennon standing in front of the gentleman’s loos on Broadwick Street.  

The project consists of retail space and a restaurant at ground level with commercial space on the first and second levels on Kingly Street. Sophisticated and adaptable residential apartments, including terraces and balconies, are located on the second and fourth levels of both Foubert’s Place and Kingly Street, with individual access through an internal courtyard.  The twelve apartments were fully fitted out to a high standard, with simple and crisp details with flexibility in-keeping with the current ethos of contemporary living.

This award-winning project is a significant part of the revitalisation of Carnaby Village. As highlighted in the tour, the site was previously cleared and developed as a shopping centre in the late 1960s.   Demolishing the shopping centre created the opportunity to “repair the urban grain,” with a new high-quality development. The project area, primarily owned and curated by Shaftesbury PLC, is now a bespoke mix of uses creating a unique community spirit that makes a positive contribution to the character of the area.  The building was described by Carter simply as “a place where you could eat, shop, work, live and play.” He went on concluding that such mixed-use developments are “the future of where we go as a city”.

During the tour, Jonathan gave a detailed explanation of how the facades were developed and the street elevations designed in response to simple urban design principles of ‘block, width and height’. The façade development articulates these principles using a base frame, a secondary frame and infill elements.  The result is a building that sets up contextual plot widths, mediates between adjacent buildings and provides rhythm to the street scape.  

The architectural response to scale and rhythm of the facades was based on a rigorous contextual approach. A key ambition, however, according to Carter was to develop a language that responded to the very heart of the historical character of Carnaby Court which was vibrant, fun and expressive.  RJA developed a materials palette that mixes a simple base brick with a stunning mix of green and blue Pyrolave-glazed, stone bricks and panels from the south of France. The two street elevations have been given different, but similar, colour combinations to give each facade an individual but related expression.  The attention to detail and the articulation of each element is noteworthy and crisp.  This layering has resulted in a building that is both respectful of its current context and of its colourful past.

The AIA UK Chapter will host its last virtual building tour series for the 2021 season on 12 August 2021.  Follow this link for further information to participate in the next tour of Belle Vue by Morris + Company. In our return to physical tours, we hope we might be able to combine features of virtual tours with traditional ones for an enhanced experience.

Written by Gregory Fonseca, AIA