Rowan Court: shrewd placemaking on an unloved triangle of land

To reshape bits of London, finding scraps hidden behind shops, or on the fringes of housing estates, leaving your mark on the city, must be a gratifying feeling. 

It’s a particular speciality of Satish Jassal Architects, a practice that spun out of a commission for a ‘Brick House’, just 3.6m wide, on the site of a barber’s shop near the North Circular. A productive niche harnessing infill sites for clients across north London followed, aided by success gaining planning permissions (‘I must have the right manner,’ he says), before ‘Haringey Council just called me up, through the planning department’.

A decade on, Jassal has just completed Rowan Court, an ambitious group of 46 council homes for Haringey: 31 apartments (four wheelchair-accessible), four maisonettes and 11 townhouses (one wheelchair-accessible). It’s a series of smart red-brick blocks, referencing the area’s traditional materials and detailing, delivered to a high quality on a council budget despite Covid’s intervention. 

But the project’s primary achievement, as Jassal acknowledges, is as a piece of place-making, realising and expanding the opportunities presented by another tricky site, a mess of various generations of council housing on an estate just round the corner from Seven Sisters.

Expanded housing scheme on neglected land

The practice was approached in 2019 to deliver 12 homes on a neglected triangle of land, which had been left over by the imposition of a series of postwar blocks on the estate’s large but irregular site. But an initial inspection of this fenced-off plot, which backs onto a Transport for London-owned ecological corridor, led Jassal to propose an expanded site and scheme. 

The suggestion was received warmly by the council’s planning department, generally respected for its progressive approach. ‘The great thing about council work,’ says Jassal, ‘is that they tend to own the land around, so you’re not always restricted to the red line – you can go further out.'

An improved PTAL (public transport accessibility level) rating was needed to gain permission for the increased density. Luckily, at one corner of the estate, another overgrown wedge of land led to a conveniently placed tram passage piercing the messy line of 19^th-century terraces, enabling access to Seven Sisters Road with its transport routes. 

This forbidding patch, once a tram shed, was rehabilitated with landscaping and lighting, and a wide double-sided pedestrian street (Tramway Mews) was run east to reach it, replacing a previous hammerhead for vehicles. On one side are two two-storey townhouses, dropping down to a single one-storey wheelchair-accessible home at the far end, preserving light for the Victorian terrace. On the other are four potential ‘intergenerational homes’: maisonettes with duplexes above one-bed flats, which can be knocked together.

‘There’s no policy requirement; it was just an idea I put forward,’ Jassal says. ‘Through my work in community housing, I know many people, particularly those from Indian backgrounds like myself, want to live in intergenerational households – if you can keep families together, some cultures really feel the benefits.’

This approach to the massing and mixing of housing types, and to developing streetscapes, was applied across Rowan Court, catering to a wide range of needs, achieving an attractive townscape, and respecting St Ann’s Conservation Area across the train tracks. The dominant element, however, remains the 23-apartment block designed for the original plot. This has a clear relationship to the postwar blocks opposite, matching their six storeys, though stepping back to diminish the appearance of height. 

An extra parapet houses solar panels and air-source heat pumps, helping the development achieve over 80 per cent towards net zero in operation. Parking for 96 bicycles and a small shared courtyard are also provided.

Attached to this main block are a further eight apartments in two three-storey blocks, while a brand new terrace of eight townhouses stretches west from the original site – one more part of Jassal’s extended masterplan. This replaces a row of neglected garages, further addressing the pressing need for family-sized social homes with their own entrances. 

Enabling residents to take ownership of spaces

In front, a generous landscaped ‘Seven Sisters Square’ replaces the previous grass-and-tarmac patch with its severe ring of benches, with the encircling road also now pedestrianised in part. To one side, a community garden has been developed with residents, complete with a vegetable patch and a plethora of personal ornaments. 

Throughout, extensive modelling and drawings were produced for community consultations, in part to allay concerns around loss of public space, ones mitigated by the forlorn reality of that space. ‘What you have is residents taking ownership of these places, looking after them, and feeling part of a community – so these become community spaces,’ Jassal says.

He takes satisfaction in introducing some of the aesthetic and practical qualities of private schemes at Rowan Court. ‘One thing I think is important is that all of the homes are at least dual aspect – some are triple aspect – and we’ve managed to achieve that without incorporating deck access, which is too often seen as a solution for social housing, but wouldn’t be accepted elsewhere,’ Jassal goes on. 

The use of brick is another private-sector parallel. It is relatively simple and affordable for contractors to deal with, ages gracefully, and matches the nearby Victorian terraces and the postwar blocks opposite. 

Subtle variations in detailing give the individual buildings character, though en masse Rowan Court has a touch of the 1930s power station, aided by this common materiality, its setbacks, its geometries and its rhythm. ‘Brick is a material with presence, in particular through its depth, creating a sense of permanence,’ says Jassal. 

Here, it is used in a running bond, but with a vertical bond rising around tripartite windows, separated by glazed white bricks. The latter also run as slim horizontal strips across the facades, in a nod to London’s 19^th-century streets, and also an echo of the concrete decks facing them. 

Creating a rich environment for living

Human scale and contextual qualities, achieved in place of novelty, are key to Jassal’s goals of providing a rich environment to enhance lives at Rowan Court, while rejuvenating the original estate. Such comprehensive and proactive placemaking, with its focus spread across masterplanning, housing types, public realm and streetscape, as well as detailing, is in contrast to much social-rent housing. 

‘People usually reduce such buildings to an absolute minimum, punching windows in industrial cladding,’ Jassal says. ‘We’ve demonstrated that, even with budget pressures, you can achieve more. But it’s not just one thing; lots of different ingredients have to come together. It’s not an easy process, but you can see the benefits.’ 

Asked if he was surprised by his aptitude at achieving this exacting combination, he says: ‘As a small BAME practice, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe in myself – and you can’t really be nervous if you’re an architect.’

In numbers

Total contract cost £12 million
GIFA 4,050m²
Predicted CO₂ emissions savings 81%