The £45 million development of Pembury Circus has been honoured at the annual LEAF Awards.
Pembury Circus, a development on the Pembury Estate near Hackney Downs station in Hackney, London, was designed and built by Fraser Brown MacKenna Architects for Peabody and Bellway Homes. The site was built with a focus akin to the existing Proteus Façade Solutions, which include eye-catching pixelated screens over the balconies.
Now, the Pembury Circus has been named as the Best Mixed Use Development as part of this year’s LEAF (Leading European Architecture Forum) Awards, held in London.
Key to this has been the involvement of Proteus Facades Solutions. All Proteus HR Rainscreen Cladding Panels used galvanised steel in the form of a PPC finish from Akzo Nobel D2525 Golden Beach and Toleda to complement buff-coloured brickwork. In addition, Proteus SC Form perforated panels were integrated into the balconies, whilst the cladding of these balconies came from Proteus 3mm DX51 grade steel.
In regards to Proteus technology, the project was rounded off by Akzo Nobel D2525 PPC Anodic Ice for the finish and Proteus SC Cladding for feature-floor walkways, the latter of which included a spanning vertical 'L' rail attaching to concrete floor edges alongside bespoke brackets due to the necessity for panels to span from floor to floor on the walkways. The panels themselves were designed from 2mm DX51 Grade Steel, and this was a mixture of three specific elements: 60% came from a RAL 9010 finish, 25% came from a PPC Anodic Ice finish, and 15% came from a Gold Pearl finish.
Pembury Circus has quickly become a popular and vibrant development, which replaced what had been an under-utilised and unsafe area within the surrounding neighbourhood. Up to 35 hard-to-let bedsits were replaced by 268 brand new, high-quality and affordable homes, which were joined by stunning new community facilities and financially-sustainable services to cover the entire area. The community is mixed with older people living on site alongside the presence of a nursery, shops, a community centre with neighbourhood management offices, a public square and a play-area for everybody to enjoy.
Simon Fraser, the director at Fraser Brown MacKenna Architects, commented on this prestigious honour for Pembury Circus: "We are proud to have designed this award-winning project, which has significantly added to the regeneration of the Pembury Estate."
Mr. Fraser added: "The design response to urban context required a rich mix of materials with the rainscreen cladding and perforated panels, supplied by Proteus, making an important contribution to the desired aesthetic of the scheme."
Simon concluded: "We liked the fact that Proteus uses quality materials and could provide the level of technical support required to achieve the high standard of the design intent."
All homes which comprise the Pembury Circus development have achieved the Code for Sustainable Home Level 4, and the community centre and commercial space areas have achieved BREEAM excellence. Combined with this latest honour from the LEAF Awards, it has been a bright start for the exciting new Pembury Circus project, and it is hoped that the immediate and long-term future will be even brighter.
