Plashet Road is a high quality, highly sustainable residential development providing 65 new affordable homes and a nursery for the London Borough of Newham.

Plashet Road is a high quality, highly sustainable, residential development providing 65 new homes and a nursery for the London Borough of Newham. The homes are 100% affordable, with 74% designed as family dwellings, set back from the street and arranged around a shared open space which sits at the heart of the new community.

The site is bound by twelve mature London Plane trees, all of which have been retained. The building responds sensitively to its context by placing the new homes behind the trees, creating a spacious green buffer between the building and the street, with understorey planting enhancing biodiversity. Front doors and communal entrances are approached along pathways through the green buffer, creating active frontages around the perimeter of the site.

The development was conceived with sustainability at its heart, achieving Passivhaus Classic certification in line with the council’s emerging energy strategy, ensuring low energy bills for residents and low carbon emissions over the life of the building. It optimises the development opportunity of the site and enhances the character of the area with a contemporary development complimentary to its surroundings.

Adopting a fabric first approach, the form and layout of the building evolved in response to key Passivhaus design principles as well as orientation of the site and its context. By placing gallery access routes to the north or east, the majority of balconies, living rooms, and bedrooms are south or west facing where they benefit from solar gain in winter months and higher daylight levels. This layout ensures that all flats are dual or triple aspect, optimising natural ventilation and daylight.