Old Kent Road, Southwark, London, UK

OKR11 is located on the Old Kent Road between Marlborough Grove, St James’s Road and Rolls Road. The current makeup of the site is complex, portraying a character of predominantly industrial buildings of different ages and scales. These are currently accessed from Marlborough Grove, adjacent to access to the award winning Phoenix Primary School. Ownership across the site is similarly complex, with the largest site being the Six Bridges Industrial Estate. Most of the site is split into much smaller ownerships, making collaboration an important part of any future development.

Assessment of merit of the exisiting buildings on site lead us to refining the site boundary around their plots, highlighting their importance and encouraging these buildings to remain intact for the benefit of the overall character of the area.

It is important that a site does not lose its soul when a new development comes in, adding density to an area. To this end we have identified a series of buildings along the site’s boundaries that should be retained if possible. They have been selected due to their use, predominantly residential, and whether the building is deemed to be of townscape, architectural historic merit.

Newer residential buildings such as Bath house and the newly converted Chevron apartments will be retained. Older terraces of residential housing along Old Kent road and St James Road will be retained as an imprint of the site’s residential heritage. The smaller scale industrial buildings on St James’s Road have some townscape merit, although there may be an opportunity for selective redevelopment of infill.