Upfront

By Jan-Carlos Kucharek

Q Did you place a bet on yourself winning? And what’s it like to be a recipient of UK architecture’s most prestigious annual award?

A I didn’t place a bet, but I did consider betting on one of the other shortlisted projects. It’s just as well I didn’t. We are still getting used to the fact that we’re one of the winners – although we have received a lot of emails and texts from people, which is just great.

It’s also great that a housing scheme won – it’s a significant and important typology, and almost never features in top awards. Of course schools and court buildings are important too, but there’s that notion that the idea could be carried forward by another national housebuilder.

Above all, it’s nice that the project is in the UK.

Q Do you see yourselves as a UK firm working in Holland or a Dutch firm working in the UK?

A We are often described in the press as an Anglo-Dutch practice, and I would go along with that. In that way we’re a little like S333, being, as we are, based in London and Rotterdam. The ideas for our practice are informed by work in both countries, and I would say that one office is very much affected by the production of the other.

Q Which environment do you find more stimulating to work in? Could Accordia have been built, or built better, in Holland?

A Both environments are very different, and as a practice we are stimulated by the apparent advantages and disadvantages of both systems. Could Accordia have been built better in Holland? No, I don’t think so, not in terms of final build quality, which was very high on this project. But procurement methods are different in each country and it’s worth working with their respective strengths. Some things can be done cheaper and better in Holland. There tends to be a consistency of ambition between clients and local authorities in Holland, which is rarer here, although I’d say Accordia was an exception to that generalisation.

Q What projects are you working on now?

A We’ve got a number on the drawing board at the moment. We are working on a housing project in King’s Cross with the developer Argent. There’s high density housing at Barking Riverside and Barking town centre [in east London]. These projects are much higher density than Accordia, but we are really trying to push the same design concepts that we employed there. There’s housing in central Amsterdam, and a metro station, and we’re finishing a school in Belgium. There’s also a hotel on site in central London.

Q In terms of housing, what would you consider to be your main influences?

A You can see it in Accordia – for me it’s the English terraced house. There’s nothing like that model which can accommodate such a variety of types and yet have such specificity. We both [fellow partner Gerard Maccreanor] studied in Bath, and there were so many examples of how the terraced house could adapt to both topography and orientation, and aspects of that we like to bring into our own work.

Q What has your practice learned from the Accordia experience?

A I think it’s the value of collaboration – we were all working within an agreed structure for the masterplan, but Feilden Clegg, Alison Brooks and ourselves had our own take on the urban typology. In this project it’s a subtle thing, but you have a sense of where one architect stopped and the other started. I feel that this is in the tradition of the best British urban forms. That joy of consistency is what ends up giving UK cities their formal richness.