Borough Road is a wide primary road running between St George's Circus and Borough High Street near Elephant & Castle. A pair of small adjoining sites immediately adjacent to a raised 19th century railway viaduct were brought into single ownership to realise the potential of this scheme. The challenging brief was to provide a large number of private and keyworker residential units with good amenity between the tough low level environment of fast moving urban infrastructure.

The design approach therefore addressed not only the need to protect the residents of the new structure from their surroundings but also to provide a high quality 14 storey sustainable modern building which adds pattern and interest to the local built environment.

The material and design of openings on the facades varies depending on the surrounding environment. Towards the railway the elevation acts as an acoustic buffer, a dense sawtooth wall allows south facing windows and maximum daylight with minimum noise impact from passing trains. Facing the road large areas of glazing are protected by sliding timber panels. Balconies have been carefully positioned to maximise the privacy of residents as well as the quantity of daylight they enjoy. At ground level the building is shielded from its surroundings by a landscaped zone.

The design has been developed in close consultation with CABE, the GLA, the London Borough of Southwark and the NHS.