Site History

All projects on this tour form part of Brent Council’s 20-year South Kilburn Regeneration Masterplan in North West London.

Ely Court, completed 2015

This project marks the first of Alison Brooks Architects’ mission to repair the damage to neighbourhoods and communities due to post-war urban renewal programmes. In collaboration with executive architects Hester Architects, Ely Court was won through a competition to deliver 44 dwellings, comprising a mix of 40% social rent and 60% market sale.

Ely Court acts as a ‘neighbourhood catalyst’ working to dissolve the boundary between the ‘estate’ and the wider neighbourhood around it. By reintroducing a denser, yet familiar form of mixed-tenure housing, reminiscent of its pre-war urban grain, the project aims to restore the street as a safe, civic space. The design draws inspiration from the 19th-century neighbourhood layout, incorporating a Mews street to invite both pedestrians and vehicles into what was once an isolated ‘green space’, and a collection of four new building types: Terrace, Flatiron Block, Link Block and Mews Houses.
Ely Court was a finalist for the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2017 and won a RIBA National Award in 2016.

Kilburn Quarter, completed 2017

As the second phase of Alison Brooks Architects' involvement in South Kilburn, this scheme builds on the original mission by establishing a residential quarter featuring mansion terraces and point blocks framing private communal gardens. In collaboration with Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, the project delivers 229 new dwellings, replacing the 1970s Bronte House and Fielding House towers, and re-establishing Kilburn Park Road as one of the Borough’s grand tree-lined avenues. The faceted plan creates landscaped niches at ground level, while the upper floors offer 100% double-aspect flats with 270-degree views.

The development further develops the articulated bay windows, balconies and sloping mansard roofs that reinterpret the mansion block typology to introduce a more intimate, domestic scale – an approach that would later be expanded at Unity Place. The new building is characterised by a series of two storey high bays that delineate grand communal entrances, offering clear views through to the communal gardens, as well as private upper storey balconies. The upper floors of the buildings slope back, punctuated with incised and projecting dormers, with double height elements that reflect the studio windows gables and the exuberant rooflines of nearby Maida Vale.

Unity Place, completed 2022

As the third project and largest project with Brent Council, the 240-dwelling saw Feilden Clegg Bradley, Alison Brooks Architects and Gort Scott collaborate on an integrated urban design and housing strategy. This replaced the Bison-system Durham and Gloucester Court towers and low blocks situated above a derelict, moated parking podium. The scheme utilised a mix of perimeter blocks, mansion blocks and public play spaces to restore the site’s permeability, its 19th-century urban axes, and open view corridors to the nearby Grade 1 Listed St Augustine’s Church.

Alison Brooks’ three-building scheme, located to the north of a new community square, includes a six-story boulevard mansion block, a four-story mid-block, and a three-story flatiron block, all framing a communal garden. A Community Hub anchors the corner of Rudolph Road Mansion Terrace, providing meeting spaces and social services to residents and the wider community.

The Mansion Terrace and Park Terrace blocks are variations on typologies first explored at Ely Court and Kilburn Quarter. These blocks feature frequent lift and stair cores serving two to four flats per core on each floor, eliminating the need for lateral corridors. This design enables dual aspect apartments accessed from shared landings and aids street activation with frequent entrances. The mansard roof ‘figure’ responds to the elegantly tapering neo-gothic spire of St Augustine’s Church opposite, with staggered double-height porticos and balconies punctuating the buildings’ façades. The Garden Villa block serves as a transitional typology – a hybrid of the 19th century semi-detached villas opposite and its neighbouring mansion blocks, while offering surprising oblique views from the street into the scheme’s green heart.

Unity Place won the Brent Design Awards, Best Residential Scheme in 2023 and the RIBA London Award in 2024.