Single Aspect Blog

Summary: Do I like the flats? No.  Would I live there? No.  Why not?  It’s the general flimsiness of the thing as if it’s been built like an aircraft for a safety factor of 120%, i.e. just strong enough for the job but with very little redundant support.

Go and see for yourself and then write to me and let me know what you think. It’s just my opinion.

‘DKH’ is a new build, private housing development with 19 apartments creating a beacon housing scheme utilising timber louvres, mesh panelling and stone gabions, RIBA Award Winner 2008, John Smart Architects 2007.

From Open House Brochure 2009 p.54 Southwark

SSE elevation from Dog Kennel Hill

All fur coat . . . . .

NNE elevation from yard

Glass walls and tiny windows.  No thermal mass = no thermal inertia = overheated in summer and cold in winter.  Expensive to heat and cool – in my opinion.

The living room – kitchen – dining room is open to the master bedroom offering the opportunity for noise and cooking smells to accumulate there.  Ok for a couple perhaps but with a child?  No discrete shagging in this bedroom.

Modern and contemporary yes.  Cheap to run?  I wonder.

Attractive contemporary upstairs bathroom

Kitchen units at North side of living/dining/room – note small window

Don’t be tall, you’ll keep banging your head on the wire cages when you’re at the sink. I think that’s a cupboard to the left there, I didn’t open it, unfortunately.

Looking SSE over adventure playground

The flush door on the r/h side opens to a large toilet under the stairs.  The property has little storage capacity other than wardrobes in the bedrooms and a downstairs cupboard.  I think the downstairs toilet would have been better left as a cupboard for the vacuum cleaner, brooms, bucket and mop.

DKH stole my sunlight – bet they were pleased in that block behind

One of our party suffered from vertigo on the steel fire escape (not shown) and I could understand why.  Although they didn’t actually wobble, they are flimsy.  Everything about the building is flimsy, like a flat pack house.

It is true that the glass kitchen walls face NNW and so will not be contributing to solar gain but they will be contributing to heat loss in the winter.  I’m glad I’m not the one paying the heating bills.

Modern Architecture with floor plans:-

https://modernarchitecturelondon.com/pages/dkh.php

Architects link ->  John Smart architects DISSOLVED <-

UPDATE: This article was edited on 12/1/14 to reflect my revised views on the block. Regardless of what I have written in the past it is best you go and see it and form your own judgement. To me it looks like an IKEA flat pack house and just as sturdy. Or not.