This Waitrose store and open car park near the new Elizabeth Line station at West Ealing is one of the first sites chosen by the John Lewis Partnership to launch its new apartment rental business. The scheme engages carefully with its relatively low-rise context; improved street frontages lead into public spaces within the body of the site, up to the new first-floor supermarket and other communal amenities. Replacing existing blank elevations, an attractive Waitrose entrance flanked by a shop, café and gym now opens onto Alexandria Road. Concealed behind these new uses is the new Waitrose delivery area and ground-level car park, replacing the yard and much larger open-air car park that currently occupy more than 40% of the land.
Further west, where cars presently enter the site, is a handsome new public space – a south facing courtyard with the main residential entrance and gym – a contemplative area and at times a place for art and book fairs or food markets.
Most of the apartments are housed in four finely detailed apartment towers emerging from a three-storey podium base, rising between 11 to 20 storeys above ground. The highest tower is positioned near the station where other tall buildings are being constructed. Red and white brickwork and quality materials speak of the surrounding vernacular of West Ealing. Colour contrasts emphasise slenderness as do south-facing terrace setbacks. The railway elevations are also significantly articulated in form and colour, echoing the ‘streaky bacon’ of the Ealing Magistrates Court and Post Office Delivery Office just opposite, with the towers clearly expressed as descending to ground.
Innovatively, the 428 apartments, including 20% affordable homes, are all accessed through the same entrance lobbies and enjoy the same podium gardens and internal communal spaces. Any apartment may be occupied by an affordable or market-rent tenant. In other words, the scheme is truly tenure-blind internally and externally.
