The housing at plot N14 is formed by four buildings, three designed by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands and the fourth by Haworth Tompkins. Consisting of 201 homes, the buildings enclose a triangular courtyard with landscaping that flows down to a quiet residential street on the southern perimeter and beyond the ‘Elgin Marble-d’ façade of Plot N15. The two architects developed a consistent approach defining base, middle and top of their buildings but thereafter responded to different aspect and views.
The Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands buildings to the north and west of the courtyard are bounded by a busy road, so the elevations turn towards the courtyard with living rooms and balconies facing over the green space. The base of the buildings is expressed in dark glazed brickwork and contains townhouses with individual entrances and gardens on the courtyard side. This base wraps the site and sits beneath white stuccoed façades with vertical balcony clusters, which are part clad in perforated aluminium louvres for privacy and shade, and are suspended from structures that hover above the apartments.
The Haworth Tompkins building addresses Crescent Gardens, and uses a complementary but contrasting architectural language to the rest of N14 to mark this transition. The project was completed in 2012, in time for the games, and has since been retro-fitted to form part of the new East Village development, which saw residents move in in 2014.