Sean Spurr
The Aitch Group has lodged plans to develop a series of connected warehouses on Dace, Smeed and Monior Road on Fish Island, just south of Hackney Wick. The new buildings will rise up to 6 storeys and contain more commercial space, dominated by light industrial, than the current buildings provide.
The designs by Buckley Gray Yeoman are in part inspired by the brick warehouses of the area, while also providing a black painted steel and glass contemporary commercial building.
The buildings are arranged around a central courtyard where it is envisaged that urban life will take place around a cafe, something that the large amount of commercial space should help make successful.
Fish Island and Hackney Wick are together going through a rapid change from a mixture of warehouses and artist spaces to a more mixed-use space. While not universal, many of the applications here have been particularly careful not to dislodge the existing communities by providing large amounts of commercial space, including in the case of this application a light industrial space which often isn’t combined with residential in other areas.
Of the flats, 88 are proposed to be for the private sector, with 8 for intermediate tenure and 14 for social rent.
