Brandon Street Affordable Housing | London Southwark Elephant & Castle Regeneration

Brandon Street Affordable Housing is a competition-winning project for Southwark Council and London & Quadrant within the Elephant & Castle regeneration, designed as a high-density yet characterful benchmark scheme that removes visual distinctions between public and private housing through a contemporary, light and flexible mixed-tenure urban form.
Metaphorm’s response focuses on creating urbanity through public open space, strengthening Brandon Street’s emerging role as an axis into the regenerated Elephant & Castle, providing practical, distinctive dwellings and retaining four mature trees that help define the place.
Two five-storey blocks are formed, separated by a small private courtyard, with apartment orientations varying between ground and upper floors; by omitting ground-floor windows on the eastern façade, a public space is created that does not compromise the privacy of street-level homes.
The side elevations in black brick extend the established local material palette, while the main façade—clad in 37 gradient ceramic tones from honey yellow to Bordeaux red—curves around the trees, sharply contrasting its context to signal Brandon Street’s changing character and shaping both public and private realms; grey–white precast concrete benches follow this undulating line, inviting use by local children and elderly residents alike.
An innovative use of off-site manufactured light-gauge steel for tight-radius undulating walls, combined with masonry, tiles, facing brick and insulated render, produces a compact envelope achieving U-values down to 0.11 W/m²K (approaching Passivhaus performance) , while delivering two- and three-bedroom homes within tight affordable-housing budgets.