SHIKUMEN OF LEWISHAM

by Lucy Bambury

‘Shikumen of Lewisham’ creates family homes with private courtyards in a borough where the majority of new housing created by the council is in the form of apartments, it also combats a lack of street frontage in the local area. The primary spatial concepts combine the traditional Victorian terraces of London with Shikumen houses from Shanghai. On an urban level, the arrangement of the houses creates three additional streets to the site, and at the individual scale, it combines the courtyard access to the house from the Shanghai Shikumen house, with a 5000x10000mm typical London Victorian terrace plan. Courtyards have an important role in traditional Chinese architecture; with Beijing’s Siheyuan courtyard houses informing my Beijing project. ‘Shikumen of Lewisham’ combines open plans with views onto a private courtyards, helping to provide a sense of belonging and ownership to families living in an often impersonal city.