Project: Fort Albert Housing, Isle of Wight
Fort Albert is a Grade II* listed 1854 Artillery fort built to defend Portsmouth from the western approaches and lies opposite Hurst Castle. It was the last Artillery fort built in the UK, and fell out of use after the Second World War and was converted to residential use in the 1980s – the vacant site alongside provides a site for new residential development. The challenge was to design a building that could happily sit alongside the historic fort without detracting or competing with it. Our concept picks up on the idea of the later rooftop additions of the fort, taking its cubic and varied forms as the starting point for the design of the housing blocks.
The site for development faces north across the Solent, so we arranged six blocks, each containing large two bedroom apartments, parallel to the eastern end of the fort so that each block was orientated at roughly 45 degrees to the sea wall, providing sea views north-west or north-east. This staggered arrangement is echoed in the building heights, so that the whole composition in turn refers to the form of the white rendered rooftop additions on the fort. Staircases are located in glazed and grey metal-clad lantern-like cores between the blocks. The buildings are in a chalky brick to again echo the adjacent rooftop forms while also providing a robustness that will withstand the exposed location. The blocks sit above ground floor parking which also deals with potential flooding and rise to three to five storeys in height, remaining subservient to the fort. The architectural language is purposefully strong and elementary – with fenestration on the seaward facades seen as large cut-outs in the cubic forms, while to the landward facades, the blocks open up with south facing balconies.
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Cleanslate Ltd. Project -
The design provides 18 No two bedroom apartments on one of the most unique locations on the south coast.